Your Opinions on Snow Leopard? Good Idea or Bad?

Personally, I think it’s a great idea. I mean, the more lines of code you have the more chance of something going wrong isn’t there? As an incremental update I think it is necessary as the OS is starting to feel slightly fragile after going through Tiger and Leopard.
By taking this step, they will be able to rebuild a new solid foundation upon which to expand by trimming bloat, optimizing for speed and space, improving stability, depreciating old stuff and getting rid of any flaws/security holes. They can also tighten up how the latest builds of OSX applications communicate with each other such as Safari 4.
I like the sound of OSX 10.6 much more than Windows 7, which continues where Vista left off and incorporates existing OSX features.

Regarding the rumor of Apple targeting Intel platforms only, I think it is the most logical step forward. It would be three years old by that time. By focusing on one platform, they can remove the redundant PowerPC code thus reducing the overall footprint. If need be, they could provide a native release afterwards as support until 2010.

This will also allow them to take advantage of upcoming hardware, namely Calpella and Nehalem, by optimizing for multi-core CPUs and HyperThreading. ZFS should also improve SSD performance (cheaper to purchase by next year). As will native 64-bit support and multi-touch.

Also, Quicktime X should, IMO, atleast support WMV/WMA, AVI, XVID, DIVX, MPEG-1/2/4, RM/VB, MOV, H.264, AVCHD, MKV, FLV, OGM/OGG, AC3 … and run as smoothly as VLC does when i'm running these formats. So basically - streamline everything.

 

I'm a very strong supporter of Snow Leopard. Right now, hardware is far ahead of software, in the sense that most software does not utilize 4 GB of RAM, dual and quad cores, the amazing power of graphics cards. I think this is a very good idea, that, really, I think Leopard is very feature-filled at the moment, and to stop and make the OS faster, even better, at a time when every next OS is normally slower and more demanding than the previous, is great news!

 

yes,my fillings exactly!

 

Snow Leopard FTW

 

When is a upgrade ever a negative thing? (no Vista jokes please )

 

i think it is a good idea. they said they will make the OS faster, by optimization; so thats always a good thing.

i wont be buying an upgrade though. i will however probably get whatever OS i get when i bought a new mac.

 

When is it scheduled for release?

 

"Announced briefly by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at WWDC on June 9, 2008, the software is scheduled to ship 'about a year' after the announcement."

Early Q3 2009 would be my guess though.

 

I think Apple is making a good move with 10.6. Cutting out the fat, updating to the latest stable services (SSH etc...), and innovating with OpenCL & Grand Central. I also hope security will play a big part in Snow Leopard, i.e. complete ASLR implementation, beefed up firewall, umask changes, hardening quicktime/safari (as these are main attack vectors), revamping initial setup of users etc...

Can't wait.

 

good idea, but they shouldn't charge for leopard users if it is just abig update building on leopard. only charge if it is a completely new thing like tiger to leopard.

 

I don't expect a full fledged $129 cost for 10.6, but I am expecting it to have some cost, like maybe $20 or $30.

 

I would be happy with a slight cost. Although if they are only improving on the over all performance and minor security fixes for Leopard, then it should be a free upgrade. I mean MS released an SP3 for XP and didn't cost a thing.

I hope apple will pay attention to overall cost of things in the years to come. That is my biggest complaint so far with anything apple. You want more functionality with quicktime, then pay up. Added features for your Iphone or your ipod Touch, guess what PAY UP. Don't get me wrong some things you don't need to upgrade, but it always seems apple is always trying to get into your pocket. And don't get me started about downloading album covers for your already owned music library. 10 cents a pic can add up fast.

Sorry to go off topic lol.

 

yeps, i guess 20 bucks won't kill my pocket..

 

Will 10.6 come pre-installed on notebooks when it's released (for new buyers)?

 

I agree that paying a small amount of around $10-$20 would be ok for me to upgrade my MBP to it. Anything more and I'd definitely stick with Leopard until I get a new Mac.

Definitely it will come pre-installed on all Apple computers when it is released. If it doesn't come with it, I believe Apple will happily give you the install DVD for it for free.

Edit: Just curious, if I get a new Mac when Snow Leopard is released is it OK to install Snow Leopard onto my existing Mac? Or is that a violation of the EULA?

 

I see no reason why not! That's how they've always done it and I don't see why they wouldn't continue to do so .

 

I believe that is a violation of the EULA, unless you purchase a family pack for the OS. I'm not 100% sure though, so don't quote me on it.

 

It is a violation of the EULA, and I think there are some cases where the disc doesn't even work for different Macs. Not sure about that.

So while it may work, it is a violation of EULA, I recommend a family pack, those are really worth the cost!

 

Apple doesn't charge to download album art, and AFAIK, they never have, nor do they have plans to in the future. This is true even if you did not buy the album from itunes.

 

masterchef341 is right, there is no cost for downloading album covers, even for tracks you did not purchase from iTunes. As long as it has the same IDs as the track found on iTunes, the album cover is downloaded free of charge!

 

I think there should be a REALLY cheap upgrade option for Leopard users. That would be awesome.
EMZ=P

 

Can Snow Leopard even be called a major release? So far the only new thing I've heard about for it is the "Grand Central" feature to make better use multi-core machines. Anything else that is regarded as a big feature?

If nothing else, then the update should really be for free for all existing Leopard users. Wishful thinking.

 

Remember, this is only what Apple has released to the public so far. Grand Central is a BIG project, and as a dev, I'm looking forward to what they come up with. I suspect there is going to be a lot of changes under the hood as well. They might have a whole slew of cosmetic and feature changes. We just don't know.

 

They're also utilizing all the power of the graphics cards when they're not being used normally. Its probably not a major update, but more than just 10.5.x. I think most Leopard users will skip this next OS and will acquire all the new technologies by getting 10.7.

 

I was hoping to buy a Macbook Pro with the streamlined Snow Leapord installed.
Here's hoping they provide support for Blu-ray and Intel Solid State Drives.