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Apple’s Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard sets stage for multicore future

Monday, August 31, 2009 · 12:11 pm · 12 Comments

“Apple began shipping Snow Leopard on Friday, but the true importance of the Mac OS X update likely will emerge well afterward,” Stephen Shankland reports for CNET. “‘We’re trying to set a foundation for the future,’ said Wiley Hodges, director of Mac OS X marketing.”

“Apple shed some light on its project, called Grand Central Dispatch, at its Worldwide Developer Conference in June, but most real detail was shared only in with programmers sworn to secrecy,” Shankland reports. “Now the company has begun talking more publicly about it and other deeper projects to take advantage of graphics chips and Intel’s 64-bit processors.”

Shankland reports, “The moves align Apple better with changes in computing.”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Dan L." for the heads up.]

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Comment Feed

12 Comments

Demon

Monday, August 31, 2009 - 12:16 pm · Reply

Of course it does. Apple get’s it. Microsoft just make the customer suffer 32bit and multi core dumb that’s a Windows OS.
Tommy Boy

Monday, August 31, 2009 - 12:18 pm · Reply

The “future”? But all the stories I’ve been reading at cNet say that the MacOS is just now catching up to Windows.
PR

Monday, August 31, 2009 - 12:40 pm · Reply

Good one Tommy!

I just bought a Mac Pro a few months ago, knowing that Snow Leopard and later OS builds will take advantage of the multi core architecture. Apple is doing this the right way… very, very, very smart.
Ted End

Monday, August 31, 2009 - 1:02 pm · Reply

Somebody catch me. Please. A good and well-informed article from CNet? Who’da thunk this was possible?

I urge all MDN readers to click on the link and read the article. Carefully. It will lay to rest the FUD PR talking points spewed by Microsoft that Snow Leopard is merely a “service pack.” It’s not. Stephen Shankland of CNet makes it clear what Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL offer developers and by extension, end users. He also makes clear why Snow Leopard presently launches in 32-bit mode by default, in part because so few apps or drivers have been written yet to take advantage of 64-bit computing (not to mention that the majority of Macs now in use don’t have the RAM to make 64-bit computing useful – YET).

For those of you who don’t really understand what 64-bit computing is about, read this article. Many of us won’t be able to take full advantage of 64-bit computing with our current Mac hardware. As noted, 3rd party developers now have to do their part and use the new tools to upgrade their apps to utilize Grand Central Dispatch, OpenCL and 64-bit addressing. And as Intel moves forward with the development of their CPUs, coming generations of Macs will be able to address significantly more RAM. Because it takes time for a CPU to address larger amounts of RAM, faster CPUs with more cores (and now the OS technology to let developers optimize their apps for this), faster RAM and faster buses will be needed. Otherwise, as Apple correctly notes, you may see a slight performance hit.

So what will 64-bit computing do? It’s not necessarily about speed, although being able to do more in RAM rather than using a scratch disk on your hard drive will help applications like Photoshop. But 64-bit computing is also more precise, which, for large databases, gene sequencing, heavy-duty graphics and video apps means the developers will be able to do much more.

The real benefits to Snow Leopard are not yet apparent to most journalists or pundits (or clueless readers who have littered message boards with ignorant drivel). In fact, the real power of Snow Leopard probably won’t be apparent for at least a year or two. Then, and maybe then, will the ignorant open their eyes and understand that Snow Leopard was never a “service pack” but a groundbreaking step forward in computing. Kudos to Stephen Shankland of CNet for getting the facts right and explaining things so well.

CNet? Yeah, I know. CNet. I’m still shaking my head with amazement.
DLMeyer

Monday, August 31, 2009 - 2:40 pm · Reply

Not to denigrate SL or 64-bit, but if 64-bit is the best SL has to offer, it’s over-rated. 64-bit is excellent for Enterprise Class computers. Most USER software, though, like MS Office, iLife and iWork … these can pretty much be done by 32-bit systems – or even 16-bit systems. I remember a perfectly fine Graphic Word Processor on my C= 128 D (also available on the Apple ][ ) !
Don’t over-focus on any single “feature”, it may not be the big deal you think it is. Or it may … depending on many, many factors.
macslut

Monday, August 31, 2009 - 3:25 pm · Reply

@Ted End,

It’s CNET, not CNet.
red drink

Monday, August 31, 2009 - 3:30 pm · Reply

@Ted End – In which ways is 64-bit computing more precise?
John

Monday, August 31, 2009 - 3:56 pm · Reply

Moving to apps to 64 bit usually have any speed increases and many time performance actually decreases.
cw

Monday, August 31, 2009 - 4:31 pm · Reply

Yeah— but it launches in 32 bit for i-macs?
What a bucha B.S.
Make the memory FASTER !
Make the cpu FASTER !
Can’t somebody make a 4 GHZ, 5 GHZ, 10GHZ etc cpu?
Is that out of the question? Btw, who remembers the transputer?
since1985

Monday, August 31, 2009 - 5:35 pm · Reply

But Snow Job said in another MDN thread today that 10.6 was just a service pack. You mean Snow Job is ignorant??
kneugent

Monday, August 31, 2009 - 6:52 pm · Reply

@ cw:

10GHZ ?

I hope this does not sound as though I am speaking down to you, but no, they cannot. The very reason that computer manufacturers are putting in multiple cores is because of the ceiling that they hit in trying to boost the speed on CPU’s. The heat that they produce as they head over the 3 GHZ line is far too intense to be managed within a small confined space. A 10GHZ CPU would melt through your desk in about 6 seconds (no, that is not a precise estimate. It’s an exaggeration for the sake of effect). You’d probably get an Electro-Magnetic Pulse off the damn thing.
cw

Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - 6:02 pm · Reply

Want a computer that instantly translates a foreign language, or understands your gestures? It will take powerful transistors to build such a system, says Intel–which takes a step in that direction by unveiling on Monday a high-speed transistor technology designed to produce 10-GHz CPUs in five to ten years.

The new CMOS transistors feature structures just 0.03 microns wide and three atomic layers thick, says Rob Willoner, a market analyst in the technology and manufacturing group at Intel. He refers to them as 30 Nanometer Transistors.

Of course, I could just be wrong. But I believe I heard IBM also is working on that. (10 GHZ)
It seems hard to believe— 3 GHZ— That’s it? Maybe a different kind of chip, or something that’s not a chip.