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: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:2005-07-23
Windows versions (the last ones) have lasted way longer than OS X versions, and very few applications REQUIRE Vista, so you can still run 2k/XP with no problems.
Also you don't have to trash your whole computer if Microsoft decides that you need something a little better than you currently have.
And even if they did a Windows machine doesn't cost as much.
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Member since:
2006-01-23
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.