10 ms·

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Now Available (Delivery on Aug. 28th)

129 points by mrduncan 17y ago

mseebach 17y ago
Hmm, not exactly convincing. Leopard brought stuff like time machine, this smells more like a big service pack. I mean, OpenCL and some of the central applications running 64-bit? Better Quicktime and a new Safari? I don't even use QT and Safari. And it's $29? Too little to be too much, but still a lot for a service pack.
- cpr 17y ago
  When Apple first announce 10.6, they said it wouldn't have any end-user features, but just a lot of re-engineering under the hood. Well, they couldn't help themselves, and there are a bunch of smaller features, plus things like Exchange support across the board. And there really has been a lot of re-engineering, most of it focussed on making things a lot faster and smaller. I think Apple deserve our thanks for actually making performance and improved footprint an explicit goal of a major release, rather than larding on new feature after new feature in some kind of misguided feature war.
- pibefision 17y ago
  Also, there is some software that needs an update to work well on Snow Leopard, for example MacPorts.
  - arthurk 17y ago
    Apple has a few employees working on MacPorts who, along with the ADC devs, did a great job updating it for Snow Leopard in the past few months. 1.8-rc1 has already been tagged in svn and I'm sure the final version will be ready in time :)
    - Zev 17y ago
      I think what everyone likes to point out re: MacPorts isn't MacPorts itself, but the software that it compiles, that needs work still.
- yardie 17y ago
  Did you even read link? Here http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/ are the new features that went into this release. And your comment doesn't even make sense, first you say it's a service pack than you rattle off a short list of new and upgraded items. These things do cost money to develop. And I'm pretty sure $29 barely covers the cost of it. I don't remember anything new being in Windows when a SP rolled out except a new browser. (There was the uPNP browser that popped up in SP2 I believe)
  - mseebach 17y ago
    Every other "system update" reboot I've made for the past 20 months seems to have included an update to QuickTime and Safari -- both of which, by the way, are available as free downloads -- and the prominent featuring of those two products as a component of a whole new version of an OS makes it feel like a service pack.
    - nudded 17y ago
      > and the prominent featuring of those two products as a component of a whole new version of an OS makes it feel like a service pack. point me to a page that only displays those 2 updates as the main features. In my browser Apple is clearly marketing the 64-bit, Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL as the main reasons to upgrade. Also stop referring to an OS upgrade as a service pack. Because it isn't. Microsoft releases service packs, just like Apple releases minor updates to their OS, (eg. 10.5.7)
      - thras 17y ago
        Also stop referring to an OS upgrade as a service pack. Because it isn't. Well, that convinced me!
        unalone 17y ago
        Thras, I'll ask you this completely sincerely, because I don't and never have understood this. Why do you, and people like you, get off from reading a lengthy debate on a topic online, and ignoring every point except the one that's not a point, then snarking about it? It's not just you: A lot of people do it, and it baffles me. I always really enjoy being told why my opinion on something is wrong, and these snarky responses don't seem to prove anything.
- ionfish 17y ago
  It depends on what you plan to do with it, I suppose. I'm personally happy to pay merely for a decent chunk of performance improvements (isn't that what we do when we buy faster computers, after all?), but the new frameworks are also interesting—OpenCL, for example.
- stevoski 17y ago
  Snow Leopard has always been described by Apple as a performance and stability upgrade.
- Xixi 17y ago
  Apple choosed speed, optimization and refinement over features. And I welcome this choice wholeheartedly, enough bloat already... make my OS faster, slimmer and more robust and I'll be happy. Sadly the price point of Snow Leopard, and the sort of reaction that you have make me think that the big shops will continue to make ever more massive and bloated softwares... After all, you get what you are ready to pay for : if you think features are worth more bucks than optimization, that's what you'll get.
sant0sk1 17y ago
Nice to see Apple shipping before their publicized time frame (September). A rarity.
- prakash 17y ago
  The other way to look at this is that Apple gave themselves plenty of buffer to ship.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - raganwald 17y ago
    True, but unlike practically everyone else they didn't allow their work to fit the expanded time available. Everyone builds in buffers and pads their estimates, but few people are able to work to their original true estimate.
    - JeremyChase 17y ago
      OpenBSD has done it 26 times in a row: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/07/16/2322203/Why-OpenBSDs-Release-Process-Works http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/07/16/2322203/Why-OpenBSDs... PS: This article was written before 4.6 has was minted; it will actually be released a full month early.
      - raganwald 17y ago
        Well done OpenBSD contributors and stewards!
