Apple: Snow Leopard release in Q1 2009
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Nov 19th 2008 3:23AM
posted Nov 19th 2008 3:23AM
[Via MacRumors]
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-looks around for iEye- hmmmmm.... where is he? ~_^
Perhaps he's sleeping? You know, considering the late hour and all?
Don't be ridiculous, he probably took a bathroom break
Nah i'll be he's got a neural link that's linked to the Engadget RSS feed so when apple (scratch that - any) news appears on Engadget...
He's usually lowest ranked, so that's probably why you missed him.
Leave "Lowest Rank" out of this
That's a false release date setup.
Mid-2009? Oh no, too slow...
I'll already be running Jaunty Jackalope... April baby!
Its on! i can't wait, thats far sooner than i had imagined? I haven't heard of any really amazing features in snow leopard as of yet
You can't wait, yet there's nothing cool in it that you can think of? Let me guess, you're already a Mac user.
You can wait, since there's never anything good in your updates? Classic Windows user.
Incredible how totally irrelevant and stupid a "reply" can actually be. Way to go "who?"
@AVG
Pot, meet kettle.
I dont think they give a toss which is out first, they are both competing for different markets.
computer users and... snow leopards?
That's a fair point. Microsoft needs to get Windows 7 out in order to stem defections and bad publicity but I don't think Snow Leopard itself will make much difference to the situation, whether it is out first or not. In order for Snow Leopard to have any real impact on Microsoft it would need to be the equivalent of Windows 95 (i.e. a bit of a revolution) but while details of it are sketchy beyond Apple's marketing blurb, I highly doubt that it will be revolutionary. Frankly, it's unclear at the moment as to whether we'll notice the difference between it and the existing 10.5.
I bet Redmond is hoping that Apple will show a touch ui for a tablet mac (with snow leopard) so they can copy its features in windows 7 multi touch. That is why they have said that the multitouch features may change greatly in the future beta release. I think windows 7 is ready for beta , but they are holding out just in case Apple shows something touch related .
@titanium
MS have already demoed screen multi-touch you fucktard.
To the diehard Windows user or the diehard Mac or the Diehard Linux user:
Which one comes out first, I could care less, Im still sticking to my good all faithful OS Brand and flavor.
For that I thank Microsoft, Mac and Linux.
Greets!
@ Mark Anderson :
I know they have. You should learn how to read.
And you should learn how to make a relevant comment.
Actually, on second thoughts, just kill yourself already.
Mek O Ess Tan
This is ridicules. Why so many OS changes?
This is not Linux. People get pissed when they buy a new mac to find out that a month later, their mac OS is outdated and needs an upgrade.
@ethan - I agree with you, not sure why so many people voted you down. Especially where in the Mac world, every couple releases, you're going to require a new Mac. It's been said 10.6 won't support PowerPC Macs anymore. So, let me get this straight; my girlfriend has a Powerbook G4. She got it in late 2005. This means in order to enjoy the newest OS X release, she needs a NEW Mac. Her fully loaded 15" Powerbook in 2005 was over $2000. What the shit? So to get Snow Leopard, she would need to pop at least $900 for a Macbook White since she needs a laptop for school. She saved the extra for the Powerbook for its larger screen. If she wants a 15" Mac notebook, bam.. $2500.
What does this say to a Mac user like her? Don't bother upgrading. Yeah they're OSX86 but she's not that savvy, and I'd rather not get stuck with babysitting that machine (I've gotten into OSX86, which is no fun if you break something).
Vista is much the same way (requiring new hardware), however MS has stated Win7 will run BETTER on hardware that chokes on Vista. If they keep their promises, even netbooks will be able to enjoy it. Even if this weren't true, the cost of entry for a Dell or blah-blah grey box is much more reasonable than a Mac.
I miss the Apple of olde, when it was an "everyman's (woman's too!) computer" as opposed to a premium segment.
@Level 5
Did this comment come out of some kind of automated Apple-flame software? It seems devoid of any relation to reality.
1. Snow Leopard is, by all reports, a transitional OS upgrade that adds some interesting new architectural features and removes a bunch of bloat. Your girlfriend is unlikely to miss anything if she skips this particular upgrade. By the time the next OS X update comes out her laptop will likely be five years old, which isn't a bad run by anyone's standards.
2. You say this happens "every couple releases", but the current version of OS X's minimum requirements are an 867Mhz PPC with 512MB, something you could have bought in 2001.
