Snow Leopard pre-orders now being taken at Amazon
By Ross Miller 
posted August 1st 2009 5:26PM
posted August 1st 2009 5:26PM
[Thanks, Luis M]
posted August 1st 2009 5:26PM
Apple Mac OS X Lion
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There are classes on sarcasm? Sign me up.
derrik:
He could be from the UK where they have this wild notion that a single company is a plural entity.
You're right. I'm from the UK where Engligh originated (the clue is in the word 'English').
Oh and derrik: Thank you for your comprehensive reply. I can only hope that you unwind and become a bit less anal in future before you rupture something.
Mark,
I am on your side, but keep your Engligh in the UK. We speak it properly here in the US, and we brush our teeth.
Notice that the upgrade is only for Leopard users. Tiger users have to buy a copy of Leopard also.
29 bucks? hardly worthpressing the CDs and wasting the ink and paper on packaging materials. should be download only
More importantly, can we move beyond the DVD so that we can get rid of the optical drive once and for all? Doing so would allow either smaller/lighter computers or free up space for other things, such as additional hard drives or larger batteries.
@ Kelmon
Why not buy all our CDs at the music store in SD card format? And better yet, a Memory Stick Movie player!
Think of all the people with massive CD and DVD libraries. They would be crushed if they couldn't buy new music and movies in that format.
@David
$29 is for a Snow Leopard upgrade. Apple only sells upgrades. You could have also only paid $50 for a Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade. No, you did not need to pay for a full installation of XP or Vista to use the upgrade disc, just needed to download a free copy of Windows 7 RC. So upgrade disc of Snow Leopard for $29 or practically full installation copy of Windows 7 Home Premium for $50?
No Mark, let them. It's boring at work.
Fair enough.
Carry on arguing about something that nobody with and self respect really cares about then kids!
Light Speed's last comment...
"i dont give a fuck how slim the new ps3 is. its a pos, no good video games, and a horrible online network. the xbox is about 500 times better"
He must be fun at parties.
OS: $30*
*you must pay double for your computer
As someone that bought an iMac during OS X 10.5 Leopard's launch, the Drop-In Leopard disc only checked for a Tiger install. It allowed you to do a clean install. This is probably the same type of disc. It'll check for a Leopard install then allow you to do a upgrade or clean install.
This is no different than Windows XP/Vista/7's Upgrade disc. If a supported previous version is detected, it will allow clean or upgrade install.
BTW, Snow Leopard is to Leopard AS Windows 7 is to Windows Vista.
Both OS's are mature, so the followup version is mainly a stability/bugfix release with little new features to get excited about. Windows 7 has a cleaner UI, but it's still the same as Vista for the most part. Snow Leopard will have a rewritten Finder to give it more stability, still looks the same just runs differently. All other fixes are "under the hood" so they won't be noticed directly.
Both releases could be viewed as Service Packs, but these companies have to make money, right? Developing an OS costs a lot. As much as we'd love to get either OS for free - it will NEVER happen. If you want a free OS release, look towards Ubuntu which is a fairly good alternative. Otherwise, upgrade to the next version. Neither company will support the previous OS for much longer. Microsoft & Co will drop support on Windows XP after Windows 7 ships and becomes an accepted OS.
Leopard + Snow Leopard ≈ $130
Unusable Windows Vista ≈ $120
(Maybe) usuable windows ≈$120 (requires windows vista)
Yeah, I think I'm paying for the service pack, thanks
With all this negative energy, I think I'll wait for 10.6.1...
To be honest, based on past experience, I would advise this. Both 10.4 and 10.5 were pretty buggy on release and I have encountered kernel panics with both (particularly 10.4). Leopard wasn't really ready for prime-time until 10.5.3 was released, which was about 6-months after 10.5 hit the retail shelves. Hopefully we won't have such issues with a release that is supposed to be targeting stability, security and performance but the pessimist in me thinks that waiting is not a bad idea since release is going to be first time that the OS will have been available for widespread testing. You'll note that Windows 7, for example, was available to the general public for testing and this is something that Apple does not do (full Apple Developer Connection members are as far as it goes).
If you don't NEED Snow Leopard then I would advise at least waiting to see what the initial feedback is before installing it, particularly if you are happy with your current setup. Having the newest thing is nice but only when it works as you expected or better. Looking at a message in Japanese informing you that you need to restart your OS is not fun.