      - dylanz 17y ago
        I wish other companies would follow OpenBSD, in regard to releases, package management, etc. Their community is awesome. Abrasive at times... but awesome ;)
    - prakash 17y ago
      True, but unlike practically everyone else they didn't allow their work to fit the expanded time available. Again, how do we know they didn't account for it when they buffered initially? Maybe they had a different internal timeline (end of aug) vs. an external timeline. Only way to know is if one is in the Snow Leopard team or has access to that kind of info.
siculars 17y ago
just ordered the family box set. better deal, imho. http://store.apple.com/us/product/MACBOX-101801 http://store.apple.com/us/product/MACBOX-101801 click the family pack option... Also, there is no difference in price when purchasing under the education store, afaik.
- bcl 17y ago
  I really like the Apple Family pack pricing. I almost never buy a single copy anymore.
uggedal 17y ago
What about those stuck on Tiger (my gf)? Buy Leopard and Snow Leopard update or buy a full version?
- pmorici 17y ago
  In the description it says perfect way to upgrade for tiger users, does it not?
- stuff4ben 17y ago
  I'm still on Tiger and I'm probably not going to upgrade. I have a first-gen "lapburner" MBP which works just fine. Leopard didn't really offer anything ground breaking and it doesn't appear Snow Leopard will either. And I figure anything ground-breaking will require newer hardware, so I guess I'll stay on Tiger until the machine stops working. Which coincidentally is also why XP users don't upgrade either.
  - zzkt 17y ago
    I've upgraded a few MBPs (1st & 2nd gen) and even some old powerbooks all of which perform perceivably better with 10.5 YMMV
  - yardie 17y ago
    I think it depends. If you have a first-gen MBP than you are better off getting the new OS. 10.4 "supported" Intel chips but it always felt like a hack between PPC and Intel platforms. 10.5, and each update since, has gotten progressively better for Intel chips. I think you've fallen for the marketing trap where a list of features has to be present for it to be worth something. Not many lists include code and platform optimizations because it doesn't market well. I've used OS X since 10.1 and each update has gotten remarkably better. Things have mellowed out in 10.5 but the OS feels fully baked.
    - stuff4ben 17y ago
      Good points, but I don't think I'm falling for a marketing trap to want something tangible for paying out $130. The OS works fine for me now. If Apple wants more money for me then I want more than just optimized code. In the end I don't think there really is anything they can do to make me pay more money for the OS. I already bought iWork 08, I bought SuperDuper! for backup, and everything else I use is either open source or comes included with the machine. If Apple wants me to upgrade, then they need to discontinue security updates for 10.4 or some widget I badly need needs to be 10.5+. And honestly, it's not me that Apple has to contend with, it's my wife and her iron grip over the budget ;)
m_eiman 17y ago
What's with the query string on the link, is that an affiliate identifier? The link works just fine without it, in either case.
- mrduncan 17y ago
  No, not an affiliate id I simply copied the url straight out of my address bar - I'm guessing it's a session id or something. Here is the id-less link for anyone who doesn't believe me (I can't change the url of the post unfortunately): http://store.apple.com/us/product/MAC_OS_X_SNGL http://store.apple.com/us/product/MAC_OS_X_SNGL
  - natrius 17y ago
    If it were an affiliate ID, I don't see why it would matter.
mdasen 17y ago
May I ask how it is "now available"? From the site, it says that it will be delivered Friday. Did Apple not update the page this links to? Is this an "it's available for purchase now for delivery later" post that the headline is misleading me on?
- mrduncan 17y ago
  Fair point, I've updated the headline to reflect the delivery date.
- sho 17y ago
  Oh, it's "now available" all right. Might not be 100% legal in your jurisdiction, though.
feverishaaron 17y ago
Anyone know how those of us who bought an mac recently get it for $10? I didn't see a link on that page.
- mwijns 17y ago
  It seems so: http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/
  - feverishaaron 17y ago
    Thanks. Just found it as well.
  - feverishaaron 17y ago
    FYI, as of right now, they aren't passing the info from the verification screen to the cart correctly, so you have to use the fax-in form. http://images.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/docs/OSX_HW_UTD_FF.pdf http://images.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/docs/OSX_HW_UTD_FF.p...
    - there 17y ago
      i just ordered it through their website after qualifying my recent macbook pro. it worked fine and i didn't have to fax anything.
    - bittersweet 17y ago
      I am having the same problem on the European (Dutch) store as well when I followed the link to computers bought on the Apple store itself. When I follow the link for computers bought via a reseller it works without a problem.
cpr 17y ago
http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/ for all those who claims it's just a service pack. But, as I said elsewhere, the major improvements are under the hood.
- johns 17y ago
  As a non Mac OS user, that link just reinforces to me that it looks like just a service pack. But at $29, I don't think it matters. If it were $129, that would be ridiculous.