3. What was this "everyman" Apple of which you speak? The Apple II?
@level5
What does this say to a mac user like her?
Well it could say that shes batshit unlucky because Apple changed their hardware architecture right after she bought her laptop and after all, that's what this is all about.
Does it suck? As the owner of a G4 xserve I can honestly say it does, but lets face it - it's not all that surprising considering the obvious upgrade path says "go x86". You can't really be shocked that eventually Apple, which announced that Intel was becoming it's main processor provider, would eventually choose to support only their processors.
Which isn't even the case, because PowerPC chips will be covered under pre-Snow Leopard releases still.
@Charles
Why does everyone fling these accusations of fanboyism around? Let's get to the facts.
1 - I agree that a 5 year laptop is a good run. As a matter of fact I have a 2001-spec Gateway notebook that happy cranks XP and Ubuntu. That wasn't the point. The point is, if she wants Snow Leopard on a laptop that meets her needs, it's a $2500 cost of entry, compared to having what may be LOWER specs for Win7 than for Vista. That's what I consider streamlining.
2 - Minimal requirements are something NO ONE should go by when running any sort of software. Minimal requirements in my 25 years of computing mean this: It will run, as the program will not give you an error before it's executed. Just because it WILL run doesn't mean it will run WELL ENOUGH for you to be productive in said software/OS/etc. Ever tried running Vista on the minimal requirements for Home Basic? You'll be rummaging for that XP cd (and find it) before it can even launch Excel.
3 - Although I figure you have, it sounds as if you have NEVER used Leopard from your response. Leopard DOES NOT have much bloat. What's really bloatware in Leopard? Now compare to Vista, which is loaded with crap that hasn't been updated since Win 3.1 (notepad, calulator, charmap). Now if you're speaking about Apple and MS's effort to streamline their kernels and core OS mechanics, than that is a different story.
4 - Everyman's computer. The original Mac. Where was the PC in 1984? DOS. Woo fun.
Every marketing message from Apple about Snow Leopard has said the same thing: Snow Leopard is a transitional release consisting of mostly low-level improvements. So unless your girlfriend is really passionate about Exchange support, there's no compelling reason to upgrade.
Just because a piece of software exists, you don't have to run it. As I said, your girlfriend has another year or so before she really has to worry about switching to Intel.
The removal of bloat in Snow Leopard is pretty well documented: one of the goals of the release was to have the OS use less space on disk, and the gains they have been showing go much further than you would see just from removing the PPC binaries: for example the size of Mail.app shrunk from 287MB to 91MB. Apparently this is largely the result of removing a bunch of redundant data from nib files.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/06/23/ten-big-new-features-in-mac-os-x-snow-leopard/ (grep for "think small")
As for the original Mac, it cost $2500 on release ($5000 in today's inflation-adjusted dollars). Not exactly the "computer for everyone" even back then.
I don't understand why anyone would NEED to get every new OS that's released. I got my Blackbook in December 2006, and I still have no regrets of not upgrading to Leopard. The only downside is that I can't run the iPhone/Touch SDK. Besides that, Tiger is still a rock solid OS.
I understand wanting the capability to run the new OS, but with any computer you buy, you have to accept that something better is going to come out at some point.
Just a comment at Level 5, while trying not to come off as a fanboy... Your experience with running "bare minimum" requirements has been the same as mine - for Windows. However, I have an old G3 that I still use from time to time, and every major upgrade of OS X has run snappier on it than the last. Some of the new features don't necessarily run as well, but if you use it as you'd been using your previous version, my experience has been that it runs better. Sucks about your girlfriend's PPC, but a lot of us got a bit of the burn from the transition... On the other hand the switch to Intel really has benefited the new computers...
"If she wants a 15" Mac notebook, bam.. $2500."
Guess I must be dreaming as I bought a 15" MacbookPro Late 2008 at the end of October for $1999. From Best Buy......
I sold my Powerbook G4 on FleaBay for $1200 a year ago, I then purchased a macbook pro for $1649. 2.4ghz Santa Rosa from apples refurb store.
The G4 Powerbook purchase was a mistake by me and by your girlfriend. The towers were boasting G5s then dual G5s then dual core G5s and none of that tech made it into a notebook. That is a long time w/ out a significant update. So, don't think about the fact that she bought it in 05, think about the fact that the tech was from 03 or 04.
next - It is my understanding that Snow Leopards only new feature is going to be exchange support. That most of the upgrade is going to just speed up processes on x86 hardware.
