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Apple To Ship Mac OS X Snow Leopard On August 28
okapi writes "Apple announced that Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard will go on sale Friday, August 28 at Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers, and that Apple's online store is now accepting pre-orders."
Like Leopard, but so cool all of it's precipitation has frozen into crystallized ice flakes.
Leopard messed up audio programs of all kinds until Apple finally got around to addressing the issues with the .3 update. The recent .8 update screwed up some people's wireless connectivity. It hasn't been that long since some early adopters lost entire volumes of data when they upgraded.
Snow Leopard is supposed to be fixes, tweaks, and improvements, so maybe this one is a better bet, but still, I can't see myself pre-ordering.
Tweet, tweet.
I'm still waiting for Apple to announce the Macbook Wheel
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
I've never owned a mac, but was thinking of getting a macbook in the future. Are OSX upgrades free?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Picked up a mini first of the year. This will be my very first upgrade.
As I understand it, the version numbers here are pretty much on par with a Microsoft OS version number so 10.5 to 10.6 will be like going from 98 to Win2k and should be handled the same way, upgrading will make for an unstable system so I should backup everything and do a fresh install. Is this conventional wisdom still correct?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I know the current version of OS X does not, and you're stuck with manual config or stateless autoconf, with no way to automatically configure DNS servers, NTP, and the rest of the goodies DHCP does for you on IPv4...
Pretty soon, Apple is going to run out of cats to name their OS X versions after. How many are left? When are they going to stoop to calling a new version "Housecat"?
Given that it dumps Power PC support among other items listed below, methinks it's a bit more than a service pack:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_v10.6
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
The only feature of Snow Leopard that looks at all interesting is the hanzi/kanji input on the trackpad. Probably hard to draw the twenty-stroke characters, unlike the five-stroke example screenshots. But since I rarely use my laptop OPEN (I run in clamshell mode to an external monitor most of the time), even that is not particularly useful to me.
[
We have some custom scripts that are critical for the Mac population here so test will be run... but like always do not install it on the first week :)
Woo-hoo, plenty of time for the Hackintosh crowd to recommend hardware that works with this ice-cold cat before Black Friday! Woot!
Except that it's not a Service Pack. If you really want to equate Microsoft Windows (commonly associated with the "Service Pack" jargon), then Snow Leopard is to Windows 7 what Leopard is to Vista. The fact is that Snow Leopard brings in new features (such as support for Sun Microsystem's Zetta File-System [ZFS]) and more in addition to refining the Operating System. A "service pack" is, well, a pack of updates to a service (that or a pack that performs a service, but that doesn't sound nearly as canonical). It doesn't matter what meaning you assign to "service pack," Snow Leopard does not qualify under this title.
Think of the millions of dollars in lost productivity Friday when thousands of Mac users stay home from work so they can play with the shiny new calculator in Snow Leopard.
Personally I took off work today as soon I saw this announcement. I'll be in my bunk...
'Nuff said. Some of us are forced to use it. It was a pleasant surprise to see it integrated so well into the iphone/itouch; it will be even better to see it integrated to ical and mail.app. Of course, I'd prefer not to have to use it at all, but I'd also prefer to live on a beach in Hawaii.
The SL upgrade is much more like going from Win 98 to Win 98 SE if it must be put in those terms.
Almost all of the upgrades are things under the hood that most users will notice little of, except the general speed up (which is quite significant in many parts), dock improvements, better Exchange support and improved dock functionality. This is a good update for tons of reasons most people shouldn't even really care about, so the pricing is quite justified.
--- I do not moderate.
See, I changed one letter, an 'n', for another, an 'l', as a way of making fun of the new release of Mac OS... I don't have any real reason for thinking it's slow, and it's not like I really have anything against Snow Leopard (apart from the fact that I, myself, am not interested in running Mac OS X any more) - it's just fun to make fun of it.
Bow-ties are cool.
One of the things I've been trying to find out about are the improvements to OSX Server in 10.6, specifically regarding email and webmail. Can anyone tell me whether they're still using SquirrelMail?
Apple has a very nice webmail/web-calendar system that they use for MobileMe, but so far they haven't used any of that in OSX Server. I'm somewhat baffled, since I would probably buy an Xserve on the day that they offered such a nice webmail solution in OSX server.
Going from 10.5 to 10.6 is likely to be an actual upgrade.
the truth is we are literally swimming in pussy
1) this is an update, not a full installation. There is no "full price" edition, you MUST have mac os 10.5 on it now
2) 10.6 drops support for PPC (already mentioned previously here) so if they have older versions of Mac OS X on them it doesn't matter. However, some of the earliest intel macbooks and imacs shipped with 10.4.7-9 and their owners have not upgraded to 10.5 so there are some intels floating around without leopard on them.
3) VERY IMPORTANT - Apple will stop selling 10.5 the day they release 10.6. So if you have a macbook or intel imac with 10.4(.11) on it and don't get it updated to 10.5 before the 28th you cannot install Snow Leopard. The AASPs are going to go mad as of today trying to order as many 10.5 retail packs as they can get their hands on. If you will be needing one, you'd better get it NOW.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Word from Apple is that "Users will notice refinements including a more responsive Finder; Mail that loads messages up to twice as fast; Time Machine with an up to 80 percent faster initial backup; a Dock with Expose integration; QuickTime X with a redesigned player that allows users to easily view, record, trim and share video; and a 64-bit version of Safari 4 that is up to 50 percent faster and resistant to crashes caused by plug-ins. Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version and frees up to 7GB of drive space once installed." It sounds like a deal to me for $29, especially reclaiming 7G of hard drive space.
