MacDailyNews Take: Clouded Leopard.
Steinberg continues, “The real question, however, is whether there’s a crying need for a successor to Snow Leopard, and therein lies a tale.”
“While Microsoft appears to be doing well with Windows 7, in terms of early adoption and potential business migrations, there’s little evidence that they have managed to stem the gradual erosion of their operating system’s market share,” Steinberg writes. “They haven’t slowed Mac sales, and making the swichover from XP to Windows 7 so difficult isn’t helping matters.”
“This isn’t to say that Apple will not stage a [Mac OS X 10.7] technology demo at the WWDC. It’s possible they will, just to indicate what they’re working on, and provide a 15 to 18 month estimate for shipping a final version,” Steinberg writes. “That step would move the full feature rollout to WWDC 2011, which would seem a more sensible move.”
Steinberg writes, “It would also help developers if Apple assured them that they could continue to deliver Snow Leopard upgrades without having to confront major compatibility problems when [Mac OS X 10.7] finally ships. But there’s no rush for them or us.”
Much more in the full article, including a discussion of the slow progress of apps supporting Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard tech like Grand Central Dispatch, OpenCL and more, here.
something tells me we will have another event before the iPads launch. ‘iPhone Software 4.0 Roadmap’ and the iPad will ship with 4.0…just my 2cents
why don’t they give the iPhone OS a name…
zeesh!
Name it after birds… like the albatross ?
With the advent of the iPad one gets the feeling that iPhone OS could replace Mac OS for a fair whack of users – with virtually zero learning curve. The iPad could be the infotainment appliance for the rest of us.
I remember when Leopard was released, Steve promised a new version of OS X every 12 to 18 months. Snow Leopard took nearly two years …
The actual cat, Clouded Leopard is also sometimes called Cloud Leopard. Better name, apropos extra meaning.
It would be nice if Apple could just ride the OS for a while. It’s stable, it does what it needs to, it has a lot of features most users don’t even know about and best of all, it’s not MircoSlop.
I’d like to see Apple leverage what they’ve got in place. I run a very small shop and we don’t have time to keep chasing OS and software upgrades.
For another thing, in these economic times we just don’t have the money to keep refreshing software every 12-18 months. It’s not Apples greed, the cost of the OS has been fine but keeping up with the Adobe software we use has been a killer.
Snow Leopard is going to look so ancient in comparison to the iPad. It’ll be weird to be using anything with 10.6 as the hub device.
10.7 needs an entire rethink. A new interface for starters. iTunes needs to be redesigned (again). iPhoto is awfully slow still. (also, why will I not be able to rename photos on the iPad. I HATE dealing with photos on my Macbook). A new Finder would be fantastic. Why does Spotlight still suck? ETC.
The problem is I imagine that Apple has its A-team on the iPad development. Although, I guess since the iPad is using the iPhone OS, I suppose they’ve had since 3.0 until now to work on 10.7. Anyway, looking forward to others’ comments.
They would usually do an update on Mac OS X at WWDC. However the iPhone OS may take center stage.
As the author pointed out it is taking developers a long time to update their apps to take advantage of the new developments in 10.6. Apple may skip 10.7 talk to focus on getting devs moving.
While Apple are selling more macs it is obvious that at least 10x more PCs are being sold. M$ maybe be losing share but they have a long way to go.
I highly doubt it will be any different than the one that they have right now. Nothing new ever comes out of CRAPPLE
http://www.bing.com When it comes to decisions that matter, Bing & Decide
Now there’s an irony Mr PC though probably beyond your grasp.
apple will keep it’s regular develpoment timeline. No need to rush anything, especially if there is slow develpoer adoption of new core technologies. That may simply be a matter of it’s not needed yet, and we’ll put it in the next major update.
How about naming the next OS “in Pittsburgh we’re sick and tired of the D#$! snow” leopard
If MacOS 10.7 was given the ability to run both MacOS X and multiple PhoneOS applications using the trackpad or an iPhone/touch then it could justify the higher cost of laptops over iPads, enhance iPhone halo effect and keep existing higher-priced Mac customers from abandoning the Mac for the lower-priced iPad.
Even if all MacBooks moved to become iPad Max laptops we would need to be able to run legacy Intel apps and need faster processors for creative apps and games.
@Connor MacBook
Actually, you’ve got it backwards. There were OS releases roughly every 18 months, Jobs mentioned slowing releases to every 2 years or so.
@bioness: iOS.
