More Snow Leopard changes

Several major changes in Apple's next operating system have been revealed, sources claim. Mac OS X Snow Leopard is, according to AppleInsider, expected to completely jettison the Carbon-based version of Finder, in favor of a one written entirely in Cocoa. Apple has said that 64-bit support for Carbon will not be provided, and it may thus make sense to migrate as much code over as possible for maximum performance. Finder is currently one of oldest Carbon components in Mac OS X.

Apple is also expected to introduce a new feature called ImageBoot, a variant on NetBoot. Whereas NetBoot allows people to boot a Mac from a remote disk, ImageBoot should let people boot from external storage or a secondary partition, with the option of choosing among several disk images at startup. This should enable developers to set up multiple test configurations, or anyone to spawn versions of Snow Leopard for different tasks.

Apple may further intend to expand support for Microsoft's Exchange 2007 technology, which lets people synchronize mail, contact and calendar information via corporate servers. This integration is allegedly being deepened throughout iCal, Mail and Address Book, though Apple is said to be pushing testers to focus on Exchange functions like scheduling events in iCal, adding Address Book contacts, and automatic account configuration in Mail.

As soon as this weekend, testing plans may additionally involve expanding the numbers developers involved, past the limited group which typically receives seeds. Testers could in fact include members of the extended Developer Connection network, though this is uncertain.

by MacNN Staff