The brief BBC announcement goes has some detail about why this release gets a headline. (I'm not using a Mac, so didn't know.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8218446.stm
See, I changed one letter, an 'n', for another, an 'l', as a way of making fun of the new release of Mac OS... I don't have any real reason for thinking it's slow, and it's not like I really have anything against Snow Leopard (apart from the fact that I, myself, am not interested in running Mac OS X any more) - it's just fun to make fun of it.
iSee.
i ordered via store.apple.com, and my copy will be delivered, not shipped on the 28th
Just wait until it gets bloated and begins to slow down. It happened with every previous version of Windows and unfortunately the behavior continues in 7 (I blame the registry). I have never had this issue with OS X, maybe because it separates the OS from the Applications so much.
OSX (aka OS version 10) is the UNIX-based implementation of MacOS. It remains the same because the basics of the OS design haven't changed since the first 10 release. What's been improving is the increased featureset. I imagine if Apple decides to ever overhaul the whole design of the GUI then you'll probably be faced off with OS11, but since the OSX design has been such a success for them it's fairly unlikely that they'll maneuver away from it anytime in the near future.
3) VERY IMPORTANT - Apple will stop selling 10.5 the day they release 10.6. So if you have a macbook or intel imac with 10.4(.11) on it and don't get it updated to 10.5 before the 28th you cannot install Snow Leopard. The AASPs are going to go mad as of today trying to order as many 10.5 retail packs as they can get their hands on. If you will be needing one, you'd better get it NOW.
Apple sells a "boxed set" that upgrades Tiger to Snow Leopard, with no intermediate steps.
Yes, the Boxed Set is $169, which is more than Leopard alone was($129) but it does inlcude iLife and iWork as a bonus. (Yes, this is just a ploy to get more copies of iLife and iWork out there.)
It's not a troll, it's a fact!
would HAVE upgraded
An honest troll. What's the world coming to?
Meh, +1 Funny, iGuess.
I would say the relevant question if you want to compare Windows and OS X upgrade costs is: How often to you have to pay to keep using the newest version (measured in calendar days), and how much do you have to pay each time? That'll give you an average cost per year figure. The version number scheme doesn't really matter.
Someone is modding "Troll" too quick... this to last posts are on topic, AC was expecting to be modded "Funny".
A Troll with no teeth is no Troll at all.
I'm not confident in attempting to second guess Apple, but after ordering from the UK store it says it'll ship on the 28th and is expected to be delivered on, literally, "".
I hope it'll be here on Friday.
I expect to get it on Monday.
I fear it'll arrive broken.
I think why so many people consider Mac OS upgrades as service packs is the number of upgrades. Mac releases upgrades nearly as fast as Microsoft releases service packs so the pacing seems to be a service pack where as they are proper upgrades with many new features. Service packs tend to be ongoing with Macs. Windows 7 isn't a fast development cycle so much as a massive patch.
Actually you could argue that Apple has named their operating systems after German tanks. Of course they probably never did it purposly, but it is interesting to consider: http://ormset.no/wordpress/2007/01/01/german-armored-vehicles-and-apple-mac-os-x/
Even "snow leopard" is a German tank. Not sure how many German Tank names are left, but we'll have to see what happens after SL.
You sir are an idiot.
The more you use your OS- the slower it gets. Browser histories get bigger and take longer to open. Search bar suggestions take longer to load (as the data gets more bloated). Folders take longer to open as there is more to list. 'My Computer' gets slower with every drive you add since it feels the need to refresh its data with the latest usage and sizes. Sometimes programs install themselves to context menus and that has some overhead when right clicking. How about programs that have background processes always running... these didn't come with the OS (I am looking at you Java- where the hell do you hide?). And why can't more registry items slow down windows? Searching takes time. Storing it in memory takes... well, memory (which could cause you to swap).
You're right in that an OS doesn't slow down on its own. It's additional applications that do it. But most people don't have a computer to JUST "use" Microsoft Windows. And for some other typical applications (browser, office, email)- usage causes more overhead overtime as the program tries to become smarter or has to show the user more data.
*drops the mic*
My dad bought me a new computer for college this fall, a Mac. I am a linux user and I found a system directory /gprn. Does anyone know what that is? I've never seen it in linux.
What would someone have spent on all OSX and all it's updates thus far?
i know that OSX wasn't something you can buy (Apple is a hardware co), but come up with what fraction of the cost of a new machine would be the OS. Maybe $100 or $200.
What is the cumulative cost?
How necessary/optional are the updates?
(i'm not asking these rhetorically or setting up a troll. i'm curious)
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Got a source for ZFS support?
Because Apple doesn't mention it:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/technology/file-system.html
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
They're changing thedefault Gamma from 1.8 to 2.2???? Hell just froze over!!
I like your sig.
I'd make it even better, though:
Libertarianism: rich wolves and poor sheep advocating complete freedom of dinner choice
I'm on 10.6 right now and even the betas seemed far more stable than 10.5. Also, the speed increase is definitely there. I honestly never expected moving to 64 bit using every day desktop apps like mail and safari would have a noticeable speed increase, but I was wrong. It is much faster. However, I admit the speed increase is the most noticeable on first load of that app, or a cold start. After that most apps in 10.5 are so fast the speed increase in 10.6 is hardly noticeable.
The dock has changed yet again. The even in the most resent release of 10.5 I have issues dragging an item from a folder in the dock to the trash. If I do this to quickly the trash can does not come up. 10.6 has cleaned out most (if not all) of the dock issues in 10.5 in my case. The new folder design in the dock is nice but I wish it had more options. I would love to shrink the icon size or change the display format (like details) in the folders in the dock.
