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NO NEW FEATURES was totally marketing that just went along with not changing the UI. Like you said they added Grand Central Dispatch and Exchange support, they

by pfranz 6y ago

NO NEW FEATURES was totally marketing that just went along with not changing the UI. Like you said they added Grand Central Dispatch and Exchange support, they rewrote Finder in Cocoa, released QuickTime X, OpenCL support, and introduced the Mac App Store. They also made significant updates to BootCamp, Safari, and ported stuff to 64-bit. It also had a data loss bug with guest accounts that was later fixed in a point release. I do think it ended up being a great release, but I don't attribute it to "no new features." I think being the 6th or 7th major release, 3rd with Intel support, 6 years of support, mixed with good release planning and engineering, and luck helped it be so beloved.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
There were fewer new user-visible features, so they could focus on optimization and stability (which includes things like Grand Central Dispatch and rewriting Finder to use a modern API). QuickTime X was a big deal, but it was probably the largest user-facing new feature—the Mac App Store wasn't added until a year after launch. Mountain Lion, El Capitan, and High Sierra were all similar to Snow Leopard in their priorities.
- pfranz 6y ago
  Rewriting Finder is huge and risky! When they replaced mDNSResponder with discoveryd it caused problems they eventually reverted it when Vint Cerf called Tim Cook to complain. I might be misremembering, but I through I heard a story of some meeting where "no new features" was branded close to release. Not something decided early in the dev cycle. The feature list for Snow Leopard actually looks larger than Lion to me. I think another factor was a shift in development. Leopard was $129 and Snow Leopard was $29 and the last released on a disk. Lion was $29, Mountain Lion was $19, and Mavericks and onward were free.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    > Rewriting Finder is huge and risky! When they replaced mDNSResponder with discoveryd it caused problems they eventually reverted it when Vint Cerf called Tim Cook to complain. But it's not the size, it's the focus, right? Rewriting Finder, without adding any additional capabilities, reduces technical debt and makes Finder faster and more stable. Adding QuickLook to Finder doesn't do any of those things, it just allows you to use QuickLook. I have another theory though, and it's not the price—Apple has plenty of money—it's the development cycle. Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard had several years of life before they were replaced. Every OS since Lion has been replaced within a year. > I heard a story of some meeting where "no new features" was branded close to release. Not something decided early in the dev cycle. I hadn't heard this story, but I wonder if both could be true. The roadmap was probably planned early on, but the narrative could have been chosen later. You can imagine an alternate universe where Steve Jobs walked on stage and announced "Snow Leopard comes with a brand new Finder, and it's better than ever!"
addicted 6y ago
NO NEW FEATURES was indeed marketing. There were many new features. However, as your list shows, the vast majority of those features were under the hood improvements that had little to no user interface changes. And that’s what Apple meant by no new features. Their work in Snow Leopard was entirely focused on improving the underpinnings of Snow Leopard through both bug fixes and infrastructural changes.

by pfranz 6y ago

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

There were fewer new user-visible features, so they could focus on optimization and stability (which includes things like Grand Central Dispatch and rewriting Finder to use a modern API). QuickTime X was a big deal, but it was probably the largest user-facing new feature—the Mac App Store wasn't added until a year after launch. Mountain Lion, El Capitan, and High Sierra were all similar to Snow Leopard in their priorities.

pfranz 6y ago
Rewriting Finder is huge and risky! When they replaced mDNSResponder with discoveryd it caused problems they eventually reverted it when Vint Cerf called Tim Cook to complain. I might be misremembering, but I through I heard a story of some meeting where "no new features" was branded close to release. Not something decided early in the dev cycle. The feature list for Snow Leopard actually looks larger than Lion to me. I think another factor was a shift in development. Leopard was $129 and Snow Leopard was $29 and the last released on a disk. Lion was $29, Mountain Lion was $19, and Mavericks and onward were free.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  > Rewriting Finder is huge and risky! When they replaced mDNSResponder with discoveryd it caused problems they eventually reverted it when Vint Cerf called Tim Cook to complain. But it's not the size, it's the focus, right? Rewriting Finder, without adding any additional capabilities, reduces technical debt and makes Finder faster and more stable. Adding QuickLook to Finder doesn't do any of those things, it just allows you to use QuickLook. I have another theory though, and it's not the price—Apple has plenty of money—it's the development cycle. Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard had several years of life before they were replaced. Every OS since Lion has been replaced within a year. > I heard a story of some meeting where "no new features" was branded close to release. Not something decided early in the dev cycle. I hadn't heard this story, but I wonder if both could be true. The roadmap was probably planned early on, but the narrative could have been chosen later. You can imagine an alternate universe where Steve Jobs walked on stage and announced "Snow Leopard comes with a brand new Finder, and it's better than ever!"

addicted 6y ago

NO NEW FEATURES was indeed marketing. There were many new features. However, as your list shows, the vast majority of those features were under the hood improvements that had little to no user interface changes. And that’s what Apple meant by no new features. Their work in Snow Leopard was entirely focused on improving the underpinnings of Snow Leopard through both bug fixes and infrastructural changes.