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."

Comments

Are you crazy if you rush out and install it?

[weston]

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.

Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it?

[walt-sjc]

Oh yes... He could install the ancient OS X... But keep in mind that Apple no longer provides updates for it like MS does for XP of the same vintage (not that I'm a fan of MS by any means...) Furthermore, unlike XP, he will be unable to install most modern software since nobody supports 10.1, .2, and even 10.3 support is getting quite rare.

But back to your point. Yes, you are 100% correct that the old stuff will continue to function PROPERLY, but methinks the OP REALLY meant Effectively and Securely. Paid updates from Apple are really required for that.

I'll share my perspective having used Mac's since 10.1 (everything earlier I considered unusable,) Windows since 2.0, Linux since 0.99 and a plethora of random crap before that back to about 1978.

The amount of time I have spent messing with OS issues (problems) on OS X versus Linux or XP is FAR FAR less. If I value my time at a pathetic $20/hr, I've saved the cost of OS X probably about 100 times over. Whining about the cost of OS X updates is really, in my opinion, short sighted. This doesn't even get into how much better 10.5 is to use than 10.1. There is no F-ing way I would ever go back.

Re:Are you crazy if you rush out and install it?

[node 3]

I have a G4 PowerMac which apparently won't run 10.6. Can Linux be run on this machine? Are there any stores/dealers/whatever that would do the install for me?

Yes, but why? Snow Leopard brings disk space benefits (good), full 64-bit support (useless to you), Grand Central which manages multi-core programming (useless to you) OpenCL (useless to you) and, um, QuickTime X.

So, you're missing out on saving 6GB and running QuickTime without any window borders. The vast bulk of Snow Leopard's advances are to make it scream on modern hardware. I don't think it's such a horrible thing to suggest upgrading your seven year old computer if you're interested in running the most current software on it.

But yes, you can run Linux on it. You'll save some more disk space, you won't get 64-bit support, multi-core anything, OpenCL, QuickTime X, or anything else that Snow Leopard or OS X in general gives you. But hey, at least you'll get to bitch about how you can't do those things with Snow Leopard either!

Re:Windows 7

[Stupendoussteve]

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.

Re:Windows 7

[Chees0rz]

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*

Re:Windows 7

[tres]

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.

Re:Windows 7

[Cro Magnon]

It reminds me of the old days when Microsoft Marketing could have sold shrink-wrapped poo; those guys were that good

Which makes their failure to sell Vista especially noteworthy.