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Snow Leopard, for anyone who doesn't remember, was famously introduced on stage as having "0 New Features": https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/08/mac-os-x-10

Snow Leopard, for anyone who doesn't remember, was famously introduced on stage as having "0 New Features": https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6/ If only Apple had the confidence to do that again. Imagine an entire update of MacOS dedicated solely to stability, and not iOS parity.

joshstrange 5y ago
One can hope that with the combination of ARM, Swift/SwiftUI, and unification of their OS's it will be easier to focus on stability since they can get more of the apps/frameworks "for free" (aka less, but still something that would free up time).
Wowfunhappy 5y ago
Snow Leopard did have fewer new features than prior releases, with a focus on stability and polish, but "0" was only ever a marketing line. Snow Leopard added QuickTime X, Dock Exposé and exchange support in Apple Mail, to name three. Plus, major new under-the-hood technologies like Grand Central Dispatch absolutely would have been touted on stage in other years.
pfranz 5y ago
I really think the "0 new features" was a fluke of history that elided with marketing. Wikipedia better describes it as, "no new major visual changes." [1] - Finder was completely rewritten in Cocoa - Microsoft Exchange support was added - QuickTime X introduced - Grand Central Dispatch introduced - OpenCL support added - and a bunch of other stuff Each one could have caused issues, but thankfully didn't. However, Snow Leopard did have an issue that could delete all user data [2]. The accident of history is the transition from paid upgrades on physical media to free updates via the web and an increased release cycle. Previous updates were $129, Snow Leopard (Lion and Mountain Lion) was $29, and Mavericks was free. This also was when the 2-3 year release cycle moved to an annual one. The App Store was added as a point release of Snow Leopard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Snow_Leopard#New_or_changed_features https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Snow_Leopard#New_or_c... [2] https://methodshop.com/snow-leopard-bug/ https://methodshop.com/snow-leopard-bug/
mekster 5y ago
When I heard a new OS release actually made things load faster and uses less disk, I was shocked as I was spoiled to think every new OS release requires more hardware resource by the dumb engineering of Windows which relies on hardware improvement to sustain its lazy bloat.

joshstrange 5y ago

One can hope that with the combination of ARM, Swift/SwiftUI, and unification of their OS's it will be easier to focus on stability since they can get more of the apps/frameworks "for free" (aka less, but still something that would free up time).

Wowfunhappy 5y ago

Snow Leopard did have fewer new features than prior releases, with a focus on stability and polish, but "0" was only ever a marketing line. Snow Leopard added QuickTime X, Dock Exposé and exchange support in Apple Mail, to name three. Plus, major new under-the-hood technologies like Grand Central Dispatch absolutely would have been touted on stage in other years.

pfranz 5y ago

I really think the "0 new features" was a fluke of history that elided with marketing. Wikipedia better describes it as, "no new major visual changes." [1] - Finder was completely rewritten in Cocoa - Microsoft Exchange support was added - QuickTime X introduced - Grand Central Dispatch introduced - OpenCL support added - and a bunch of other stuff Each one could have caused issues, but thankfully didn't. However, Snow Leopard did have an issue that could delete all user data [2]. The accident of history is the transition from paid upgrades on physical media to free updates via the web and an increased release cycle. Previous updates were $129, Snow Leopard (Lion and Mountain Lion) was $29, and Mavericks was free. This also was when the 2-3 year release cycle moved to an annual one. The App Store was added as a point release of Snow Leopard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Snow_Leopard#New_or_changed_features https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Snow_Leopard#New_or_c... [2] https://methodshop.com/snow-leopard-bug/ https://methodshop.com/snow-leopard-bug/

mekster 5y ago

When I heard a new OS release actually made things load faster and uses less disk, I was shocked as I was spoiled to think every new OS release requires more hardware resource by the dumb engineering of Windows which relies on hardware improvement to sustain its lazy bloat.