Quicktime X bothers me. The logo for the new quicktime in the dock is terrible looking and when running the program even if the UI looks nice it doesn't match the rest of the OS. It is like running the most recent version of windows media player in Win2k. The theme may be nice but it is kind of odd. They also removed features I used from quicktime 7. Like, I would go into full screen and it would auto start playing. In quicktime X I have to manually hit the play button after full screen. If I stream a video I can't find the options any more to turn off the auto play. I hate it when it starts playing randomly when the window is minimized ffs.
All in all, 10.6 is nice but so is 10.5 and honestly the UI changes with the dock and quicktime in 10.6 I dislike. I would of been much happier with 10.6 looking identical to 10.5 and just running faster and being far more stable.
The only features I haven't "played" with yet is OpenCL. My macbook pro has a 128meg geforce 8600 which is the min requirements. In windows for openCL the min is 256meg (it sometimes works half assed with 128meg) so I need to make an RSA decrypter or something to see how well it runs. I'm honestly not expecting much in this area.
So, does anyone know what the official build number of the gold release is? I think 10a432 was the last known developer build but it apparently had some issues. Did they fix those problems and create a new build for the gold version?
For free upgrades, you need to run a Linux or a *BSD system on an Admin-it-yourself basis.
Companies that sell software will eventually charge for some amount of improvement, because otherwise they can't afford to pay the people to do the improving. You can beat them at their game by never upgrading beyond whatever free ones they offer.
But most people look at expenses on a cost/benefit basis, with the note that "benefits" may be measured subjectively or objectively.
The successor to Snow Leopard is likely to be a feature-rich release (again, a subjective term) and will cost at least $129 and probably arrive no earlier than 2011. That's the operating system. Your interest in the MacBook is not to run OS X (you may even be buying it to put Windows on it), but to run applications. I would expect that iLife and iWorks will have one or two updates before 2011 and it is upgrading those where you will first encounter the "Is it worth the money?" quandary.
You will not get 64 bit kernel, since by default 32 bit kernel is installed on all supported hardware except XServe. Even more, you can not install 64 bit kernel on hardware that could normally run it, since it appears Apple has restricted 64 bit kernel to hardware that has 64 bit EFI. Also, 64 bit kernel is not available on any Macbook.
So, basically, you have 32 bit kernel with 32 bit kernel extensions and drivers, just like in Leopard with hacks to allow it to run 64 bit user applications. True more applications are now 64 bit, but who cares if their mail or calendar is now 64 bit instead of 32 bit? It's not like your mail program needs more than 4 GB of RAM anyway.
And the applications that could really benefit from 64 bit like Photoshop are not available anyway. And once they are available they will run on Leopard as well (which was marketed as 64 bit end to end, when in fact the only application that is 64 bit on Leopard is Chess, and XCode).
So unless you really need that exchange support, I don't see compelling reason to upgrade at all?
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
I've read waaaaay too many horror stories about funny behavior due to upgrading OS X major versions in place. A lot of it is due to third-party stuff that goes mucking around in the system like it shouldn't, causing unanticipated situations in the new OS. Particularly, Unsanity's APE (Application Enhancer?) is well known for issues it has caused many users in the Leopard and Tiger updates. And this is something that comes with many other third party applications.
For most people, I'm a big fan of the Archive & Install method. IMHO, this should either be the default, or the only option available. It keeps all your user data untouched, while archiving the previous system and installing a fresh new system. The only major drawback is that you usually have to reinstall crap software like Photoshop because Adobe can't help themselves from mucking around in the system instead of keeping their stuff completely self-contained in app bundles at Apple intended.
Really, I see no benefit to upgrading in place, other than avoiding a minor issue like reinstalling Photoshop. The potential drawbacks are numerous. At best, you'll end up with a bunch of dead crap littered all over your system directories. At worst, you'll have a completely screwed up system. Why risk it?
Personally, I do a couple of things. First, I wait for the hoardes of fanboys to beta test for me. I usually upgrade a few months later if and when things seem to stabilize. Second, I usually to a clean install after backing up all my user data and settings. It's more work than Archive & Install, and it's unnecessary for most; but I just like to take the opportunity to clean up my user preferences and stuff at the same time. Works for me!
OpenCL is going to change scientific computing, for good. NVIDIA's CUDA is great and all, but you get bogged to one vendor's platform. With OpenCL you can define compute kernels that will be run in the GPU, if the thing supports it. For neural networks, genetic algorithms, matrix stuff, fast fourier transform, etc, expect HUGE performance gains. Especially whenever there's an NVIDIA TESLA with 192 cores behind it you might find gains of 100x speed. I'll probably be modded as funny or some shit, but imho OpenCL is a game-changer for the scientific community.
Finally, ONE DAY, there will be a killer app for the general public using the power of the GPU. Then I hope everybody will understand.
In the meantime, I, and my students, will be studying and working with it.
We need some fucking laws. In other countries, you can't commercially use the word "free" to refer to any transaction which money changes hands for any reason whatsoever. Let's enact those here too.
In the United States, on the other hand, we have some intercoursing laws. It appears Apple can't make significant upgrades to functionality available without realizing some income on the tax statement. That's part of why new major versions of iPod Touch firmware cost money, even though firmware upgrades are included in the price of an iPhone data plan.
Microsoft's Astroturf campaign has been phenomenal for Windows 7.
It reminds me of the old days when Microsoft Marketing could have sold shrink-wrapped poo; those guys were that good. It's too bad the software was never as good as the marketing.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
Reputable source who won't put in a backdoor?
Who sells Windows aside from M$?