This predates your GFs laptop but when OS X came out, it was a dog. Then X.1 came out and it was faster. Jaguar was even faster and added new features. Panther was even faster and added even more new features. This was on G3/G4 putes. When I upgraded my Mac Pro from Tiger to Leopard, it got faster. Specifically FP, allocating ram and UI according to xbench. all of that to say, I don't think your statements are universal, just a bit bitter because your GF was justifiably burned with old tech. This was apples bad for not moving to intel when IBM couldn't put a cool cpu in a laptop.
I am trying to say, why doesn't apple wait until they have a significant difference.
Instead of changing the OS every 8-9 months, why not every 2 years.
I'm sure they can wait on the innovation. Just cause they ass one thing doesn't mean a new OS is needed.
Thinking about spending money on that new macbook. Does this mean I should wait, anyone?
"nobody wants to be second with their next gen OS release." Perhaps they do? That means time for last-minute changes and features for whatever the competitor is lacking.
just so long as the new macos has a flying toasters screen saver, im happy.
Macos?
Mexican Tacos... oh wait.
MacOS, there, happy?
I haven't really heard anything about Snow Leopard that makes me want to care about it or pay for it.
it has a special name for it but essentially instead of apps having to be programmed to support multi core, the operating system will split up the work load onto as many cores as you have and regulate it so playing itunes and rendering a video wont affect each other, but still use the avaliable "horsepower", or cpu cycles, at least in theory thats what snow's newest feature, just suppose to be a overall performance upgrade. which sounds awesome
i talked to a microsoft developer the other day (i work at a retail store in renton.. pretty close to those boi's from redmond) he told me the real name of windows 7, i forgot what he said it was but it was pretty sweet, but something they were suppose to do is just like what tiger has done, actually have windows 64bit run 32bits apps and drivers with out haivng problems so its backwards compatible which for me and prob for alot of gamers is a great thing! i hate multibooting
@oki: it's 'Windows 7'. that is all.
I'm rather hopeful that Apple will spill the beans on what it is during MacWorld in January. If they can demonstrate that it will dramatically improve performance of my current applications then I'll be interested, particularly if the price is lower than usual (hey, I can dream). Aside from that, full Exchange support will be nice out-of-the-box since that saves paying for MS Office.
Wow. Lying to look cool on Engadget. A new low for anybody.
Oh, that was for Mr. "I talk to MS developers about top secret information but I can barely compose a grammatically correct sentence" Oki.
Give it up already!
Sorry, that was a reply to a spammer who then got deleted.
Give it up already!
Never gonna give it up
Nachos.
This non-sequitur moment has been brought to you by Canonical.
I don't think there's a real strategic advantage for Microsoft in getting their OS out first. In fact, they might prefer to let any hype around Snow Leopard fizzle out before they make their big release.
Well, i guess it's a good thing my fiance is making me wait. At least i wont have to pony up more money for the new os. I'll have to start saving for the new macbook then.
Nice!! :D
Just release Mac OS XI already.
wait on. i think apple made a mistake. 'cheetah' was a beta too.
oh hold on, 'cheetah' was the mistake.
Snow leopard is optimizing, slimming down the core and speeding up the operation. Windows 7 is also said to optimize on the vista bloat.
It is a wonderful development. For both Mac users and Windows Users. Linux users have a bit more choice on what they want to run so their problems with bloated desktop components is a matter of choice.
I'm honestly not that bothered about the release date for 10.6. Just get it right on Day 1 and I'll be happy if it delivers updates that make a difference to me.
Running out of cats.
If they have snow leopard, maybe they can go off for "white tiger" or get all super-specific and call it Bengal or Siberian. Right now, though, there's still Cougar and Clouded Leopard (cf. Wikipedia's "big cat" article). Step down to medium-sized cats--hey, not bad considering the bloatware they're allegedly taking out for Snow Leopard--and we can get a Lynx.
Cougar, Clouded Leopard, Lynx--10.7, 10.8, 10.9.
OS 11.
They've got it covered.
I actually don't care which is out first as usually only upgrade my OS when I buy new hardware and since Vista does everything I need it to do very well just now it's a non-issue.
As for Snow Leopard, since it's only going to be available for Macs and since Macs don't natively run a good number of the applications and games I use it's going to have to be pretty impressive to catch my interest.