  - umjames 17y ago
    As a user, yes, but as a developer, there's some really awesome stuff in this release (both from the perspectives of the apps being developed and from the tools used to build them). Can't wait.
  - cpr 17y ago
    Whoops--I didn't realize that all the changes weren't under that one link. You have to look at all four: http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/universal-access/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/universal-access/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/exchange/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/exchange/
  - tjweir 17y ago
    Maybe this blog post will help: http://reverttosaved.com/2009/08/24/helpful-hints-for-mac-users-whining-and-moaning-about-snow-leopard/ http://reverttosaved.com/2009/08/24/helpful-hints-for-mac-us...
FiveFiftyOne 17y ago
I'll get it and pray that the Exchange integration makes using Mail and iCal a little smoother. Besides, I just like upgrading to new releases :-)
- cubicle67 17y ago
  Note: Exchange 2007 only
- stewiecat 17y ago
  If I can dump Entourage the $29 will be more than worth it.
kasterma 17y ago
Requires: Mac computer with an Intel processor. No upgrade for my 12" powerbook. :-( http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html
kasterma 17y ago
Requires: Mac computer with an Intel processor. No upgrade for my 12" powerbook. :-( http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html
- brk 17y ago
  This is a surprise? I think that lack of support for the PPC Mac's has been pretty well known for some time now.
- philfreo 17y ago
  I think the removal of PowerPC support is why the OS is now something like 6 or 7GB smaller than before.
  - dchest 17y ago
    The same mistake, again and again. Please read http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=747316 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=747316
  - Zev 17y ago
    But it then adds in x86_64 support, which brings the size back up. The smaller files are likely to be from not installing all the resources (localizations, drivers, etc) at once if not needed.
    - imajes 17y ago
      it no longer ships with printer drivers i think - these are now supported by the software update mechanism that keeps os x up to date.
    - dchest 17y ago
      Localizations are there.
far33d 17y ago
Can someone give a quick non-marketing-speak version of what Grand Central Dispatch really does?
- cubicle67 17y ago
  something to do with phonecalls I think... Actually (and I'll hide my lack of knowledge by being vague) it's a means of making it easier for developers to create robust multicore capable software. I think.
- Hoff 17y ago
  GCD is an updated and up-rated scheduler for Mac OS X. The following does contain marketeering, but also has some decent technical details: http://images.apple.com/macosx/technology/docs/GrandCentral_TB_brief_20090608.pdf http://images.apple.com/macosx/technology/docs/GrandCentral_...
  - scott_s 17y ago
    While I'm sure the scheduler had to be changed to accommodate it, it's not primarily a new scheduler. It's really a sophisticated thread pool system implemented in the kernel and exposed to programmers through language extensions. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_pool_pattern http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_pool_pattern for the basics on the idea - which has been around for a long time.
    - far33d 17y ago
      Thanks - this makes more sense. Just a scheduler wouldn't explain how "With GCD, threads are handled by the operating system, not by individual applications. GCD-enabled programs can automatically distribute their work across all available cores, resulting in the best possible performance whether they’re running on a dual-core Mac mini, an 8-core Mac Pro, or anything in between."
      - ajross 17y ago
        Yeah, that sounds about right. It's a thread API that relies on applications providing "blocks" of work to the OS, and transferring their arguments and results around in message queues. So if you have five applications running, each of which has 8 threads to handle the needed parallelism on a Nehalem box, you don't need 40 separate threads and their stacks. The OS just spawns 8 threads. That sounds OK, if kinda unexciting. I'd like to see some benchmarks vs. traditional threading before I commit to liking it. History is littered with cute new IPC mechanisms that didn't turn out to have the benefits promised. This sounds a lot like a combination of sysv message queues and solaris doors, neither of which managed to drive much real innovation.
jpcx01 17y ago
Holy shit. Early chrismas!
jamesbritt 17y ago
Does anyone know if installing Snow Leopard requires the user to agree to allow Apple to collect unspecified user data?
donw 17y ago
Anybody know if you can install this on a clean hard drive? I've got Leopard on my MacBook, but want to swap out the existing drive and start fresh on a new SSD. Would be nice to not have to do a Leopard -> Snow Leopard dance.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  Apple doesn't do "upgrades" - if you bought a retail copy it will install fresh on any Intel Mac.
  - dchest 17y ago
    Technically, it does (cheap upgrade copy of Tiger for those, who purchased Mac with Panther after the announcement of Tiger, required Panther). Still, I believe it's true that you can do a fresh install.
sho 17y ago