I ARE SLASHDOT DERP DERP
All the subtle and not so subtle ways Windows advocates want to remind everyone that "Gadzooks, Apple charges for Service Packs." Pah. Death Panel Discourse.
To me the interesting question is why did this release get moved up 28 days? It was so good that there was no point to delay? I suppose that's a possibility. But I think Apple wanted 28 more days of OS revenue in the quarter. Perhaps they are seeing disappointing system sales and hope the new os will improve that. This could be realized by a) there being people who have held off until they can get a system with the new os, b) it gives Apple a reason to advertise, and/or c) the new systems with new os will be available at the store 60 days before the new Wintels are available.
They could also be seeing an opportunity to go from great sales to outstanding sales. It better be better out of the box, by a large margin, than Leopard is all I can say.
In any case, I'm guessing this is about improving the quarter's financials and I guess the question I have is "Why?"
Java?
Start, settings, control panel, java
Kill off Java's autoupdater schedule
Advanced tab
Miscellaneous
Disable Java quick starter and kill the system tray icon
Also go into start, settings, control panel, add/remove programs
Kill off all java installations prior to version 6, update 13. All prior java installations left the old versions in. 6u13 and on seem to be properly removing the old versions.
OR, continue to talk out of your fucking ass.
There's no reason to waste time with a fresh install. Do a full system backup beforehand, but just do the upgrade - I think you'll have to anyway, for the upgrade version to allow installing so it can find the existing Leopard install...
Generally I always just upgrade anyway, though with past versions I've used an "Archive and Install" option I'm not sure is there this time around. That saves a backup of the system files specifically but they may have made that redundant since Time Machine does such a good job with system backups...
Related, I'd highly recommend using TM to do the backup, as it's the easiest to restore from.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I saw a demo of this, honestly the way it works is nicer than using Exchange on a PC as far as calendaring/mail integration (which I had to do for many years but no longer thank god).
If you must work with email through an exchange server, Snow Leopard is the way to go.
Your company will have to have the latest Exchange though, I know companies like to be conservative about this but I'm hoping executive users force a lot of upgrades. Microsoft will be more grateful for Snow Leopard than Windows 7 in the end I suspect!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It was sorta there originally until Apple pulled it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/10/snow_leopard_no_zfs/
Without a doubt what you say is true.
However, the parent is right in that increasingly, over time, Windows systems typically slow down. even if you don't add much in the way of applications or other software. Without a doubt, part of this phenomenon is related to increasing data bloat, especially in the registry. (After all, this is where things like the a MRU lists and settings are stored.)
But the difference between Mac OS X, Linux, etc. over Windows is that the former lack the registry altogether, instead preferring to store this data in individual files rather than one huge database.
Like it or not, this slowdown is a limitation of the system as designed.
My blog
He's trolling trolls. It's all very meta and hard to understand. I wouldn't try too hard if I were you.
Does that include buying a brand new computer? Any Mac bought during 10.0-10.3, and most during 10.4 won't run Snow Leopard. Unless your computer came with Leopard, chances are your cheapest upgrade is a $600 Mac Mini, or a $1000 Macbook.
I meant to say that you don't have to go to the store and buy it to get that warm-safe-fuzzy feeling (knowing that your copy is legit and not a back-doored/trojan'd piece of work like the "Black Edition" that's recently surfaced on BitTorrent), that there are other avenues. For example, if you happen to have an MSDN subscription and get them that way (as in, not through the retail chain).
The difference this time around is that Windows 7 is nearly as good as the hype. Use it for a while. It will be a worthy replacement for XP
Apple likes to take their sweet time in updating stuff. Didn't they take like a month in fixing some DNS or Java issue thing? Microsoft fixed it in like, a few days? less?
You will not get 64 bit kernel, since by default 32 bit kernel is installed on all supported hardware except XServe.
(a) we don't know if this is true of the final release.
(b) it hardly matters unless you planned to add more than 32GB of RAM to your system. All user apps can still run in 64-bit mode just fine.
And the applications that could really benefit from 64 bit like Photoshop are not available anyway.
Well sure, the system is not out yet!
But we'll see those apps before too long, especially a lot of apps that add GrandCentral and OpenCL support. The boost for those apps is a good reason to upgrade.
Also there are simply a ton of little feature improvements across the whole system, making it more than worth a paltry $29 for the upgrade price until the supply of 64 bit and accelerated apps does arrive. There's not reason why plugin vendors for instance cannot quickly incorporate updates.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Mod that sumbitch up. This is exactly the kind of useful information that should be discussed here rather than whines about the price of the upgrade.
Which makes their failure to sell Vista especially noteworthy.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Oh man, they even made my university believe that they needed only one vendor for all their software. Absolutely unbelievable. Nothing but Windows was supported for ten years or so. Now finally we see much more Linux, and, since Vista was released, Macs appear on the desktops in the university. Supported by the IT staff, who have more fun and job satisfaction than ever.
-- Cheers!
Anyone know what that final build number was? 10a432?
So you have done one update then? from 10.4 to 10.5
If 10.5 to 10.6 is a new operating system, change the main number already. Is Apple afraid that the new marketing campaign for the new OS will not be as good as the one for OSX is?
See here
Money quote: "Battery life to die for"...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
will os x86 installs be the same or harder or easier to do?
As someone who has been testing Snow Leopard in many different scenarios for the past four months, I can say this is one update that will likely give you no problems if you install over the top of your existing 10.5.x installation.
Though I like that Snow Leopard is leaner and faster I'm not planning to upgrade my Mac to it. It took me more than a year to upgrade from Tiger to Leopard even though I had the Leopard disk. Ended up the only reason I did upgrade was because I found out upgrading to Java 6 required Leopard, Apple would not release Java 6 for Tiger. Some hackers or programmers got it working on Tiger but it required workarounds.