The problem with Mac OS upgrades is that they're frequent and that support for older versions vanishes far quicker than it does on Windows. For instance, you'll have trouble today finding major current Mac software that actually works on 10.3, which was released at the end of 2003. Mostly you need to be running 2005's 10.4. On Windows, it's quite common that software still works on Windows 2000, and there's virtually nothing that won't run on 2001's XP.
In some cases, key system components are tied to the OS version, meaning that this kind of restriction is guaranteed. For example, Java 6 (the current major version) is only available in 10.5, while Java 5 is only available in 10.4. You can't install a current Java version on older OS versions.
From a user point of view there is basically no difference between 10.3 and 10.5 (yes I'm a Mac user, and yes of those versions; I skipped 10.4). There are a few pretty gizmos you probably won't use and a general level of minor enhancements. Mostly you upgrade because you have to if you want to be able to actually keep running current cool software - not because you want to. Don't get me wrong the OS is still nice (and I do like the 'downloads' stack thingy, and it's fractionally convenient to be one keypress away from a calculator and crap J/E dictionary at any moment) but the actual version-to-version enhancements are really nothing special imo. If you upgrade separately from buying a new machine, it certainly feels like you're paying full price for a minor version update.
By the way is there *anything* new in 10.6? All I heard about was that they might be dropping support for non-Intel processors - like whatever.
With respect to Macs not supporting older hardware, typically this isn't true but in this case the transition from IBM's PowerPC processors to Intel's x86 processors is the culprit. Apple isn't Microsoft and they don't have the same level of resources so this shouldn't have come as a surprise. However, as has already been noted in this thread, it's surprising how much money you can get for a 2nd hand Mac in reasonable nick so you can probably get a new one for much less than you'd think.
With respect to new versions not adding much, it depends on what you want and use. Personally, I tend to get quite a bit out of each new release but your own mileage may vary. Just evaluate what is being delivered and decide whether you want them. However, I have to agree with you on the subject of Java - it does seem silly that you need to buy a new OS for the current version of Java, particularly since they stopped developing the Java to Cocoa Bridge API.
With regard to Snow Leopard, as far as we know it is supposed to deliver better performance through improved multi-processor support, a new memory manager and running application code on a GPU. Aside from this, full MS Exchange support will be built-in so that's a winner if you need that sort of thing. Whether Snow Leopard is going to be relevant to you will probably depend on whether you have a relatively new Mac (better multi-processing and 64-bit support isn't much use on a G4 PowerBook) or work somewhere that uses Exchange. There may be more but you'll probably have to wait until January to hear about it.
Reported for being a retard. Don't click it a virus.
I think only one of thes OSes is 'next gen'. Snow Leopard, though light on marketable 'features' is a ground up re-work of core elements of the OS, to really make it viable on 'next gen' hardware. When these OSes were architected, there were no such things as multi-core processors (at least in this space) and GPUs with so much power. It'll be interesting to see how Snow Leopard sets Apple up for the next 10-20 years.
Windows 7, on the other hand, just seems to be a service pack on Vista. A few new UI elements, cutting back on annoying elements like UAC, and very little else. Windows still has an ancient driver model, the hopeless registry, and NTFS. Where is all the next gen stuff we were promised in Longhorn? Microsoft really needs to do a drains up re-architecting of their OS core. Not faff around with eye-candy and 'features' to show off in preentations.
If you think Windows 7 is just a Vista service pack you are an idiot pure and simple.
Sure it borrows Vista elements just like Snow Leopard borrows all Leopards elements, the Windows 7 core has been stripped down of all the crap and rebuilt back up again, Windows 7 will run better than Vista did on lesser specs.
You don't know what the hell your talking about, or you are just as misinformed as all the other shit talkers.
The kernel has been reduced drastically, there are a ton of integration features like the device center and home group, the OS is multi-touch right from the get go, design queues are being standardized such as the ribbon and consistency among menu items, NTFS is fine (i dont know why people keep on bitching about it), a taskbar that is efficient, and is actually a combination of quick launch with window management, GPU processing via DX 11 (which might come to Vista, but who knows), etc.
Microsoft cannot build an OS from scratch using a new architecture like Apple can. They have a user base that is equivalent to grains of sand compared to Apples beach shells. They cannot abandon existing applications.
@Richy
As two other commenters have told you why you're wrong there's no real need to tell you again.
But I'm going to do it anyway: You're wrong.