Coming from someone who is using both Snow Leopard, and Windows 7 RC, both seem pretty stable. SL has had 0 problems the last few updates. Windows 7 has kernel paniced on me a few times, though.
Note to Microsoft: Lower the price.
Note to Tubalcain from MS:
What the hell for? We sold out of pre-orders.
@iubyont
i don't think you can upgrade from windows 7rc, but im not sure.
how did i end up down here. damn
Hmmmm, you can buy Snow Leopard with iLife '09 and iWork '09 for $169... OR you can buy the bundle now from Amazon (Leopard, iWork '09 and iLife '09) for $130 with free shipping and then buy Snow Leopard when it comes out for $29. Do the math =)
Did anybody else laugh at the server version?
finally something cheap from apple..cheap legit hackintosh anyone?
Sorry to break up your fun apple fanboys but.... let's remeber that there has been so many OSX's...
*10.0 (original/Cheetah) March 24th 2001
*10.1 (code name Puma) September 25th 2001
*10.2 (Jaguar) August 23, 2002
*10.3 (Panther) October 24, 2003
*10.4 (Tiger) April 29th, 2005
*10.5 (Leopard) October 26, 2007
*10.6 (Snow Leopard) September, 2009
Also, Leopard is the only OS on there that is still supported. Lets compare that to Windows XP. There was original Windows XP. Then there was service pack 1, service pack 2, and service pack 3. The huge difference is from 10.2 (or if you went from 9 to 10.1 that was $150) on out your supposed to pay for all your upgrades from Apple. The cost for the 3 service packs from Microsoft for XP were $0.00 USD. Of course same goes with Vista 2 free service packs as of today.
If we count 10.0 as a version then I count 7 there. In between the time it took you guys to release 7 OS's (which it should just be considered that since, again, leopard is the only one currently supported) Microsoft released 3.
and how many versions of windows have there been?
each version of OSX included something drastically new and different. the user may not be able to see it, if substantial work is done on the operating system, i can't see why they wouldn't charge their users to upgrade. in osx snow leopard, power pc users won't be able to take advantage of snow leopard's multi-thread tech or open cl abilities. that is why apple isn't releasing it to power pc users, as the substantial differences only benefit those who have intel based macs. so instead, they stick with leopard. modern windows always supported intel because that was what it was mainly run on. apple dumped power pc for intel because their chips weren't good for mobile battery life.
you could basically say all of the following are just service packs to eachother with interface adjustments because they all are based on NT.
win 95
win 98
win me
win 2000
win xp
win vista
win 7
both MS and Apple have all the right to charge for these updates as they all (ok maybe not Win me) include substantial under the hood changes to make the underlying core system quicker and more stable.
lol. So you're proud that Microsoft is so far behind that they've only released 3 major OSs in the amount of time that Apple has released 7? What makes matters worse is that out of those 3, one was so poorly received by the market, that Microsoft has posted their first ever sales decline, and were pretty much forced to extend support for XP for years past the original planned date because most of their corporate customers refused to upgrade to Vista.
No wonder Microsoft is quickly becoming irrelevant.
So Win7 is going to be out in a few months and have this, nifty transparent 'taskbar'... which looks and acts very much like something OS X has had since March 2001. Cool!
Oh well, we all know the Desktop is declining in importance anyway. While MS feels great copying ideas from Apple left right and center, Apple is pushing the envelope in the mobile space, all the while Mac marketshare inches ever upwards.
By the way, on PC's over 1000 bucks, Apple has a 91% share. Isn't that amazing?
So on the product category where the biggest margins are, Apple has a 91% share.
And MS is proud that it sells boatloads of copies of XP to Netbook owners?
@lhfan04
Just a couple of points:
1. Tiger (10.4) is still officially supported by Apple along with Leopard (10.5).
2. I really don't think your post is going to break-up anyone's fun, mostly because it is just a bit sad. For example, the idea that Vista was good on release is laughable at best since everyone accepts that you need to have installed Service Pack 1 before it is usable.
Seriously, what sort of reaction to your comment are you expecting?
