At ladt night's MacWorld keynote, Apple's last, one product in particular shone in absense: Mac OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard. Many had expected Apple to give out more details regarding its new operating system, maybe even a release date or a developer preview. Instead, all they got was nothing. Some say it's a mistake not to show off Snow Leopard now that Windows 7 is stealing all the thunder. Or is it?
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2006-02-21
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2005-07-06
I think your right in the respect that there is nothing to 'show' at a show like macworld (as far as I understand there is going to be little in the way of top level 'bling')
Macworld is a consumer show
Releasing a developer preview, in my view, would be 100% in apple's interest. The developers need to start using the new toys in snow leopard so they have apps ready for when it launches.
As a cunsumer, with no viable 'bling' changes to the OS why would I upgrade unless there are some big apps that need and take advantage of it? (ala photoshop)
Member since:2005-08-08
I was under the impression that Snow Leopard previews indeed do exist, for those that have paid to be in the apple developer program. That is all Apple need to do, i would expect there to be little or no API changes between .5 and .6 after all, and most of the new technology being in the real of building the foundation for the future rather than trying to catch up somehow.
As a cunsumer, with no viable 'bling' changes to the OS why would I upgrade unless there are some big apps that need and take advantage of it? (ala photoshop)
All new macs would obviously ship with Snow Leopard, and I have yet to see an OS X release not worth upgrading to. I am sure that reduced footprint, improved performance, and some other goodies will be good enough for a large number of geeks. I'm sure the rest will be perfectly happy with their macs as they are. There is no urgency to move people over after all, not in the Microsoft Vista sense. I am sure that Apple will get back to more features in their .7 release of their OS.
I also don't see any reason why anyone at Apple except the ones making their ads need to even peak at Windows 7. Apple sells hardware with a custom made great OS, but they do first and foremost sell the hardware. The Apple stores have all the bling they need:) At least until they make a diamond uni-body computer:) How's that for indestructible!
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Well someone did come up with the diamond studded iphone (http://www.amosu.co.uk/)
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2006-11-08
I'd say it's not stealing Snow Leopard's thunder.
OK the Windows 7 betas are grabbing heaps of headlines but we all know Microsoft's record with delivering an actual release - especially one following such a perceived flop as Vista (i.e. one that needs to not suck right from version x.0).
Apple don't need to rush this one...
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2009-01-07
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2008-12-23
Moving away from Macworld-based product announcement plan?
Probably pro/dev stuff will be presented at the Dev Con, consumer items at some new show or specialised event in the end of year (Christmas sales!).
Apple isn't a Mac company any longer so Macworld doesn't fit better than iWorld or something similar.
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2006-05-26
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Well it depends, on what they are out to.
I assume the biggest issue with Snow Leopard will be the integraton of OpenCL and speed improvements left and right.
The main problem is, how far will apple go, if it just is the service release they announced upfront then the APIs will be in place but we wont see any results before the release after snow leopard. If they want to go the full mile we probably will see first benefits of OpenCL already in Snow Leopard by having hugely improved codecs for video and audio. That OpenCL is a big issue for Apple has become clear to me when they finally ditched the lousy integrated intel graphics adaptors in favor of nvidia adaptors in all of their newly released computers.
The intel adapters simply do not cut it once you want to use the shading parts of the graphics chipsets for raw calculations!
Member since:
2005-07-06
Its funny how these analysts think they know what Apple should display better than the company itself does. Apple is under no obligation to show Snow Leopard, and if it doesn't have all the bugs worked out or finalized on the UI then there is no point since these things will change anyway. This is just someone really really hoping to get some inside information on an unreleased product.
Member since:2005-09-15
If every company knew best, then we wouldn't need analysts. Of course, you'd have to wonder why they weren't all equally successful. I think Apple knows its computing niche is strong but they haven't been able to capitalize as strongly on Vista's perceived flaws as they might have.
See the Wikipedia page for more about the developers' previews that have been released. That page also states that this release is more about performance and efficiency over enduser features - something I'd expect in a Leopard update, but this is Apple, after all.