Yeah, I can see that. It's not like the 300 new features in Osx or anything, where 6 of them were new fonts, 24 of them were in iChat or 11 NEW AMAZING features in a back up utility. It's pretty obvious to anyone you don't have a foggiest notion of what you're blabbering about..
here's a list of the new features SO FAR, no, new fonts are listed, unfortunately.. Read, experience first hand before you spew off misinformation. Also, keep in mind, W7 isn't even in beta yet.. Twit!
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/ff.asp
I don't normally rise to the bait on these things, but the Wintards seem to be out in force today.
I've been a long time Windows user, and a recent Mac convert (thanks to Vista -- still use XP on my work Thinkpad X61); so in terms of Windows user experience, I have plenty. I'm also an IT consultant and systems/app architect, for which I'm luckly enough to be paid a fair amount of money. My clients value my opinion, which is worth rather more to me than the average basement dwelling blog commentator (I realise the hypocracy here..).
Firslty, I didn't say Win7 _was_ a service pack, more that is _seemed_ like a service pack; and was really jusy flamebait for all those who claim that each OS X 10.x is 'just a service pack'.
The Windows 'core' is not being stripped down. All the current evidence shows that MS are essentially fiddling with the edges of what was acheived in Visat. Granted, many elements in Vista were a significant re-write of 2000/XP, but Win 7 does not appear to be moving the game along significantly.
Multi-touch, ribbon, and consistent menus are not next gen features. Ribbon in particular seems to be change for changes sake. All UIs should be consistent -- it's the first rule of user experience design. NTFS is just about fine now, but won't be when we're trying to access terabytes of data. WinFS promised to be a step forward, but hasn't been mentioed (yet) for Win 7. It would be nice if we heard more on ZFS from Apple in this respect too.
Why can't MS build a new OS architecture from scratch? I don't think Apple's Rosetta technique would work too well for MS; but with virtualisation it's perfectly possible to keep people happy with their legacy apps? Computers have the power these days. It's simply inexcusable that MS keep key architectural elements of their OS hanging on from the mid-80s. MS could chuck in an XP license and code with each Win7 license -- they're basically doing that with Visat already.
@inno8sky: I agree with you that Apple's list of new 'features' on Leopard was rubbish. But, that's exactly the point I'm making. A good OS and a long list of 'brag' features tend to be mutually exclusive. The bits that make an OS good are the bits the average customer can't see or understand. And these bits are not the Registry, or an antiquated driver model, or 3.11/95 era Win32 APIs.
However, you then spectacularly mis the point by spewing pointless 'features' at me. And remember the list of features we got on Longhorn before that was in beta? All the actual game changing bits went, and we were essentially left with more eye-candy on top of an ancient Windows core. Finally, I won't stoop to your level of name calling.
"I don't normally rise to the bait on these things, but the Wintards seem to be out in force today."
Glad to see you won't stoop to my level and start name calling.. See you are a TWIT!
That comment and this one;
"My clients value my opinion, which is worth rather more to me than the average basement dwelling blog commentator (I realise the hypocracy here..)."
Reveals two things, 1) you're a back stabbing lightweight, and 2) you're probably the most arrogant person in your circle of jerks. Your words reveal you!
On a positive note
I'm was also pleased to read you think the leopard feature list was a joke. Finally, I've found a mac user that isn't entirely mind controlled. We ought to have you stuffed!
@Inno8sky.
Fair point on the name calling, I remebered I'd referred to people like you as Wintards only after I'd pressed submit. One of these days Engadget will allow comment editing...
I'm not sure what a back-stabbing lightweight is, or how my words reveal that. I apologise if my words appear arrogant. It's difficult to articulate the fact that my opinions are more than just my random thoughts, but something people are willing to pay for without sounding arrogant. By way of example, I also comment on a few F1 sites, but as I can neither drive an F1 car, nor have any experience of running an F1 team, my comments are essentially worthless.
And finally, not all Mac users are fanboys. Until last year, I didn't own anything Apple (my Mac experience has since lead me to buy an iPod Touch, 4G Nano, Apple TV, and an Airport Extreme) -- I too used to think they were style over substance. Judging by your avatar, you're not really interested in trying Apple stuf out, but I'd recommend it.
As you may be able to tell from my avatar, I'm happy using a variety of systems and OSes. I just choose whatever is best for me at the time.
And this is really why I'm so disappointed with MS. They have some of the best software engineers going; but seem to be a bit rudderless at the moment. They need to move the game on with Win 7, but don't appear to be. Which is a shame. Who knows, one day I may come back to Windows. It's just looking like that day won't be with Win 7.