But, for maximum speed and efficiency, I would back up your user data and apps, and do a clean install.
I know people don't but you should always keep backups. For mine I use external HDDs and I'm pretty much in the habit of copying files from my user files to a user folder on the external drives when I save them. To do a clean install, which I prefer anyway, I don't have to be concerned about the install nuking my data. Even if I reformat the OS X drive when I install it, my data won't be nuked. That's because the physical hard disk drive in my Mac is partitioned into 3 partitions. The first partition has Mac OSX installed on it. The third one is reserved for Ubuntu Studio. And the second partition is the user home, which Leopard is set to use now and Ubuntu will also be set to use as the home partition. That way I'll have access to all of my documents in both OSes.
To do a clean install all I need to do is backup my preferences if I want to keep the preferences for my software. However I have, though didn't install yet, Carbon Copy Cloner which clones disks. After I do install it I'll set it up to automatically sync backups with the home folders,. That way I won't need to manually copy, and test, files onto my backups disks.
Falcon
On second thought, if I can save 9 GBs of disk space by upgrading to Snow Leopard I very well may upgrade. I upgraded the original 160 GB HDD that came with my Mac to a "320 GB" drive, that was the biggest one I could find locally that would work with my Mac, and it's more than half full. I don't even have my photos on it yet, and I have 1,000s of 35mm exposures on film.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Unless of course the whole purpose of Vista was to make Windows 7 look like a truely "must have, holy grail" type release.
Please explain how the Zune update was free.
Unlike Apple, Microsoft hasn't been investigated for backdating options.
Point releases, like going from 10.5.1 to 10.5.6, is downloadable and free but going from 10.5 to 10.6 is not. However Apple sells OS X DVDs, full versions not upgrade disks like Microsoft, er did sell DVDs for $129 however Snow Leopard costs $29.00. Damn, I wasn't planning on upgrading but at that price I may wait in line to buy it when it's released.
I've never owned a mac, but was thinking of getting a macbook in the future.
While I'd congratulate you for switching like I did, after buying and using Windows PCs for 10 years I switched when I bought a tower PC with Linux installed and a MacBook Pro for my laptop, make sure you're doing it for the right reason and do a proper analysis to see if a MacBook will do what you want or need it to do. I'm glad I switched and love my Mac but they aren't for everybody.
And no, comparing specs Macs are not more expensive than Windows PCs, of course Apple doesn't compeat in cheap but expandable and upgradeable computer lines.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Windows 7 is nearly as good as the hype
What hype? All I'm hearing about it is that it's supposedly as stable as XP, which is damning with faint praise.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
There's a bunch of features in this update, though most of them are minor. And nobody's holding a gun to your head to get this--hell, I've skipped all of Leopard and am going straight from Tiger to Snow.
Just to list a handful of features that SL brings in:
I know several of these features are not relevant to everybody, but no, this isn't just bug patches and performance optimizations.
Are you adequate?
There's a large number of under-the-hood rewrites and redesigns. The Finder is finally rewritten (so it's not using 10+ year old technologies
Actually, the Finder is using 10+ year old technologies. Cocoa, born NeXTStep, is from the 1980s, and UNIX is from the 1970s.
Astroturf? We get daily Iphone Slashvertisements, and any pro-Apple comment is modded up, whilst any criticism is modden down, and when someone makes a single comment in favour of by far the most used OS on the planet, that's obviously astroturfing? If you say so.
And if you want to talk at companies being good at marketing, even if all they had was shrink-wrapped poo, there's a company I have in mind who do that job far better than Microsoft...
Apple expects you to pay for updates to a system they feel is unstable and slow, and they are charging for it? That seems kinda weak to me, but what do I know? I tell you... I know better than to pay for upgrades. I've had XP since it came out and I've never had to purchase an update. I'm pretty sure, they've made a ridiculous number of fixes, both cosmetic and under-the-hood, and they've always just come down the line for free. You WIN-haters sure love spending more for basically the same thing. Sure, I can't make my windows wobble about, but I can run Crysis pretty well, and cheap. I spent about $300.00 bucks for my PC, that, by the by, can run OSX now that WINTEL makes the chips. MAC's are nice, but where is the value?
In Soviet Russia, road forks you!
Just to put things into perspective - by "failure to sell Vista" you mean over 4 times all versions of Mac OS X combined.
The failure is only in comparison to the phenomenal success of Windows XP - and when you've got almost everyone using a product, shifting them onto the next version is always going to be hard. But I wouldn't say their results are in any way a failure.
For heaven's sake - I hate Vista as much as anyone (in comparison to 2000/XP), but let's not make things up that are in complete opposition to known facts.
And I have never had this issue with Windows. I've used various versions of Windows on multiple computers for years, with no such troubles. Just wait? How long should I wait, exactly? The only slowdown is when I run Itunes.
But of course, pro-Apple anecdote will get you +1 insightful everytime.
If, and only if, "you've purchased a qualifying computer or Xserve on or after June 8, 2009 that does not include Mac OS X Snow Leopard". When and if I upgrade my 2 year old MacBook Pro Snow Leopard will cost me $30 because I am running Leopard. If I still had Tiger and not Leopard it's cost $130.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
There is a reason that "annual windows reinstall" is a relatively well known term, such that most users from beginner to expert are well aware of the meaning and at least some of the causes behind it.
Funny, MS non-retail is where I got mine.
