Leaked Snow Leopard image potentially indicates a 32 / 64-bit divide
By Nilay Patel 
posted December 28th 2008 2:14PM
posted December 28th 2008 2:14PM
posted December 28th 2008 2:14PM
powered by gdgt
Apple Mac OS X Snow Leopard
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
This preview is from June 2008, so it's quite an early one. A lot will still change until its release.
Note it is NOT restarting the whole system - it is simply restarting the small System Preferences application! No biggie, especially since by the time of release I assume all Apple's preference items will run in 64 bit.
This screenshot is a fake. There is no more .Mac icon and a lot of icons are in English too. Sorry, Engadget.
It's called "Sharing" in the german version too. And Time Machine isnt called Zeitmaschine either. And no QuickTime is not Schnell Zeit. Sorry to you my friend.
What dos the icon marked "OSX {shaisse}" mean?
I cant find the icon, but "shaisse" is some kind of german leetspeak and means shit (scheisse).
Applications usually switch to another translation (english, in this case) if the string hasn't been translated into the chosen language. And many expressions in the german version are derived from the english ones because a term like "Schnell Zeit" (rofl) just sounds stupid in german and no one would ever call something he wants to make money with like that.
No idea what build this was, but the WWDC build does the samething. Screen might be a build older than that, but the issue still stands as of the WWDC build.
I opened up my System Preferences to compare...some of the icons are in different spots (no big deal) but I did notice it still has .mac instead of MobileMe...so either this is an old shot or a fake.
And question...I have a MacBook Pro (not the new uni-body one) with a 2.6GHz processor...is that a 64 bit chip or no? Also, I never really understood the whole 64 bit VS. 32 bit thing...can someone explain the importance in this to me? Thanks.
If your MacBook came with leopard and an Intel Core 2 Duo then its 64-bit.
Your mac is 64-Bit. Only the first Core Duo NOT Core 2 Duo and the older PowerBooks/iBooks are not 64-Bit. And the Core Duo was never installed with 2.6 GHz
On the PC, the problem was that a 64-Bit OS has longer adresses, this is needed to adress more space. 32-Bit can adress up to 2^32 (that's about 4 billion) and that's about 4 GB. If your computer has more than 4 GB a 32 BIt-OS can't adress all of the upper memory. Practicaly it stops at about 3.5 GB because you need virtual adresses for graphics and stuff. 4 GB of memory can't be fully adressed with a 32 BIt-OS. That's the problem.
To work a 64-Bit OS requires 64-Bit-Drivers, 64-Bit-Applications and so on. On the mac, already in Tiger you could run 32-Bit-Apps side-by side with 64-Bit-Apps. A universal binary can include ppc, ppc64, x86 and x86-64 code and so the app would run on all more or less current macs. At those with 64-Bit-CPU it could use all of the memory.
On the PC, the problem are the drivers. If you have an old scanner or printer whose drivers were written for Windows 98 or 2000, you're out of luck, no manufacturer would take that out of archive to update the driver! So everyone uses 32-Bit Windows so everything works. My experience with Windows XP x64 were bad, the printer subsystem makes you screw your head and everything works a bit sluggy. But with Vista I don't know, but should be fine.
It amazed me that Apple introduced an improvement in R&D caused a ripple effect, while people disregarded 64-bit PC already on the market for quite sometimes. Apple's new OS could switch from 32 to 64-bit and vice versa because it controls the hardware in Mac brand personal computers.
I'd like to confirm this is GENUINE and it is OLD.
The seeds notes for Snow Leopard mention this a lot (and other 64 bit issues).
The German issues are red herrings.
Snow Leopard will require users to restart their System Preferences to access 32 bit panes.
Personally, I'd try and come up with a more elegant solution than that.
I see goatsee in that icon and i can't unsee it!
This is a true post. You just have to restart system preferences to access the bits they have not put into 64 bit code yet.
German issues are full of flack because they use old language files that have not been re-coded. Mind you that means most of the buttons will fail due to them not having a correct address for the 64 bit changes.
The buggy nature is that of a Dev Release which this is, it was no way labeled stable or Ready For Market (RFM) at all, this was just a leak for the Devs to test out some minor tweaks and footprint items. As well as to come up and test new versions of their programs for the 64 bit code since GPU Processing was not included.
Please guys, stop flaming if you don't know what is going on.
My personal view on this, is that Snow Leopards Dev release was a good one, it has its bugs but is very stable for what it is. If anyone gets a chance to test it, make sure to test out the difference it takes to use/run the 64 bit flavors of apps vs the 32 bit non multicore built apps. The difference is Phenominal!
"Apple's said it's taking a break from adding flashy features to OS X to focus on the foundations and stability of the system with Snow Leopard,"
see this is whay gets me about the zealots who can't think for themselves. If this was Ms and they stated the above they would be pointing fingers screeching like baboons that OMG! See proof that MS code is for shit so they need to go and revamp and clean up the underlying code, the truth is this is what is happening in Win 7 but lets stay on topic. But Apple does this and they get the 'o pat on the back for taking the time to do this right. Its double standard bullshit is what it is.