You might want to hold off a little while before upgrading, at least until 10.6.1. I upgraded my laptop 3 days ago and since then I've had at least 5 Mail.app crashes, finder a couple of times, and one terminal crash. I did an upgrade install, maybe a clean one is better, but I'm pretty surprised at the instability. Also, if you use Macports, that's not up to speed yet so you'll be doing a lot of fiddling around to get that working. For example, I had to patch the port for Erlang to get that to install on 10.6, there's probably others. Wait a few weeks and that should all be sorted out for you.
- unalone 17y ago
  How'd you get 10.6? Were they releasing developer copies?
  - sho 17y ago
    Sure, but only high level developers got them. However, I was able to learn the final build number from a friend, then I just downloaded it off BT. I have a copy on order but couldn't wait. Call it time-shifting.
    - grantj 17y ago
      Could your instability be attributed to the fact that you might not be running the actual release version (or has been modified in some nefarious way)?
      - sho 17y ago
        I should have mentioned that I also had the md5 of the release image. Needless to say, I verified it. There is no practical possibility that it is not bit-for-bit identical to the retail version.
    - antonovka 17y ago
      Given that you acquired an illicit copy over the intertubes of unknown origin and authenticity, perhaps you should refrain from commenting?
rbanffy 17y ago
I am quite surprised no other operating system has something like GCD. Is that MarketingSpeak or is it really something new?
- prospero 17y ago
  .NET has had runtime-wide thread pools since its inception. Unless there's something fundamental about GCD that I'm missing, that puts Windows at least 7 years ahead of OSX on this count.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    Well... Java had them (in almost every OS it ran on) since day 1 too. That puts it a couple years ahead of .NET
    - prospero 17y ago
      Sure. I'm not trying to say that Windows was ahead of its time, but rather that Apple seems to be making a big deal out of a feature I'm kind of shocked they didn't already have.
      - rbanffy 17y ago
        Same here. I am astonished no student added something like this to BSD in the late 80s ;-)
    - pohl 17y ago
      I think the point of GCD is that the concept is being brought down to the C, C++, and Objective-C layers, through the introduction of "blocks"... http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/friday-qa-2008-12-26.html http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/friday-qa-2008-12-26.htm... http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/friday-qa-2009-08-14-practical-blocks.html http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/friday-qa-2009-08-14-pra... I agree there's too much marketing hype surrounding GCD, but neither the CLR nor the JVM can jump through that particular hoop.
plainspace 17y ago
here is a link to the 09 wwdc presentation. you can skip to the 10.6 section: http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/0906paowdnv/event/index.html?internal=ijalrmacu http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/0906paowdnv/event/inde...
dny 17y ago
The first OS and computer that is fully accessible out of the box. http://www.apple.com/macosx/universal-access/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/universal-access/ I can't believe it has been considered important enough to be one of the major features of Snow Leopard, I am so happy for the blind and visually impaired. They did it with the new iPhone the first commercialized accessible touchscreen and they are doing it again with the new Mac OS. Apple is the most innovative tech company there is no doubt about it.
snprbob86 17y ago
Even in marketting copy, Apple's design taste is unrivaled: http://www.apple.com/macosx/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/ http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/ http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/ I mean seriously, how many levels of tabs are too many? http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/whats-new.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/whats-ne...
- wayneb 17y ago
  > Only in marketing, Apple's design taste is unrivaled... Fixed that for you.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- unalone 17y ago
  Apple's marketing is an added feature. I get a lot of joy looking through their ad copy, in a way that I get out of very few marketing departments'. I always wonder why Microsoft is so bad at advertising. They're not a stupid company. They create products that are nearly always good, if rarely (in my opinion) great. But they've never shown any sort of strength-of-focus and they make things that are ugly. I don't get it. In cases like this, it's easier to make something that's stark and simple than it is to make something cluttered and unappealing.
  - wmeredith 17y ago
    The difference you're seeing is design that's driven by an individual with a single strong voice versus a committee. For clarification, I'm saying that Steve Jobs designed this web page, but whoever did was someone with the authority and the balls to say, "no" over and over to many different people. Those Windows 7 pages reek of too many cooks in the kitchen and/or lack of leadership.
    - snprbob86 17y ago
      This rings truer than ever: http://dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html http://dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html