Member since:
2005-07-06
As Adurbe noted, "Macworld is a consumer show"
Last time I checked, consumers consume, not program.
The main item I was hoping they were coming out with was a new Mac Mini (WITH FireWire). I guess I'll have to wait longer. At least I'll be able to fully take advantage of the updates with iLife and iWork. It's like those products were made specifically for me even if all of the products inside of them (numbers and maybe iMovie) are still not mature enough for me.
Member since:
2007-03-29
After the initial gasps at the new multi-touch interface of Windows 7 I see more and more articles denouncing it as "merely" Vista SP2 (i'm not saying that is necessarily a bad thing, i'm saying the "buzz" around Windows 7 is already waning).
I haven't seen anyone waiting for Snow Leopard with baited breath so far - and I don't expect that to change. Apple should release it when it's ready and not rush out a buggy product (Mac OS X 10.0 I'm looking at you) just to make a quick buck. Now THAT would be a mistake.
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2005-07-06
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I do not think Apple is targeting Snow Leopard for the corporate world, but I do think Apple knows it has to acknowledge it, mainly because of the iPhone, so Apple is eliminating obstacles that would hinder bringing the Mac into the office. (Intel) Leopard is UNIX certified, and Snow Leopard will have out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange Server.
If Apple does make a play for the corporate world it will come with the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Server, which will have an iWork component that will function like iWork.com so workers can share their documents with each other.
Member since:
2008-06-19
Some other poster up the thread pointed out how it's a consumer show and this is really the right point.
There is no interest to show this at a consumer expo, since Snow Leopard won't be focused on bling features or other visible things, but rather the insides. Pretending that it won't won't help anything.
Everyone (=Microsoft?) has to face the fact that with OS X Apple has a, while not perfect, still excellent operating system with an excellent track record, which is viable for still many years to come, and they know it. While Apple is a good hype machine, they seem to realize (at least that's my interpretation) that "hype where hype is due", so they produce high quality hype where it should be placed, but don't hype things where you don't need it. I think this shows that they are serious about their business (TM).
The fact that they didn't show off Snow Leopard just for some (any?) hype at MacWorld makes me want to give them a few props more (now, of course we know they are evil because of the DRM issues, but let's also see that they are one of the more serious companies on this planet, certainly more so than Microsoft.)
(Please forgive the bad English and punctuation, I'm not a native speaker.)
Edited 2009-01-07 19:34 UTC
Member since:2006-01-31
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2008-12-28
the success that Apple has had over the last few years all comes from their ability to approach consumers directly with affordable, quality, cool products that are windows agnostic. iPod with iTunes for windows, the iPhone, the mac Mini with bootcamp - they all work with windows to the point where you might finally say "This stuff is all really nice, why don't I just skip the hassle and get a mac?" the thing they didn't do is try to alienate windows users and make an issue about it. Nobody has to be a freaky Mac person to enjoy Apple products - whatever, they're just nice gear.
I think they need to keep doing this - clearly emphasize along the way why OS X is better but don't make the onramp steep and a big sacrifice. don't make people feel bad, include them and encourage them. if iWork plays well with Google Docs and Google Calendar and your iPhone then you can pretty much get by without windows and all the hassle. but they shouldn't don't get all "us and them" about it, that's totally un-statesmanlike. you can do a lot of the same stuff on windows and linux, I mean come on. it's just not as elegant from a holstic point of view, and time is important when you don't want to mess around with rsync config files and anti-virus packages and all that kind of bullshit.
eventually though, Apple will have to compete with some pretty slick free linux distros, I mean even KDE is looking pretty nice. so I would imagine they'd have a second line of software coming up named something Appley, but distinct from Macintosh. something like Fuji or Delicious or Braeburn (not Granny Smith maybe but...) that goes fully OSS, targeted to the more explicitly messy side of enterprise computing, where the users have more tolerance for the nitty-gritty. (not that you can't on a mac now, but it's all within a safety net) I mean, look at the x86 cloning happening - there's a huge market pull for a white-box OS X, and Apple could deliver.
