06/04/2008, 3:45pm, EDT
Wednesday, June 4th
Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" at WWDC?
The next boxed version of Mac OS X may be available for preview as soon as June 9th's WWDC conference, according to rumors. Anonymous sources claim that Apple is looking to provide developers with an early version of Mac OS X 10.6 at the event, giving them more time to adjust to its nuances. These should actually be comparatively minimal, as Apple is said to be interested less in new features and more on improving the overall speed, stability and security of Macs.
The major change is said to be a complete elimination of PowerPC support, leaving behind a "cleaner" 64-bit OS, and less incentive for developers to devote time to Universal Binaries. It is also rumored that Apple is considering wrapping the entire OS in Cocoa, granting use of the code to access functions which were previously only open through Carbon; alternately, Apple may only be interested in removing Carbon UI components. Even the OS' codename is uncertain, but it is currently believed to be "Snow Leopard."
The report claims a commercial release of the OS is expected as soon as next year's Macworld conference in January.
Filed under: software, developer, Apple
Other story tags: Mac OS X, Snow Leopard
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fitting
Especially considering Jobs stated that he wanted to have 18 month development cycles for the OS, and since Leopard came out last October, next April would be about the time for the next OS to be released. Interesting that they're rumored to be focusing on speed and stability and not so much on new features.
Mmm...cocoa
If this is true, it should clear up some of the discontinuities of Cocoa. I've run into cases with my latest project where functions that I thought should have been Cocoa-ized by now are still Carbon.I just hope they don't make the OS too Intel-specific so that they have the option of a smooth transition to another architecture like they did with the Intel transition.
Riiiiight
Just after one year Leopard, features of which are not even fully examined by most software developers, will be replaced by brand new OS that won't bring anything new, but will remove some backward compatibility instead... Oh, and did I mention it will be called 'Snow Leopard'?
Seriously people, when will you learn to think straight and hold back your emotions when facing yet another 'info' from anonymous sources?
Cocoa is now
Great news, the future is here and lagging devs better take notice. Looks like Adobe better get it's @$$ in gear. CS4 is still supposed to have a Carbon based Photoshop which is why we get no 64-bit. I hope Apple goes ALL Cocoa. I will pass on CS4 because I'm sure it will be just as buggy as CS3 is under Leopard. InDesign is giving me headaches.
Wow
Nothing more exciting to hear then that my $2500 computer is considered obsolete by Apple's development team.
And then to hear that it might also spur developers to ignore the older platform! Woohoo!
Although just from the blurb above, it's hard to put this OS on the same par as other 10.x releases. But I guess this is what happens when you decide to completely change numbering standards that have been around for decades.
Re: cocoa is now
Well, it's always great to yell at developers for not heeding Apple's warnings/advice. Except Apple is known for changing their minds, screwing over developers. And their history of keeping stuff close to the vest don't help either.
BTW, I don't think if CS4 was Cocoa it would magically not be as buggy as if it is Carbon.
oh...
and saying their going to give out a new version early to developers to work out the nuances is nice, but a lot of developers seemed to have problems with Leopard because of late changes that weren't seeded out (probably because Apple was wary of the P2P getting it before official release).
And wouldn't it be nice to the Leopard users out there (a group I do not belong too, as I haven't yet found enough in Leopard to outweigh the negatives) to offer them the security, stability, and speed improvements...
And as I write that, I see how hillarious it is to think that the next OS release would be just that and not lot's of new features. It's the new features that sell! (Unless they plan on cutting the price). You can't sell "security" to mac users, since they already believe they're secure. Speed? Pshaw! OS X already screams! Stability? That would imply crashing, and Macs don't do that, either.
And with PPC support supposedly going, can Rosetta be far behind? (I know, we're mac users, we should have the $$$ to continually update our software to the latest version. But some people just don't understand that.)
Too soon.
I think it's too soon to eliminate PowerPC boxes. There are still plenty of serviceable G5s out there in use. I would think support another 4 or 5 years would be about right. Even my old G4 Cube and G3 iMac (1999) could run the latest OSX releases until Leopard.
Hopefully this will pan out as nothing more than a rumor.
too soon for edu & xserve
many schools have many G4/G5 less than three years old. many xerves are G4/G5. no one is going to be happy to have to tell their boss that in order to be current you need to buy all that HW over again, and that goes double/triple for banks of $3K xserves...
It's not eliminating G5s
10.5 is a great OS that will last G5s for years to come, if all 10.6 does in increase performance, stability and secure then there's nothing to moan about - 10.5 is still fast, stable and secure.