129 points by mrduncan 17y ago

Hmm, not exactly convincing. Leopard brought stuff like time machine, this smells more like a big service pack. I mean, OpenCL and some of the central applications running 64-bit? Better Quicktime and a new Safari? I don't even use QT and Safari. And it's $29? Too little to be too much, but still a lot for a service pack.

cpr 17y ago
When Apple first announce 10.6, they said it wouldn't have any end-user features, but just a lot of re-engineering under the hood. Well, they couldn't help themselves, and there are a bunch of smaller features, plus things like Exchange support across the board. And there really has been a lot of re-engineering, most of it focussed on making things a lot faster and smaller. I think Apple deserve our thanks for actually making performance and improved footprint an explicit goal of a major release, rather than larding on new feature after new feature in some kind of misguided feature war.
pibefision 17y ago
Also, there is some software that needs an update to work well on Snow Leopard, for example MacPorts.
- arthurk 17y ago
  Apple has a few employees working on MacPorts who, along with the ADC devs, did a great job updating it for Snow Leopard in the past few months. 1.8-rc1 has already been tagged in svn and I'm sure the final version will be ready in time :)
  - Zev 17y ago
    I think what everyone likes to point out re: MacPorts isn't MacPorts itself, but the software that it compiles, that needs work still.
yardie 17y ago
Did you even read link? Here http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/ are the new features that went into this release. And your comment doesn't even make sense, first you say it's a service pack than you rattle off a short list of new and upgraded items. These things do cost money to develop. And I'm pretty sure $29 barely covers the cost of it. I don't remember anything new being in Windows when a SP rolled out except a new browser. (There was the uPNP browser that popped up in SP2 I believe)
- mseebach 17y ago
  Every other "system update" reboot I've made for the past 20 months seems to have included an update to QuickTime and Safari -- both of which, by the way, are available as free downloads -- and the prominent featuring of those two products as a component of a whole new version of an OS makes it feel like a service pack.
  - nudded 17y ago
    > and the prominent featuring of those two products as a component of a whole new version of an OS makes it feel like a service pack. point me to a page that only displays those 2 updates as the main features. In my browser Apple is clearly marketing the 64-bit, Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL as the main reasons to upgrade. Also stop referring to an OS upgrade as a service pack. Because it isn't. Microsoft releases service packs, just like Apple releases minor updates to their OS, (eg. 10.5.7)
    - thras 17y ago
      Also stop referring to an OS upgrade as a service pack. Because it isn't. Well, that convinced me!
      - unalone 17y ago
        Thras, I'll ask you this completely sincerely, because I don't and never have understood this. Why do you, and people like you, get off from reading a lengthy debate on a topic online, and ignoring every point except the one that's not a point, then snarking about it? It's not just you: A lot of people do it, and it baffles me. I always really enjoy being told why my opinion on something is wrong, and these snarky responses don't seem to prove anything.
ionfish 17y ago
It depends on what you plan to do with it, I suppose. I'm personally happy to pay merely for a decent chunk of performance improvements (isn't that what we do when we buy faster computers, after all?), but the new frameworks are also interesting—OpenCL, for example.
stevoski 17y ago
Snow Leopard has always been described by Apple as a performance and stability upgrade.
Xixi 17y ago
Apple choosed speed, optimization and refinement over features. And I welcome this choice wholeheartedly, enough bloat already... make my OS faster, slimmer and more robust and I'll be happy. Sadly the price point of Snow Leopard, and the sort of reaction that you have make me think that the big shops will continue to make ever more massive and bloated softwares... After all, you get what you are ready to pay for : if you think features are worth more bucks than optimization, that's what you'll get.

sant0sk1 17y ago

Nice to see Apple shipping before their publicized time frame (September). A rarity.

prakash 17y ago
The other way to look at this is that Apple gave themselves plenty of buffer to ship.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- raganwald 17y ago
  True, but unlike practically everyone else they didn't allow their work to fit the expanded time available. Everyone builds in buffers and pads their estimates, but few people are able to work to their original true estimate.
  - JeremyChase 17y ago
    OpenBSD has done it 26 times in a row: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/07/16/2322203/Why-OpenBSDs-Release-Process-Works http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/07/16/2322203/Why-OpenBSDs... PS: This article was written before 4.6 has was minted; it will actually be released a full month early.
    - raganwald 17y ago
      Well done OpenBSD contributors and stewards!
    - dylanz 17y ago
      I wish other companies would follow OpenBSD, in regard to releases, package management, etc. Their community is awesome. Abrasive at times... but awesome ;)
  - prakash 17y ago
    True, but unlike practically everyone else they didn't allow their work to fit the expanded time available. Again, how do we know they didn't account for it when they buffered initially? Maybe they had a different internal timeline (end of aug) vs. an external timeline. Only way to know is if one is in the Snow Leopard team or has access to that kind of info.