Your assertion is dead on, if you don't use the system it never begins to slow down. Unfortunately the majority of computer users do use their computers, and Windows has a bad habit of getting increasingly bloated, crufty, and in general badly behaved through normal usage even if you are not surfing porn and downloading everything that is offered to you. Not all of it is the fault of Microsoft, of course, there are many badly designed applications; unfortunately it is not as simple as rm ~/.azureus to clean up after them.
There is a reason terms such as annual reinstall are thrown around, even a novice computer user notices their system performs so well at first, and within a few weeks begins to slow down through normal usage. This is especially noticeable during boot which may slow dramatically within the first reboots (and stay that way) after proper drivers are installed.
A big problem with the way that Apple does upgrades is that to get bugfixes, you often do need to buy the newest OS X and it's seldom free.
Hogwash, I constantly get free bug fixes from Apple. Just yesterday I ran Software Update and downloaded and installed a security fix free. Just as I did when I used Windows I run update every couple of weeks if not more often. Right now I have OS X 10.5.8 when I originally installed a pre-release version of 10.5 Leopard. That's more than 8 updates to the OS I did not pay a dime for, outside of what I paid for my Mac. Of course those updates don't count the updates to apps such as the iLife bundle and Safari. On their download page Apple lists more than 750 downloads. Of those 90 are firmware and hardware updates, 205 are Mac OS X Updates, and 175 are Security Updates.
if I wanted to buy the newest Mac OS X upgrade for Power PC, my laptop could not use it because its graphics chip is to slow.
And if I were to dig out my Windows laptop I would not be able to install Vista on it, not even with it crippled. Heck, I have three PCs under my desk now and I could not install Vista on any of them. So this is a bogus criticism.
All you say is FUD.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
And I have never had this issue with Windows. I've used various versions of Windows on multiple computers for years, with no such troubles. Just wait? How long should I wait, exactly? The only slowdown is when I run Itunes.
Ah that's right - anyone claiming to have an experience otherwise is obviously a "troll".
Why is my anecdote not valid? Or is this a case of sticking your head in the sand if it doesn't concur with your preconceived assumption?
Perhaps the mod points should be given out to those who use them properly for a change.
If only the marketing department wrote the software, and the engineering department did all the marketing.
I know what you are going to say, but do you really think the marketing department could do worse than Vista?
...It reminds me of the old days when Microsoft Marketing could have sold shrink-wrapped poo; those guys were that good.
You can get away with that once. After that, it's "Fool me once, shame on poo. Fool me twice, shame on pee."
It's worth noting, as well, that starting with Snow Leopard, OS X archive and installs by default through the installer. The only other option is erase and install which has been moved to the disk utility application off the install disk in order to prevent accidental erasure.
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
Thanks for your comments. What are your overall thoughts about Grand Central Dispatch? Thanks in advance.
I agree with you regarding Apple's marketing and overhyping 64-bit. IMO, they made it out to be more important than it really is for most folks. Even so, I realize that having a 32-bit kernel makes some people feel "cheated" by Apple. Looking at the situation objectively though, no one has yet been able to state what the user of a 32-bit kernel will be missing out on, except the bragging rights and the "cheated" feeling. There is a downside of having a 64-bit environment too -- namely more memory consumption.
Besides the general tuning that Apple has done throughout, I believe that Grand Central Dispatch will be one of the biggest benefits of SL. Of course, the benefit will be realized more and more over time, as software is rewritten to take advantage of it. For most of the folks with high-end Mac Pros, I really believe that this will be more beneficial over the long haul than having 64-bit parts. OpenCL will likely have significant benefit for certain applications.
Or as good as poo.
How nice. Apple is announcing the latest Service Pack for OS X. Too bad you all have to pay for it! Suckers!!! :)
There is honestly no difference between Windows and OS X in their release cycles except for different terminology.
Ah but there are differences between Apple's and Microsoft's release cycles. Apple releases new versions of OS X about every 18 months whereas it takes Microsoft longer. Between 2001 when Apple released OS X 10.0 and now it has released 6 new versions of OS X, with Snow Leopard making it 7. MS released Windows XP in 2001 a few months after OS X was released. Since 2001 MS has released 5 new versions of Windows, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Vista, and Windows Server 2008. Windows 7, which is scheduled to be released on 22 October 2009, will make it 5. That will make them about the same however Apple only releases one version of OS X for Macs whereas MS releases desktop and server versions of Windows for PCs.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Unless you've used it, go test before you mindlessly assume its the same old shit.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
4 of those were due to faulty RAM, and the fifth was due to hard drive failure.
I had a total of 1 reinstall, to move from 32 bit to 64 bit.
Buy decent hardware with decent drivers (important!) and Windows these days is stable.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I hope that Microsoft changes their product so Macs won't work with Exchange the same way that Apple changed iTunes to break compatibility with the Pre.
So you want more incompatibilities in the world? That's teach all those scumbags.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Thing is Microsoft released a ton of new stuff outside of service packs, that was just a free download from its website.
Apple also as a lot of free downloads.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard is more like going from the computer of the Enterprise NCC 1701-A to the computer of the Enterprise NCC 1701-D.
The transition from Windows 98 to Windows 2000 was not like that at all. That was more like being hooded, shackled, and moved under cover of darkness from Applebee's to TGI Friday's.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
and reinstall
I have, twice. I had to reinstall Tiger and Leopard once each. However I've had my Mac 2 year so that's not too bad. I had to reinstall Windows on my PCs at least twice a year.
"Archive and Install"
A Genus at the bar told me to nuke, erase and reformat, the disk and not just Archive and Install when I had to reinstall. However when I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard I was told to do an upgrade. I think that's why I had to reinstall Leopard, a Genus I saw said he thought when I upgraded Leopard picked up an error or something.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
How did the Microsoft astroturfers manage to get so many mod points all of a sudden?