I say Steve: get back to your roots man. take a risk with a whole other brand, go long term for the smart enterprise. leave Mac stuff alone to grow organically and benefit from the fruits of a raging, disruptive, active, truly empowered OSS community.
Member since:2006-01-31
Unfortunately their adverts do just that.
A majority of my kit used to be Apple branded, but recently I've started to branch out into products that support open standards as, IMO, it really is the way forward - I don't want to be stuck within any one company's eco-system, Apple's or Microsoft's.
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2006-02-09
The plan:
Intro SL DP at WWDC '08. Intro SL RTM WWDC '09.
Always has been.
Macworld has always been a retail consumer oriented show for years. The real OS fun always comes with WWDC. Wilcox is just shilling for Microsoft because they have nothing in the way of really new product to show now that can currently compete with Apple to generate 'buzz'. Oh, and releasing a beta of your next flagship product to P2P networks is just plain stupid; it generated about one hour of 'buzz'. Because Wilcox has nothing else to do but try to fault Apple for Microsoft's gain, he brings up the old, trite, argument that PCs cost less than Macs again. Spec-for-spec, Apple delivers better value at equal or lower cost then any of the other large PC vendors. We've all been over this before except Wilcox probably wasn't paying attention.
Member since:
2008-05-26
What it comes down to is: If you've got nothing on the table, why show your cards? Snow Leopard is Apple's attempt to make sense of the underlying operating system, because Apple's engineers are having a hard time keeping everything stable down there. The other reason for Snow Leopard is, as usual, to obsolete some old hardware and make Apple software require the new operating system; generate some cash-flow by requiring Macintosh users to buy new Macs.
It must be said that the disk-space requirements in SL over Leopard are similar to the current fuel prices. They're lower, but they never needed to be that high in the first place.
Member since:
2008-10-06
Part of realizing you have a problem is realizing you have one.
Seriously.
While Microsoft has the cash flow to coast a decade or more their products currently suck.
This is not a jab or flame but a realistic assessment of working with this POS code on a daily basis at a systems level.
The Redmond-based marketing company, could, and I stress could, have started fresh a Longhorn-time ago with a Unix-like operating system.
But oh well. Such is design by multiple committees.
I'm a PC and I use Linux.
Member since:2006-01-18
Seriously.
While Microsoft has the cash flow to coast a decade or more their products currently suck.
This is not a jab or flame but a realistic assessment of working with this POS code on a daily basis at a systems level.
The Redmond-based marketing company, could, and I stress could, have started fresh a Longhorn-time ago with a Unix-like operating system.
But oh well. Such is design by multiple committees.
I'm a PC and I use Linux.
Well Microsoft bought the VMS chief developers away from Digital back then and Cutler and his crew basically moved the work over towards an OS which became NT. The current line of Windows still has the NT kernel. The problems started when Microsoft started to taint cutlers clean Microkernel work left and right with some marketing stuff (like moving the sound system into the kernel)
Problem 2, Microsoft always played the me too game without checking out which technologies work. Can you guys remember when NextStep came out and Taligent was in the works. Microsoft said again:"Wait we are going to deliver Cairo, our first fully OO operating system"
they promised anything in the world and did deliver windows 95.
Hell even the entire OLE foundation Microsoft wanted to base Cairo on did not scale, it was too complicated too much of a mess and it was semi abandoned (still in use but never ever reached anything NextStep has provided since day 0)
So it now pays off for apple to have gotten the most sophisticated OS at its time, while Microsoft now feels the pain to have Marketing dominating over engineering in the past 15 years!
Member since:2006-02-10
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2006-05-06
Personally I think Apple didnt mention Snow leopard because there is nothing to announce. Snow Leopard was not meant to be a major release so why mention it?
Even if Apple had announced Snow Leopard who would have cared? Im personally tired of Apple and Mac OS X anyway.
Also I think you give Steve Jobs too much credit Thom. He isnt some visionary, he is a used car salesman thats it. Steve Jobs is good enough to sell crap to a sewer plant and people fall for it day after day, month after month, year after year. Without Apple, Steve Jobs would have wound up working for a Ford dealership in Cali.
Edited 2009-01-11 16:31 UTC