siculars 17y ago

just ordered the family box set. better deal, imho. http://store.apple.com/us/product/MACBOX-101801 http://store.apple.com/us/product/MACBOX-101801 click the family pack option... Also, there is no difference in price when purchasing under the education store, afaik.

bcl 17y ago
I really like the Apple Family pack pricing. I almost never buy a single copy anymore.

uggedal 17y ago

What about those stuck on Tiger (my gf)? Buy Leopard and Snow Leopard update or buy a full version?

pmorici 17y ago
In the description it says perfect way to upgrade for tiger users, does it not?
stuff4ben 17y ago
I'm still on Tiger and I'm probably not going to upgrade. I have a first-gen "lapburner" MBP which works just fine. Leopard didn't really offer anything ground breaking and it doesn't appear Snow Leopard will either. And I figure anything ground-breaking will require newer hardware, so I guess I'll stay on Tiger until the machine stops working. Which coincidentally is also why XP users don't upgrade either.
- zzkt 17y ago
  I've upgraded a few MBPs (1st & 2nd gen) and even some old powerbooks all of which perform perceivably better with 10.5 YMMV
- yardie 17y ago
  I think it depends. If you have a first-gen MBP than you are better off getting the new OS. 10.4 "supported" Intel chips but it always felt like a hack between PPC and Intel platforms. 10.5, and each update since, has gotten progressively better for Intel chips. I think you've fallen for the marketing trap where a list of features has to be present for it to be worth something. Not many lists include code and platform optimizations because it doesn't market well. I've used OS X since 10.1 and each update has gotten remarkably better. Things have mellowed out in 10.5 but the OS feels fully baked.
  - stuff4ben 17y ago
    Good points, but I don't think I'm falling for a marketing trap to want something tangible for paying out $130. The OS works fine for me now. If Apple wants more money for me then I want more than just optimized code. In the end I don't think there really is anything they can do to make me pay more money for the OS. I already bought iWork 08, I bought SuperDuper! for backup, and everything else I use is either open source or comes included with the machine. If Apple wants me to upgrade, then they need to discontinue security updates for 10.4 or some widget I badly need needs to be 10.5+. And honestly, it's not me that Apple has to contend with, it's my wife and her iron grip over the budget ;)

m_eiman 17y ago

What's with the query string on the link, is that an affiliate identifier? The link works just fine without it, in either case.

mrduncan 17y ago
No, not an affiliate id I simply copied the url straight out of my address bar - I'm guessing it's a session id or something. Here is the id-less link for anyone who doesn't believe me (I can't change the url of the post unfortunately): http://store.apple.com/us/product/MAC_OS_X_SNGL http://store.apple.com/us/product/MAC_OS_X_SNGL
- natrius 17y ago
  If it were an affiliate ID, I don't see why it would matter.

mdasen 17y ago

May I ask how it is "now available"? From the site, it says that it will be delivered Friday. Did Apple not update the page this links to? Is this an "it's available for purchase now for delivery later" post that the headline is misleading me on?

mrduncan 17y ago
Fair point, I've updated the headline to reflect the delivery date.
sho 17y ago
Oh, it's "now available" all right. Might not be 100% legal in your jurisdiction, though.

feverishaaron 17y ago

Anyone know how those of us who bought an mac recently get it for $10? I didn't see a link on that page.

mwijns 17y ago
It seems so: http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/
- feverishaaron 17y ago
  Thanks. Just found it as well.
- feverishaaron 17y ago
  FYI, as of right now, they aren't passing the info from the verification screen to the cart correctly, so you have to use the fax-in form. http://images.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/docs/OSX_HW_UTD_FF.pdf http://images.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/docs/OSX_HW_UTD_FF.p...
  - there 17y ago
    i just ordered it through their website after qualifying my recent macbook pro. it worked fine and i didn't have to fax anything.
  - bittersweet 17y ago
    I am having the same problem on the European (Dutch) store as well when I followed the link to computers bought on the Apple store itself. When I follow the link for computers bought via a reseller it works without a problem.