Personally, I think the upper management at MS was getting complacent, feeling that dominant market-share would mean that everyone would come along no matter what they did.
They threw out the old play-book with Vista and were burned for it. It wasn't necessarily that Vista was much better or worse than anything that had come before. It was just that they didn't control perception before it was released to the public.
MS has always understood that shaping perception before the product is in the hands of the consumer is the most important element of any marketing campaign.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
I'm enjoying windows 7 a lot. I replaced XP with windows 7 on my old pc. (AMD 3500+ overclocked) and its running as fast, if not faster than xp was. I'm really happy with windows 7 on that machine considering how old it is.
On my quadcore extreme system... windows 7 is also screaming fast. Its very nice. Microsoft should get the propper praise for their hard work this time around.
Windows 7 may be an evolution of vista... but it sure as hell is not vista.
Windows 7 is a good os.
Browser history is only kept for a finite period of time, so it has no reason to slow down at all beyond that point.
On a unix based system, the configuration for each app is kept separately and only loaded if required, on windows it's all bundled in to the registry so it needs to be parsed wether you're using that application or not.
So no, simply having more applications and associated their configuration on your drive should NOT slow the system down.
Also, windows apps, especially games, like to load kernel drivers for drm and auto update processes etc... I have a windows machine that is used for nothing but games, and on startup it loads several drm drivers for the various games which have been installed. If you remove the drm crap, the associated game stops working, if you remove the auto updater then your apps will not get updated and could suffer from security holes, or you might find yourself unable to play online because all the other players have been updated to the latest version.
The fact that you consider it normal for windows to get gradually slower under typical usage is just absurd, why should people have to watch out for how many things they install incase the system will grind to a halt?
Also, there is the problem with uninstallers not removing stuff properly and leaving detritus littering the system... It comes from relying on the application vendor to write an uninstaller, a proper package manager that kept track of these things would work much better.
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Windows eventually slowing down by itself is a myth.
Sure, a lot of bloated software will slow it down, but that is the same for any OS. You have basic stuff like installing more fonts making the font dialogue take longer to open, which is both unavoidable and acceptable to most people. Then you have crapware that installs background services and startup items, or disk fragmentation and the like which are not the fault of Windows per se.
The last time I re-installed Windows was about three years ago when I did a major hardware upgrade. Since then, I have not reinstalled and my system is still as fast as it was three years ago, because I am very careful about what software I install and manually clean up things like startup programs.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
We use a whole load of Macs in the office and I have to say that slowdown over time is much more of an issue in OSX than Windows. We have near constant problems with Finder slowing to a crawl which are only solved by dumping the finder preference files. Pretty much all OSX problems we see regularly seem to be solved after deleting preference files, seems strange to design an OS that requires you to trash your settings on a regular basis.
;-)
The $29.95 version won't work for Tiger users. It's right there on the pre-order page. A slap in the face for all Tiger users why though they can save a buck by skipping Leopard and go staid Snow Leopard
And personally I think they deserve it. I have a little OpenSource Java app and grieve the Tiger users have given me. They save a buck on upgrade cost and then flood me with support requests. Tightwads wasting my quality time.
Martin
i haven't had a mac for that long but i am expected to pay 40 bucks for performance optimizations and bug fixes?? rip off.
If Apple used OpenCL to harness the power of GPU while doing H264 compression and people would see their videos compress 10x faster when they check "Use OpenCL", you would be sure they would end up demanding OpenCL support for all their apps and even Windows.
But no (I guess?), the evil Quicktime department happily ignored that possibility, just like they asked for money for fullscreen support for years and making the Quicktime once had 70% market share miss the boat.
That is also the same department having World's most popular trailer site and yet ignore Quicktime's amazing skinning/multiple layering/bandwidh and CPU detection capabilities and throw 10mbit "streaming" (!) links to users instead of showing them to public. They could just use plain MP4 with that kind of usage.
BTW, I am guessing since I don't see "compress your videos 10x faster" on Quicktime X page.
As a guy in media, thinking like evil PR guy, what MS should make instead of astroturfing is doing a legal campaign like "Windows 7, leave no one behind".
Of course, it is horribly wrong information, as a owner of Quad G5, Apple's most expensive G5 workstation, I don't WANT pure 64bit on my system. It has been documented multiple times that PowerPC 64bit (and POWER) hates needless pure 64bit providing no advantages like Intel "plugin AMD 64bit" CPU.
Of course, MS is slow to use that kind of timeframe when all PPC (non technical) users feel abandoned while it is not the case.
Remember how damn clever Apple was to abuse Y2K panic with HAL campaign? Let me remind you, they were showing off with pre OS X, the one doesn't have multi tasking while MS had their state of art NT 4 in the market.
OpenCL? Did IBM contribute a single line to it? heh, it is not their market anyway. Snow Leopard proves how clever Apple was to get rid of PowerPC while the specs look extremely good on paper, Altivec is some state of art tech which even made to mainframes (Z10) and there is nothing to do with IBM on Desktop CPU.
Does anyone know if 3rd party frameworks are going to be a problem on Snow Leopard?
I'm expecting that our lab will have to wait to build our app for 64 bit until we have 64 bit frameworks for our analog-digital converters (ITC and NIDAQ).
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
I've been trying 10.6 on an original CD macbook pro. The speed is amazing on boot and also shutdown. When shutting down, it powers off instantly. At first I was afraid the plug was pulled out or there was a battery issue. But no- just shuts off like hitting the power button on your TV. Instantly. It's crazy.