Personally, I’d just like Apple to get the bugs out of Snow Leopard.
Clouded Leopard my ass.
I have it on good authority that it will be called Pusay!
Sorry about that last post. It’s pretty dark here in my Mom’s basement and I haven’t been upstairs or outside for a couple of weeks. I’m going to have to go soon though because my supply of Fruit Loops is running low and the pages of my last copy of Maxim are all stuck together, even the ads.
@ DogGone,
“Apple are selling more macs it is obvious that at least 10x more PCs are being sold. M$ maybe be losing share”
Even I know Microsoft has 0% of the PC market. Microsoft sells software, not PCs.
I’m pretty sure the folks at Microsoft would prefer that commenters like “I’m a PC” weren’t associated with the Bing brand.
(In fact, they’d probably pay him to stop posting, which might be what he’s shooting for…)
I am quite happy with Leopard and see no urgent need to upgrade.
Typical click-whoring article, even by someone who is a typically good tech journalist and friend of the Apple community.
Why would Apple feel the urge to rush an OS update to market before it’s ready? It does not, and should not. Is there a dire emergency presented by Windows or other operating systems? Given the steady increase in Mac OS market share, it appears not to be the case.
OS-X 10.6 does not appear to be a major change on the surface. But underneath, 10.6 made a number of fundamental and important changes to core technologies at the root of OS-X, changes that will enable many significant improvements over time. As hardware continues to advance, 10.6 will allow future updates to OS-X to address and utilize the advances. Often, the even number right-dot updates deal with the technology under the hood of OS-X, and the odd-numbered updates address more of the features and eye-candy.
@EricN, it’s obvious you don’t work for a software company. You might want what you want, but software development doesn’t quite work that way. An entire rethink to OS-X would infer something akin to an OS-XI (11), which would be a fundamentally new approach to an operating system. Right-dot releases do not normally attempt anything like that. I have little doubt that an unknown Skunk Works inside Apple is looking far into the future. But for now, the right-dot enhancements to OS-X and any other operating system and application will focus on features most demanded or needed by the majority of the market, not the rants of an individual fanboy.
They still got a few names. Lynx, Bobcat, Lion. That will take care of 10.7, 10.8 and 10.9. When they get to 10.10 they can start with something else.
Let’s get 10.6.3 (and maybe a few more dot-dot updates to Snow Leopard) out, then start speculating about 10.7. I’m sure Apple is already working on things for the next cat internally.
The next update will probably abandon 32-bit Intel Macs, so mid-to-late 2011 makes sense (about five years since the Core Duo Macs were replaced by the 64-bit Core 2 Duo Macs).
I just updated from from Tiger. Wait awhile please.
“… just to indicate what they’re working on, and provide a 15 to 18 month estimate for shipping a final version…”
In the same period of time, Microsoft will slip the delivery of the Windows 7 phone a couple of times, announce vaporware several times that will never see the light of day, and falsely claim to be “innovating” too many times to count. I like that strategy. I like it a lot.
Meanwhile the iPhone will continue to evolve and gain market share and the iPad will sell so well that Apple will be unable to keep up with demand for many months to come. I have said this a number of times since the early 2000s – it is a *great* time to be a Mac user.
I use a Mac by choice with no apologies and no excuses owed to anyone. You can use a PC if you want – you won’t get any grief from me just as long as you don’t try to force that POS experience on me.
I’m for Lion for 10.7 particularly if it is to be the last for os x. The problem is that OS X is a damn fine name for an OS. So I think apple should keep it until at least OX 10.10. That’d be perfect in a symmetric kind of way.
Name wise we’ve had: Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard. So we have Lion, Clouded Leopard and Cougar (hehe, which is a Puma anyway) left of the great cats. Maybe 10.7 or 10.8 will be Lion and the last of OS X, since there are no more great cats left. And working the leopard name too much might be a bit much. Three leopards in a row…Unless 10.7 isn’t a big upgrade, maybe it will be CLouded Leopard with Lion to be the last at 10.8?
The BIG FAT GLARING MONSTER staring at Apple, with regard to Mac OS X, is moving Mac OS X over to a modern file system.
Apple’s ZFS efforts, by all accounts, are dead. So now what? HFS+ does us fine. But there are so many incredibly better file system features out there in the world of which we on the Mac are missing for so long, that HFS+ has been laughed at by the cognoscenti for several years.
The superior replacement for HFS+ has to happen. Will it be in 10.7?