cpr 17y ago

http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/ for all those who claims it's just a service pack. But, as I said elsewhere, the major improvements are under the hood.

johns 17y ago
As a non Mac OS user, that link just reinforces to me that it looks like just a service pack. But at $29, I don't think it matters. If it were $129, that would be ridiculous.
- umjames 17y ago
  As a user, yes, but as a developer, there's some really awesome stuff in this release (both from the perspectives of the apps being developed and from the tools used to build them). Can't wait.
- cpr 17y ago
  Whoops--I didn't realize that all the changes weren't under that one link. You have to look at all four: http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/universal-access/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/universal-access/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/exchange/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/exchange/
- tjweir 17y ago
  Maybe this blog post will help: http://reverttosaved.com/2009/08/24/helpful-hints-for-mac-users-whining-and-moaning-about-snow-leopard/ http://reverttosaved.com/2009/08/24/helpful-hints-for-mac-us...

FiveFiftyOne 17y ago

I'll get it and pray that the Exchange integration makes using Mail and iCal a little smoother. Besides, I just like upgrading to new releases :-)

cubicle67 17y ago
Note: Exchange 2007 only
stewiecat 17y ago
If I can dump Entourage the $29 will be more than worth it.

kasterma 17y ago

Requires: Mac computer with an Intel processor. No upgrade for my 12" powerbook. :-( http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html

kasterma 17y ago

Requires: Mac computer with an Intel processor. No upgrade for my 12" powerbook. :-( http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html

brk 17y ago
This is a surprise? I think that lack of support for the PPC Mac's has been pretty well known for some time now.
philfreo 17y ago
I think the removal of PowerPC support is why the OS is now something like 6 or 7GB smaller than before.
- dchest 17y ago
  The same mistake, again and again. Please read http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=747316 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=747316
- Zev 17y ago
  But it then adds in x86_64 support, which brings the size back up. The smaller files are likely to be from not installing all the resources (localizations, drivers, etc) at once if not needed.
  - imajes 17y ago
    it no longer ships with printer drivers i think - these are now supported by the software update mechanism that keeps os x up to date.
  - dchest 17y ago
    Localizations are there.

far33d 17y ago

Can someone give a quick non-marketing-speak version of what Grand Central Dispatch really does?

cubicle67 17y ago
something to do with phonecalls I think... Actually (and I'll hide my lack of knowledge by being vague) it's a means of making it easier for developers to create robust multicore capable software. I think.
Hoff 17y ago
GCD is an updated and up-rated scheduler for Mac OS X. The following does contain marketeering, but also has some decent technical details: http://images.apple.com/macosx/technology/docs/GrandCentral_TB_brief_20090608.pdf http://images.apple.com/macosx/technology/docs/GrandCentral_...
- scott_s 17y ago
  While I'm sure the scheduler had to be changed to accommodate it, it's not primarily a new scheduler. It's really a sophisticated thread pool system implemented in the kernel and exposed to programmers through language extensions. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_pool_pattern http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_pool_pattern for the basics on the idea - which has been around for a long time.
  - far33d 17y ago
    Thanks - this makes more sense. Just a scheduler wouldn't explain how "With GCD, threads are handled by the operating system, not by individual applications. GCD-enabled programs can automatically distribute their work across all available cores, resulting in the best possible performance whether they’re running on a dual-core Mac mini, an 8-core Mac Pro, or anything in between."
    - ajross 17y ago
      Yeah, that sounds about right. It's a thread API that relies on applications providing "blocks" of work to the OS, and transferring their arguments and results around in message queues. So if you have five applications running, each of which has 8 threads to handle the needed parallelism on a Nehalem box, you don't need 40 separate threads and their stacks. The OS just spawns 8 threads. That sounds OK, if kinda unexciting. I'd like to see some benchmarks vs. traditional threading before I commit to liking it. History is littered with cute new IPC mechanisms that didn't turn out to have the benefits promised. This sounds a lot like a combination of sysv message queues and solaris doors, neither of which managed to drive much real innovation.

jpcx01 17y ago

Holy shit. Early chrismas!

jamesbritt 17y ago

Does anyone know if installing Snow Leopard requires the user to agree to allow Apple to collect unspecified user data?

donw 17y ago

Anybody know if you can install this on a clean hard drive? I've got Leopard on my MacBook, but want to swap out the existing drive and start fresh on a new SSD. Would be nice to not have to do a Leopard -> Snow Leopard dance.

