Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Fri 4th Jul 2008 05:10 UTC, submitted by Dan Warne
An opinion article at APCMag: "The focus of Snow Leopard is on core upgrades, not shiny new features. A bedrock focused update that delivers a streamlined, enhanced OS X. Stability. Efficiency. A "new generation of core technologies." All this is about raising the floor on the entire system. Multi-core optimization, support for 16TB RAM (yes, Terabytes), and a language to allow developers to tap the power of the graphics processor are just a few of the key upgrades. But you can't lift the floor and let people walk around where the floor used to be all at the same time. Not without leaving holes for a potential rising damp problem further down the track."
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Member since:2006-01-23
Actually, if you have an intel Mac rather than a PPC Mac, Snow Leopard will run *faster* on it and use less space. So one wouldn't have to get new hardware in that case.
That having been said, it would be nice if they did have some sort of Snow Leopard for PPC. (Though the only difference really would be that it wouldn't have the larger binaries - the speed improvements are all for taking advantage of multicore processors and modern GPUs, a good idea IMHO.) Definitely nobody's making you buy Snow Leopard, there's no real new features, so there's no "Apple tax" this time around.
That having been said, it would be nice if they did have some sort of Snow Leopard for PPC. (Though the only difference really would be that it wouldn't have the larger binaries - the speed improvements are all for taking advantage of multicore processors and modern GPUs, a good idea IMHO.) Definitely nobody's making you buy Snow Leopard, there's no real new features, so there's no "Apple tax" this time around.
Until Leopard, every major release of Mac OS X ran faster than its predecessor, for me at least.
I really believe that they should continue to support the PowerPC G5 processors simply because they're a good fit. It's not as though anyone (other than fanatics) were expecting PowerPC G4 support to continue past Leopard.
Of course, it seems obvious since Tiger that Apple have struggled with getting an operating system to run efficiently on two different hardware platforms. They'd be wise in their development efforts to drop PowerPC for optimisations or split the work toward the end into two teams.
Member since:2005-07-08
Of course, it seems obvious since Tiger that Apple have struggled with getting an operating system to run efficiently on two different hardware platforms. They'd be wise in their development efforts to drop PowerPC for optimisations or split the work toward the end into two teams.
Well, unfortunately, Apple is a public corporation. Would you want to explain to shareholders why OS X development needed to be divided into two teams, the one that makes money (sells current hardware), and the one that doesn't (sells no hardware)? As much as it would be nice of Apple to make OS X for PPC, it isn't going to happen. Luckily, there are no major hardware incompatibilities that are going to exist for mainstream software made for Snow Leopard to run on Leopard or, unless they use CoreAnimation and the like, Tiger as well. I've noticed that most Mac software runs on older versions of the OS, so there's no real "Apple tax" for OS upgrades for at least two to three version cycles nowadays.
Yes, this probably means eventually PPC hardware will be obsolete, but Apple has eased the transition fairly well it appears. By the time one *needs* to abandon Tiger or Leopard because one is running a PPC in order to run the latest software, that hardware will be pretty old in computer terms. Too old to run a lot of the latest software anyway, if it were a PC, too.
Really, if you want to run Vista, you have to get new hardware too, at a comparable level of age to that of the upcoming Snow Leopard. Although due to Microsoft having to drop all the features except the ones you don't need to get it out the door after it being four years behind schedule, people only need XP. I'm not sure if that's really a better product cycle for an OS, is it?
Edited 2008-07-04 08:18 UTC
Member since:2007-04-23
Member since:2005-07-08
There are multi core PPC processors, and multi processor PPC systems are pretty common too...
Also it's quite possible to fit a modern GPU to a PPC system.
Also it's quite possible to fit a modern GPU to a PPC system.
Except for later PPC Mac Pros that were already very high-end workstation systems to begin with (and thus are replaced rather than run without upgrades for over 6 years by the companies and professionals that need such expensive bleeding edge type systems) it's my understanding that Apple did not sell multiprocessor or multicore (correct me if I'm wrong, I think they didn't sell any multicore PPCs) PPC computers. Thus the argument is essentially correct.
Member since:2008-07-06
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Member since:
2005-07-08
Actually, if you have an intel Mac rather than a PPC Mac, Snow Leopard will run *faster* on it and use less space. So one wouldn't have to get new hardware in that case.
That having been said, it would be nice if they did have some sort of Snow Leopard for PPC. (Though the only difference really would be that it wouldn't have the larger binaries - the speed improvements are all for taking advantage of multicore processors and modern GPUs, a good idea IMHO.) Definitely nobody's making you buy Snow Leopard, there's no real new features, so there's no "Apple tax" this time around.