"Snow Leopard, though light on marketable 'features' is a ground up re-work of core elements of the OS, to really make it viable on 'next gen' hardware."
...uh, thats EXACTLY was vista is.
Now that's a reasonable reply, I'll concede calling you a twit wasn't appropriate. In fact, I added it last second, shouldn't have really.
As for Microsoft, they're trying. Was Vista the best launch, of course it wasn't. There are a lot of reason why it didn't happen, not the least of which, they didn't get total buy in from the hardware manufacturers. HP, and others saw the Vista launch as a way of moving product. Case in point, my deskjet 9650. They decided that it was in their best interest not to develop new drivers for a printer less than a year old, but preferred that I buy their latest model. Even though their latest model wasn't any better, faster or more feature laden that the 9650. For the most part, I lay the blame on Microsoft's partners, they could have done much more to improve its transition. Were MS not responsible, no, they share in the blame, but not to the majority. In one way you're right, W7 is what Vista should have been. But in other ways, in my opinion anyway, they bring more value than what Cupertino bring with each new iteration of their OS.
As for my avatar, it's more about my disgust for Engadget and the blogs like it than it is about the company and their products. The way in which content is positioned here, or stories entirely overlooked that may cast a negative light on apple, or how any story about any PC based product including MS product is nearly always negative urks me to say the least. I have many friends that use both Windows based PC's and apple based PC's each to his/her own. I have no issue with anyone's preference, what I do take issue with is promoting one as better than the other., They both have their strengths and they both have their weakness. For me, the whole proprietary strategy from apple doesn't work. They sell everything at a premium, simply because it carries an apple emblem. Others may find that reassuring.
By the way, we may have more in common than not especially our chosen professions.
"NTFS is just about fine now, but won't be when we're trying to access terabytes of data. WinFS promised to be a step forward, but hasn't been mentioed (yet) for Win 7."
Wrong.
NTFS works just fine with terabytes of data. As well, WinFS was not a physical filesystem, so I have no idea how you think that it could have possibly improved any kind of volume size problem. If anything, the overhead it added would have hurt large volume performance. Apple's HFS+ to ZFS switch was different. They didn't have a good filesystem to start out with. HFS+ is crap. It's an antiquated filesystem with all of its 'modern' features haphazardly tacked on as afterthoughts (Journalling, ACLs, sparse files, etc.)
"Why can't MS build a new OS architecture from scratch?"
Because they don't need to.
Architecturally, there's nothing wrong with NT. When Apple switched from OS9 to OSX, they basically made a leap from an OS that was quite similar to Windows 9x in its deficiencies to an OS that's quite similar to NT in terms of its advantages. Microsoft made their big OS change back in 2001 with the death of ME and the rise of XP. Can you name any specific part of the NT architecture you don't like? If not, then you shouldn't be advocating a switch that you don't know anything about.
@matt merritt
I agree with you 100%. However, my girlfriend would not. She doesn't know x86 from G4, as a matter of fact she probably would had went out and bought Snow Leopard, and wondered why it didn't work. Her reasoning for getting a Mac was the higher security than XP, and the "just works" quality that Apple advertises. Should she had been a little more informed? Yes. But she's an average user. She sees a new Mac OS, and goes for it. If I weren't around, she probably wouldn't even know that Snow Leopard wouldn't work on PPC, or that she even HAD a PPC as opposed to Intel.
Not meaning to be anti this or pro that everyone, geez, cut with that. Matt that's not directed towards you or anything, but this fanboy BS has got to go.
time for her to get a new laptop.
progression of apple desktop processors
G4->Dual G4->G5 -> Dual G5 ->Dual Core G5 -> Quad Xeon
progression of apple laptop processors
G4->Core Duo
Missing some guts out of the middle there.
oh yeah, she can get $500-$600 on ebay for it right now.
She can pick up a refurb
Refurbished MacBook Pro, 15-inch Glossy Display, 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
15.4-inch glossy widescreen display
1GB memory
120GB hard drive
6x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128MB of GDDR3 memory
Built-in iSight camera
for $1299
That will get her in the game. So it is essentailly a 7-800 dollar investment. -$129 she was gonna spend on snow leopard and $50 for selling her leopard disc on ebay. It is closer to $500 more than she wanted to pay, for a lot faster computer.
that G4 is so out of date it isnt even funny and it still sells for $600 on ebay. That is what you get with an apple product that never goes mentioned. Anyways it is a far cry from the $2500 you had claimed.