potatolicious 17y ago
Apple doesn't do "upgrades" - if you bought a retail copy it will install fresh on any Intel Mac.
- dchest 17y ago
  Technically, it does (cheap upgrade copy of Tiger for those, who purchased Mac with Panther after the announcement of Tiger, required Panther). Still, I believe it's true that you can do a fresh install.

sho 17y ago

You might want to hold off a little while before upgrading, at least until 10.6.1. I upgraded my laptop 3 days ago and since then I've had at least 5 Mail.app crashes, finder a couple of times, and one terminal crash. I did an upgrade install, maybe a clean one is better, but I'm pretty surprised at the instability. Also, if you use Macports, that's not up to speed yet so you'll be doing a lot of fiddling around to get that working. For example, I had to patch the port for Erlang to get that to install on 10.6, there's probably others. Wait a few weeks and that should all be sorted out for you.

unalone 17y ago
How'd you get 10.6? Were they releasing developer copies?
- sho 17y ago
  Sure, but only high level developers got them. However, I was able to learn the final build number from a friend, then I just downloaded it off BT. I have a copy on order but couldn't wait. Call it time-shifting.
  - grantj 17y ago
    Could your instability be attributed to the fact that you might not be running the actual release version (or has been modified in some nefarious way)?
    - sho 17y ago
      I should have mentioned that I also had the md5 of the release image. Needless to say, I verified it. There is no practical possibility that it is not bit-for-bit identical to the retail version.
  - antonovka 17y ago
    Given that you acquired an illicit copy over the intertubes of unknown origin and authenticity, perhaps you should refrain from commenting?

rbanffy 17y ago

I am quite surprised no other operating system has something like GCD. Is that MarketingSpeak or is it really something new?

prospero 17y ago
.NET has had runtime-wide thread pools since its inception. Unless there's something fundamental about GCD that I'm missing, that puts Windows at least 7 years ahead of OSX on this count.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  Well... Java had them (in almost every OS it ran on) since day 1 too. That puts it a couple years ahead of .NET
  - prospero 17y ago
    Sure. I'm not trying to say that Windows was ahead of its time, but rather that Apple seems to be making a big deal out of a feature I'm kind of shocked they didn't already have.
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      Same here. I am astonished no student added something like this to BSD in the late 80s ;-)
  - pohl 17y ago
    I think the point of GCD is that the concept is being brought down to the C, C++, and Objective-C layers, through the introduction of "blocks"... http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/friday-qa-2008-12-26.html http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/friday-qa-2008-12-26.htm... http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/friday-qa-2009-08-14-practical-blocks.html http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/friday-qa-2009-08-14-pra... I agree there's too much marketing hype surrounding GCD, but neither the CLR nor the JVM can jump through that particular hoop.

plainspace 17y ago

here is a link to the 09 wwdc presentation. you can skip to the 10.6 section: http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/0906paowdnv/event/index.html?internal=ijalrmacu http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/0906paowdnv/event/inde...

dny 17y ago

The first OS and computer that is fully accessible out of the box. http://www.apple.com/macosx/universal-access/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/universal-access/ I can't believe it has been considered important enough to be one of the major features of Snow Leopard, I am so happy for the blind and visually impaired. They did it with the new iPhone the first commercialized accessible touchscreen and they are doing it again with the new Mac OS. Apple is the most innovative tech company there is no doubt about it.

snprbob86 17y ago

Even in marketting copy, Apple's design taste is unrivaled: http://www.apple.com/macosx/ http://www.apple.com/macosx/ http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/ http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/ I mean seriously, how many levels of tabs are too many? http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/whats-new.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/whats-ne...

wayneb 17y ago
> Only in marketing, Apple's design taste is unrivaled... Fixed that for you.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
unalone 17y ago
Apple's marketing is an added feature. I get a lot of joy looking through their ad copy, in a way that I get out of very few marketing departments'. I always wonder why Microsoft is so bad at advertising. They're not a stupid company. They create products that are nearly always good, if rarely (in my opinion) great. But they've never shown any sort of strength-of-focus and they make things that are ugly. I don't get it. In cases like this, it's easier to make something that's stark and simple than it is to make something cluttered and unappealing.
- wmeredith 17y ago
  The difference you're seeing is design that's driven by an individual with a single strong voice versus a committee. For clarification, I'm saying that Steve Jobs designed this web page, but whoever did was someone with the authority and the balls to say, "no" over and over to many different people. Those Windows 7 pages reek of too many cooks in the kitchen and/or lack of leadership.
  - snprbob86 17y ago
    This rings truer than ever: http://dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html http://dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html