I installed Snow Leopard on my Early 2009 Macbook and so far I'm pretty impressed.
Same basic interface with some minor tweaks.
The Cocoa-based Finder kicks ass. No more weird hangs when I have mounted shares and lose connectivity or anything like that. It's much more responsive and snappy than the old Carbon finder. This alone is worth $30.
GrandCentral and OpenCL look really interesting, I haven't dug into it much yet but several Apple apps already use them (at least GrandCentral).
Overall my machine seems quite a bit more responsive than with 10.5 and my GeekBench scores are a little higher. The only App which the upgrade broke was an old-ass version of OmniFocus. Office, CS4, etc all work just fine.
Any bugs I've encountered have all been very minor. It really is a worthwhile upgrade. I've been running 10A432 for over a week now with no problems.
Of course it doesn't slow down by itself. If you install a default OS install and do nothing else, of course it's not going to slow down.
And, yes, if you're careful in what you install, don't add a too many fonts, and generally keep your registry clean by removing unwanted settings and startup programs and so forth, yes, your system will run much more smoothly.
But it's still basically true that the more your registry grows, the slower your system is going to get. Windows stores a copy of your entire registry in memory, and by installing software, hardware, application add-ons, software upgrades, etc., your registry is going to grow.
People who don't notice much slowdown also tend to have gobs and gobs of RAM. A box with 4 GB isn't likely to experience as much in terms of slowdowns, while a box with 512MB or 1 GB, with enough processes running, is.
I'm not arguing that Windows does it by itself. I'm arguing that in the course of normal system usage, the registry becomes cluttered with junk that slows it down.
My blog
Okay, here goes my karma: Finder is a piece of garbage that should have been replaced long ago. But then again, I've never been a large fan of spatial file managers.
My blog
I've found that OSX can slow down over time too (I did a reinstall after 3.5 years), but this is only because of OSX's lack of an uninstaller. Sure, when you have simple programs that are "drag to the Applications folder to install", it's very easy to uninstall, but for all those other ones that install libraries and helper processes, then they slowly bog down the system and don't always go away when you try to uninstall (assuming you kept the original installer). OSX *really* needs a good uninstaller type app. AppZapper is nice, but hardly efficient since it often misses files.
MABASPLOOM!
the infamous spinning beach ball?
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
This won't fix my realtek sound tray icon - whatever it is, that weird bluetooth icon (My thinkpad had NO bluetooth), some network-setting tool based in profiles nor that cd recording weird program that comes up. Let's not forget that useless antivirus they put - which lasts three months - and if you machine was ever booted before on the store, I will be already out of its demo period. None of this comes from a hacked os. It comes right from the manufacturer.
All that AND java, adobe updater, , anti-spyware, anti-malware, some external firewall solution... Oh yeah. I didn't even started to use a single application and my system is already bloated - if not by itself, it will be by sony/acer/dell/lenovo etc
Thanks, I'll stick to Mac OS.
It is finally being dumped. In favor of another finder, rewritten from scratch, they say. Oh why the burden? Just do something else...
On a unix based system, the configuration for each app is kept separately and only loaded if required, on windows it's all bundled in to the registry so it needs to be parsed wether you're using that application or not.
You mean, unlike gconf, right?
You're the one buying bloatware.
It's your fault.
You can uninstall it with a few clicks, or you can bitch about it.
You've chosen to bitch.
The $29 price is for an upgrade from Leopard. It won't install unless you already have Leopard on the system. If you are still using Tiger then you need to buy the 'Mac Box Set' which bundles iWork and iLife in with a full version of Snow Leopard and costs $169.
Yea I saw that. You can buy just the Snow Leopard DVD if you have Tiger though, you don't have to buy the Mac Box Set. Personally because I use NeoOffice I don't see any reason to pay for iWork and I don't use iLife I see no reason to pay for the box set, however because Snow Leopard trims disk space from what Leopard needs and storage is valuable to me I may pay $29 to upgrade.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Because Vista was, pretty much, shrink-wrapped poo!
You are factually incorrect, as was the parent to my post.
The registry is not stored entirely in memory. It is cached just like any other file. Sure, it grows as you store more information in it, and I agree with the current trend towards using config files (so apps become portable) but the idea that this growth has a significant impact on system performance is simply nonsense.
Sure, if you take a very low end system the overhead might start to be an issue, but the reality is that registry fragmentation and size have almost no impact on performance what so ever in most systems. Rather, all the start-up programs, things hooked in to Explorer, background services, drivers (for e.g. virtual CD drives or anti-virus) and the rest are what cause performance problems.
Besides, there are free tools to both defrag the registry files on disk (PageDefrag) and to clean and re-order the records in the registry (ntregopt). You will find they both have almost no effect on performance, compared to disabling a few things in msconfig.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Which makes their failure to sell Vista especially noteworthy.
vista basically is shrink-wrapped poo, though it is translucent as well.
I'm just sticking with XP - as long as it basically works (which it does on my computer) then you may as well stick with it.
I'm right wing in that sort of way: if it works for you, keep it (only with computers though, and possibly western politics - I'm saying this because communism sort of worked in russia (or at least the russians thought it did))
Bfffft! You Sir, are full of Redmond CowShit! I have been using Macs since system 7 or so and win since dos 3, linux since mid/late 90's a little before Redhat 5 came out, AIX and Unix--seems like forever. I have never seen OSX slow down over time. At All, period zip zilch nothing. dam troll just trying to stir things up. OSX doesn't work that way. plain and simple. Now go home, you left your Windows box on and people are hacking you as we speak!
Gconf is optional.. I tend to avoid it for that reason.
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