Apple has posted information on the company’s website regarding Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Mac OS X 10.6 Server Snow Leopard.
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: Since 2001, Mac OS X has delivered more than a thousand innovative new features. With Snow Leopard, the next major version of the world’s most advanced operating system, Mac OS X changes more than its spots, it changes focus. Taking a break from adding new features, Snow Leopard — scheduled to ship in about a year — builds on Leopard’s enormous innovations by delivering a new generation of core software technologies that will streamline Mac OS X, enhance its performance, and set new standards for quality. Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X, making it even more efficient for users, and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos.
• 64-bit: To accommodate the enormous amounts of memory being added to advanced hardware, Snow Leopard extends the 64-bit technology in Mac OS X to support breakthrough amounts of RAM — up to a theoretical 16TB, or 500 times more than what is possible today. More RAM makes applications run faster, because more of their data can be kept in the very fast physical RAM instead of on the much slower hard disk.
• Multicore: “Grand Central,” a new set of technologies built into Snow Leopard, brings unrivaled support for multicore systems to Mac OS X. More cores, not faster clock speeds, drive performance increases in today’s processors. Grand Central takes full advantage by making all of Mac OS X multicore aware and optimizing it for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors. Grand Central also makes it much easier for developers to create programs that squeeze every last drop of power from multicore systems.
• OpenCL: Another powerful Snow Leopard technology, OpenCL (Open Computing Language), makes it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit (GPU). With GPUs approaching processing speeds of a trillion operations per second, they’re capable of considerably more than just drawing pictures. OpenCL takes that power and redirects it for general-purpose computing.
• Media and Internet: Using media technology pioneered in OS X iPhone, Snow Leopard introduces QuickTime X, a streamlined, next-generation platform that advances modern media and Internet standards. QuickTime X features optimized support for modern codecs and more efficient media playback, making it ideal for any application that needs to play media content. Because Snow Leopard delivers the fastest implementation of JavaScript to date, web applications are more responsive. Safari runs JavaScript up to 53 percent faster with Snow Leopard.
• Microsoft Exchange Support Snow Leopard includes out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 built into Mail, Address Book, and iCal. Mac OS X uses the Exchange Web Services protocol to provide access to Exchange Server 2007. Because Exchange is supported on your Mac and iPhone, you’ll be able to use them anywhere with full access to your email, contacts, and calendar.
Mac OS X 10.6 Server Snow Leopard: Mac OS X Server, the world’s easiest-to-use server operating system, combines an intuitively simple interface with a rock-solid UNIX foundation to allow even nontechnical individuals to set up and manage a server. Since it was first released, Mac OS X Server has delivered hundreds of new features and innovations, including Open Directory, iCal Server, Podcast Producer, Wiki Server, NetBoot, NetInstall, and Xgrid. Snow Leopard Server, the next generation of Mac OS X Server, delivers new core software technologies and services designed to better connect your business, unleash the power of modern hardware, and lay the foundation for a new wave of innovations.
• ZFS: For business-critical server deployments, Snow Leopard Server adds read and write support for the high-performance, 128-bit ZFS file system, which includes advanced features such as storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshots.
More info about Mac OS X 10.6 Server Snow Leopard here.
Source: Apple Inc.
@@Gabriel and @@Simian,
The debate about the benefits and drawbacks of the kernel design of Mac OS X predate and extend beyond just that one OS. For reference as to whether OS X has a microkernel architecture I offer this post and the accompanying thread for educational purposes: http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=437182&cid=22248620
As to whether Snow Leopard has “no new features”… Linux devotees need to get their story straight. It would seem the biggest complaint coming from the Linux camp would be that OS X is locked down with a bunch of preconfigured features and eye candy that supposedly computer saavy people don’t need or want. And now that the next version of the OS seems to concentrate on becoming more efficient (which Linux fans contend is a core design principle of the OS) then the line becomes that Mac sheep are willing to pay for anything, as if speed and efficiency have no value whatsoever. Or, alternately, the argument presupposes the engineers in 1999 and 2000 who wrote OS X (adapting it from older NeXT and BSD source code) should have known what hardware architectures and software design best practices would be in place in 2008 and now it should just be a free upgrade. It is not “bug fixing” to modify and tweak the kernel and core userland apps within an OS.
In addition, ask any serious software developer if he or she would prefer to develop software chocked full of [potentially unused] features or take an existing project they’ve worked on (and were rushed to ship) and perfect it. I think you know what side most developers will come down on. And who are Linux enthusiasts if not primarily developers??
That said, I believe Snow Leopard should be sold for $60 or less, given the fact that Leopard sold for just over twice the price and had much more in the way tangible (combined with less tangible) revisions. And value depends on people’s perception. And most people aren’t developers who understand the finer points of code streamlining.
However, If you think all software should be free, there’s Linux.
Yes well. A PC drone trolling a Mac fan site would know all about what Apple offers for the money.
Let me tell you a story.
Our startup studio hired a tech man to do our IT setup. We asked him to look at servers, and to evaluate the Xserve systems.
Probably due to his unfamiliarity with Apple products he skeptically told us the Xserve would undoubtably cost more but he would do his research anyway with an open mind.
Next time I spoke to him he was actually in a state of ‘IT shock’, having not only discovered the Xserve was not more expensive, but that it was cheaper AND (to use his words) sweeter. “Everything you need is built right in. Nothing is an add on.”
That was last week. Today, his first words to me were: “My next laptop is a MacBook.”
You should be able to see what’s happening here. The focus for the software teams is going to downsizing OS X and tuning it for iPhone/iPod Touch.
Steve didn’t say it in so many words, but he just let you all know he has conceded the PC market.
@openvista
Good points. Let’s hope Apple sort out some of the bugs in their file system APIs in the next release.
http://rixstep.com/1/1/20071106,00.shtml