“According to rumors, the release of Mac OS X 10.6, Apple’s operating system also known as Snow Leopard, might arrive a bit early,” Erica Ogg reports for CNEt. “Although Apple announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June that Snow Leopard would hit stores in September, tech blogs became excited when it was whispered that it might be ready to debut on or about 28 August.”
“Much of the new shine to OS X 10.6 comes from changes that are under the surface, possibly not obvious to the unobservant,” Ogg reports. “But Apple does say the improvements make the overall OS much faster, including a 45-percent faster installation than the previous version of the operating system, OS X 10.5, or Leopard.”
“Apple is also promising faster boot times, quicker shut down, a speedier process when joining wireless networks, and faster backups to Time Machine,” Ogg reports. “And it is not just quicker, Apple says, it is lighter: upon install it frees up 6GB of space.”
“Quicktime gets a mysterious new version number, and is now called Quicktime X. It is a bit slicker, and the new interface appears similar to the iPhone’s media player,” Ogg reports. “The real change is that many features that were previously in the Pro version of Quicktime are now in the free version.”
Ogg reports, “Overall, it looks like this will be a worthwhile upgrade if the speed claims turn out to be true. Another way of looking at is that for the price of the Quicktime to Quicktime Pro upgrade, you get most of the Quicktime Pro features plus a newly tweaked core OS.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s official release date has not been announced and the company’s website states, “Mac OS X Snow Leopard is scheduled to be released in September 2009.”
Arriving early and snappy!
Everything about Snow Leopard is pointing towards much increased snappiness. Since speed and overall lightness of this release seems to be its biggest feature, they might have as well called it Snappy Leopard.
this should be a free update to Leopard users.
No real big new features and just refinements mean people shouldn’t have to pay for it.
I can see that yesterday Apple Online Store charged my card for the pre-ordered a couple weeks ago Snow Leopard.
“Also known as Snow Leopard?” Duh, Who wrote that? I think everyone knows what the name of the new operating system is.
I don’t mean to pick on her literary skills, but at a certain point you’ve gone from a journalist to a reporter. Yes, there is a literary difference. I know I might be acting like a douche at the moment but having been a writer all my life, “conocido también como” Is such a poor term for such a wonderful new thing. How about, “The new operating system Snow Leopard”…. I hope it comes out sooner than speculated, then I can stop hearing people refer to it in such a manner, Oh and this idiot that doesn’t know what Quicktime for leopard is. It’s your Mom Jeez… FP
Great, I’m going to have to wait months until avid gets protools 8 working on it…….
Peter,
Not even worth responding to your cry-baby post, but Apple has probably spent upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars investing into Snow Leopard. As a business, they’d be a fool to just give that away. Leopard is a solid operating system, so no, Snow Leopard should no be free.
I just went from 6 to midnight
Noone is forcing you to buy it Peter.
I think the finished Snow Leopard product is essential to Apple’s upcoming tablet device. IMHO, the OS has to be full-featured like OS X but with an iPhone enhanced interface. You have to be able to run apps like iWork, iLife, etc., but still control it with Multi-Touch, which these apps weren’t designed to do.
Having the speed boost and smaller footprint will be critical to operating on a tablet.
@ericdano
That is why I ditched Digidesign for MOTU. Lucky for me I was able to do that- ProTools was not my bread and butter job, and only used it for music editing. I really liked ProTools, but the upgrade cycles were rediculous. I actually like the MOTU hardware a lot better- much higher quality and works with Core Audio with no fussing around. Plus MOTU is VERY Mac friendly.
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Dump ProTools now!!!! They are the Microsoft of the music world. I will never open that program again. Logic Studio is the only way to go.
This news about Snow Leopard coming early is a bit late.
to ProTools? (that’s a bit confusing user name)
Most semi-pro or independent musicians will do fine with MOTU (or Logic, or even GarageBand for quite a lot of situations). The problem about ProTools is, it is the Photoshop of audio world. Practically EVERY record and movie studio, as well as most other audio facilities have standardised on Pro Tools and nothing else. If you are mixing/mastering your work outside of your own environment, bringing your project in anything other than Pro Tools won’t do you much good. I like Pro Tools as well, but for years, I had preferred Cubase, and now I like Logic very much. Garage Band is my favourite toy for quick and short-form work. Pro Tools interface has grown old. Others have refined theirs and made it integrated with the features of Leopard.
Having said all that, it is very likely that most Pro Tools users (whether M-Audio, or Digidesign hardware) should be able to upgrade to Snow Leopard without any issues; there aren’t going to be any radical changes with Core Audio, MIDI and other components critical for audio hardware support. Obviously, we’ll have to wait and hear from the early adopters (and Digidesign themselves, of course).
Snow Leopard, er, uh, Leopard service pack 1 will be released shortly.
Poor Peter.
Fool.
Greg M:
Service Pack usually implies fixes for as system that didn’t work well in the first place. At least, MS contributed heavily and consistently with such perception; whenever new version of Windows came out (W95, W2k, WMe, XP, Vista), it was buggy until SP1 came out.
Unlike Windows, Mac OS always came out fairly stable (compared to Windows) before its first update.
Your comments are as worthless as this throw-away article. Apple has invested years of time on Snow Leopard. If you recall, major OS-X releases used to be an annual event. That Apple needed significantly more time for 10.6 should tell you something. This is the first 64-bit OS for Apple, and acomplishing this is a huge advance. The Finder was
completely rewritten (I believe in Cocoa -correct me if I am wrong), and many oter changes and advances were made. And you want this for free? A service pack? Your ignorance makes my head hurt. You owe it to yourselves to read up on Snow Leopard and what it will offer. If you are complaining about the incredibly low cost for this new version, compare that o the cost of Windows 7. I rest my case.
Relax guys. My comment was a stab at MDN because of their constant Microsoft bashing and not a stab at Apple.
I’ll be among the first to pony up $49. I’m glad that Apple chose to discount the new OSX given that the improvements are under the hood. Their choice to only charge for the development of the software and not to make a profit on it at this time will get them a lot of good PR.
Didn’t I just read that Apple hired a guy who used to work for Digidesign (ProTools)?….
In any case, I’m sure they’ll all be compatible sooner rather than later…
Not so sure about Adobe’s products, though…
Anyone supporting Entourage in an Exchange environment will be eager to get their hands on Snow Leopard. Why wait a year for M$ to finally get Outlook on the Mac again when 10.6 has proper Exchange connectivity built-in? Oh, and M$ will also be charging their hefty price for Office 2010 too.
Only 29.00 and a year earlier than M$? Got my company P.O. already lined up.
The Dude abides.
Should have called it Mac OS X Crocodile because it’s so snappy!
From Apple’s product page:
More reliable disk eject.
I kinda laughed. $29 is a small price for snappy.
Well of course the website still says Septemeber. Even if it releases on the 28th, it would be September by the time most get their hands on it and install it.
However, I do see a few jabs at the next keynote that says something about being early instead of late.
I’ll gladly pay $29 for the 6GB hard drive reduction.
Some people……..