I'm hoping that Snow Leopard add's a boost to running Fusion. The current official release of Fusion run's Windows well, but at times I feel it to be a tiny bit slow. I know it's virtualizing an OS and all, but I feel it should be faster none-the-less. At $29 to get the upgrade, it isn't a bad thing to try out.
How much RAM are you giving it? I just upgraded from 2GB to 4GB so I could give XP 1GB of memory in VirtualBox and it's running pretty slick now on my 2.33GHz MacBook Pro. Haven't tried Fusion myself, you might want to see how it performs against VirtualBox, which is free, so doesn't cost you a cent to try.
It's not a particularly helpful comment but you might want to consider Parallels Desktop 4. I started with Parallels, then switched to Fusion but I am currently back with Parallels due to the speed improvement over VMWare's product.
I have not tried VirtualBox so I can't comment on that.
Need a topic periodically for tech sites to post and start fan wars between rival factions? There's an app for that....
Apple these days are worse then Microsoft. They are absolute evil, locking people in with anti-consumer tactics. Locking out the Pre, blocking Google voice, forcing their workers to the point of suicide.
... but I'll probably get Snow Leopard. $30 service pack or not. They may be evil, but they produce superior products, and well worth the what they charge.
Look at all this MS vs Apple whining. I am excited, now that I got both Win7 and Snow Leopard pre-ordered for my Mini. $128.98 to upgrade both you say? Not a bad deal at all.
One can call Snow Leopard as much of a servicepack as one want, but the only different from the vista -> windows 7 upgrade that snow leopard has yet to show a large change in cloathing. The fundation has had a major rehaul, just as Windows 7 is a major rehaul of the vista engine. They are still not a product of many years of r&d, but refinement of the current systems.
Leopard is OS 10.5, and have so far had seven "service packs" (thus the current 1.5.7 version number). Microsoft seem to collect into very infrequent service pack updates, while Apple updates with a higher frequence.
There are also concerns regarding price of the apple laptops and desktops, but thats like cracking jokes on high end car brands. You probably can get a cheap car that goes as fast, but still lacks the refinement of the higher end ones. Dell, HP, Acer, Lenevo etc all have high end models, and they are are as highly priced as the macbook pros, and features in line with the macbooks.
I'm happy with my macbook pro and mac pro. But my previous laptops where high end thinkpad, and one high end acer. And they were as expensive - or even more - as my macs.
Looking forward to the performance enhancements. Leopard already has too many "features" and is starting to get a bit bloated.
Does the arrive on your doorstep the day of launch or is that when it ships? Otherwise, I'd rather risk it at the Apple store. One thing I'm worried about is that OS X 10.5 Leopard when gold maybe 8 days before it was supposed to be released. That's not a lot of time to make lots of copies (and also led to the horrible 10.5 RTM Finder bug). Hopefully, we won't see anything like that this time around.
@iubyont
Where is this $50 Windows 7 upgrade?? On Amazon the Home Premium Upgrade is $119.99. Are you talking about paying $50 to upgrade while buying a brand new computer? That's not even a fair comparison. If you're buying a new mac it's $10 to upgrade to Snow Leopard vs. your $50. So it costs you 5x more..... how is that a good deal?
And yes Apple hardware is expensive, believe my I'm in the market for a new one and it's making me unhappy to spend THAT much at one time but when I made comparable Dell/HP laptops they were within a few hundred of each other. Plus I get a free iPod touch which I've wanted for 2 years now, and that $230 basically makes up the difference. I just wish I lived in a place where sales tax wasn't 10%!
I was able to buy it for 10 bucks. Ships September!
@David -
If you buy a new computer today, you can get the Win7 upgrade for free. The $50 upgrade was for those who took advantage of the special pre-order offer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l26ZTY8Zix4
Yeah, not to mention that it's a closed, expensive, proprietary OS made-for-smug-turtleneck-wearing-latte-sipping-hipsters and you can use something totally open and way better for way less mon ...
... crap, I thought this was Digg
That's exactly what Windows is. A closed, expensive, proprietary OS. You got it spot-on!
OS X is the opposite. Apple likes to base their technologies on open standards instead of forcing MS-style proprietary garbage down everyone's throats. A copy of Windows has always costed more money than a copy of OS X.
snow leopard is snowing! http://www.studiomds.com/snowleopard/