If I saw more Mac users call Apple out on this behavior, because God knows every 10.x release that I've used has been buggy as hell out of the gate...usually stabilizing around 10.x.3 or so maybe, just maybe I would be less pissy about Apple in general.
Its the damn double standard though that grinds my gears into a fine powder. After 3 years of using Apple I've come to the firm conclusion that Apple's code is just as shit as MS on release. The difference is that the mactards are a whole hell of a lot more forgiving to the anointed one: Steve "I walk on iWater" Jobs then Windows users are towards MS.
Here's a though. Call out Apple for rushing out buggy code. Tell them to shove it up their iAss, and if enough people actually rebelled because of a crappy release, maybe Apple would realize that they don't have a captive user base who would lick Steve's bunghole to get the latest whatever they are offering. As it stands Steve and Apple know that you will lick up whatever they put out on the stoop because you are so blinded by the idea that MS is so inferior to Apple that you will do anything they tell you to do. Think different? right. Try Think Conformist.
The difference that I see is that MS is having a more reactive response to Vista and its reception, and Apple has the benefit of a more pro-active response. It cannot be denied that Vista has had a relatively poor reception. And although both OS's did not have a smooth launch, I think you'd be hard pressed to find nearly as much legitimate criticism or negative news of Leopard today as compared to Vista. I believe this has forced MS's hand to push Windows 7 for a quick launch.
Apple, however, is sitting happily on top of Leopard. They don't have a huge line of customers holding back with Tiger saying they'll never upgrade to Leopard. They've released yet another successful OS. Users are happy with it. This laptop that I am writing on now is the third computer in my "Migration" ancestry, and it still runs beautifully. This ancestry has gone through 3 major OS releases, which started with Panther on a 17" PowerBook, then Tiger on the first Intel iMac, and now a year old MacBook. Apple's OS is solid and has a lot of great functionality. They aren't changing lanes for SL because they need to, it's because they figure they've got some time to work on it while Microsoft tries to catch up.
APPLE is a HARDWARE and SOFTWARE company.
MICROSOFT is a SOFTWARE company
also about the 129.99 for each version, Of course you only
paid a little for the disc, you already paid $1000+ for the actual
computer. Microsoft only makes the money for windows, not
your HP or Dell box.
doh. be it 32 bit or 64 bit, none of em can run crysis natively. so what's the point in discussing about it? oh and for those who don't already know, Windows have had 64 bit versions since XP era.
you realize this isn't the first Mac OS to use 64bit technology, correct?
Why would snow leopard have to restart in 32-bit mode to access the network panel?
And whats about 64Bit Apps like FCP?
64Bit OS and 32Bit Software, thats all crazy because the Apps can handle only 3Gb of Ram.
@ winnimac
The program will use as much memory as the OS can allocate to it. Good example is 32 bit FCP allocating 14 GB of memory when it renders a movie file on a MacPRO. Or when 32 bit Logic has more than 64 tracks and allocates all 32 GB of memory when you are rendering a 3 GB Sample in memory.
The same comment arrises when we see that a MacPRO can have 32GB of memory currently on a 32 bit native OS. It is the way the OS is coded to handle memory, not the way the program is coded when it comes to XCode, thats the beauty of it.
Wow, isnt it cool how these things end up getting "leaked" like that!
Jess
A lot of interesting comments here. I use two laptops side-by-side every day, an Asus with a Core 2 Duo and 2 MB RAM and a MacBook Pro with a Core 2 Duo and 4 MB RAM. Vista runs pretty good on the Asus because the machine has the power in terms of processor and memory to run it without crashing all the time. Of course, Leopard runs like a dream on the MBP. I've used both Windows and Mac OS for a long time, and in my opinion there is no comparison. My Mac is more intuitive and fun to use, and it's more stable.
An office where I work has an IT guy that comes in every two weeks to check out the network and take care of any problems. Windows is all he's ever worked on. Lately he's started playing with my MBP when he comes in. He's amazed at what he can do on it that he can't do on Windows. He tells me he's seriously considering getting a Mac for his own use because he's tired of dealing with Vista problems. I never thought I would hear a confirmed Windows IT guy say something like that.
All of the Windows advocates should remember that most Mac users have experience with Windows at work or other places where they have no choice but to use it, and they've made a conscious choice based on experience to buy and use Macs. On the other hand most Windows users have little or no experience with Macs (yes I know there are exceptions), yet despite their lack of knowledge, they are certain that Windows is best. To them I say, give Mac a try.
As soon as I saw the title I knew this would happen, get over it!
Is this screen shot for real? I still see .Mac as an option which was replaced with MobileMe some months back.