Isn't Redmond already a generation behind here?
Not sure I agree with the nobody wants to be second part in the article. Sometimes companies pounce on being second just so they know what cards the other side is holding and how they can steer their marketing to combat it.
I'm a troll
Thats not the real iEye
Don't listen to iEye guys. He's such a troll.
As a Windows owner - I question. What happens when it goes to 11?
With any luck it will finally put an end to people calling it "Oh Es Ex"...
My understanding of what's going on is that Snow Leopard is an incremental upgrade to Leopard. There aren't going to be any major leaps in features, etc. I mean it only makes sense from the name they've given it, but I thought I read somewhere that the main difference is that it's going to finally exclude all of out PowerPC Mac brethren.
Well, fundamentally the core of the OS is being replaced. Contrary to comments that suggest that Snow Leopard is going to be minor, this is a pretty significant change. However, because the changes are below the surface I'm not sure how they are going to be able to sell this one. Bar charts of benchmarks hardly make for the most compelling marketing materials...
Anyone who didn't see this coming is an idiot. Apple is going to release the Core i7 iMac and tout it's GrandCentral technology shipping with Snow Leopard.... all of this timing is too perfect to ignore.
I could easily see Apple refreshing their entire desktop line during Macworld... The Mini is probably going to be the most interesting product to watch... will they roll it into Apple TV or will they roll it down the better performance hill...
With all that being said, there are about 5 features that are real end-user features being added to Snow Leopard... one of the biggest MS has had for years... Exchange.
I can just imagine dictator-for-life jobs blowing a few veins when he saw this. Visionary or not, the guy is a control freak.
@Level5
Further - http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Pro
Click the date that she bought her laptop and look what was there 2 months later at MWSF or WWDC -- whatever was in Jan 06.
Well... it's never been about the OS, but the apps you can run on it.
Just look at those bi-monthly releases of Linux distros, still, do they compete? I think not...
Just wondering what are they going to use once they run out of all cats?
The smart money is probably dogs but I fancy an outside bet on squirrels...
that won't happen anytime soon
Who cares. I just sold my Macbook Pro and I couldn't be happier. Frack Apple and their "clean up the mess under the hood" OS release that is 10.6. Said mess is part of the reason I'm dumping Mac. Too little too late Apple. Take your form over function crap and shove it.
Can't wait for Snow Leopard's enhancements, but it's hard not to long for new features. Are we going to have to pay the same price for this as Leopard cost us? Will it be worth the upgrade or only worthwhile when buying a new Mac?
Yay Windows 7 FUD! I was afraid Microsoft was losing their touch. Does this mean Vista will be officially dead in 2Q '09? Why advertise it so much now?
I'm banking on Windows 7 rolling out in 2010 so they have time to copy what Apple's doing next.
Isn't Mac OS X long overdue for a major new version (11.0) instead of just a new sub-version (10.6)? If you look at the timetable, OS X 10.0 was released back in 2001 (few months before Windows XP, which is version 5.1); Windows Vista (6.0) was released barely six years later.
let me get this straight.... snow leopard us going to be a great upgrade and so is windows 7... and the real reason for that is exactly what people are complaining about.... they both have a better focus.... yes you probably want much more from an update but see what happens when an os gets too ambitious.. longhorn promised a lot and vista ended up being the biggest disappointment in MS history.... leopard promised its so called 300 features... and delivered a good os but it was far too buggy compared to other apple releases....
i dont know how many of you know about the snow leopard beta tests but let me tell you that even in its beta stage which was tested in july or something... snow leopard runs way faster than leopard on the same machine. the installation took like 13 minutes compared to all other os's that take at least an hour. and the fact that they are taking their time this time (its been a while since leopard came out) this release shouldn't have too many bugs...
don't know much about win7 so wont comment...
Yes, the race to be #1 in the O.S. wars in on. But perhaps ya should remember that Redmond STEALS features & incorporates those designs into theirs. That being not a single original idea they can come up with, let Apple wait & trounce M$ with an O.S. that boasts features far beyond Windoze7. Vista has been a dog, a horrid cancer sore on Bill G's butt & he will happily exchange Win6 for Win7 as soon as possible. Let Apple wait, then pounce to devour the wretched mongrel O.S. that is Windoze.