This is hardly official, but at a presentation about the evolution of OS X at the LISA ’08 conference last week, Apple’s director of engineering of Unix technologies, Jordan Hubbard, pushed up a slide noting a Snow Leopard release of Q1 2009.
That’s not outside of the realm of possibilities: Snow Leopard is a stabilization and future-proofing OS X release, and with 14 odd months since Leopard, a Q1 release would still indicate a baking time longer than average.
I’m looking forward to Snow Leopard. Sure, it’s not a flashy, feature-filled release like Leopard, but smaller program files, a svelter OS and performance gains for multi-processors are all appealing… especially since Leopard has felt sluggish on my ancient MacBook Pro ever since I upgraded from Tiger.
Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 Due In Q1 2009 [Mac Rumors]
background/disclaimer: I’ve worked on PC’s for 15 years. My first PC was a mac, but I’ve always worked in larger corporate environments where if anything digital breaks, it’s my job to fix it. I’ve admin’d more PCs (~1500) than macs (~500) and work dual-boot on a 1st generation macbook pro
You cant compare OSX updates to Windows release updates. It’s apples and windows. windows releases new “versions” every 3-5 years and whose versions cost 199$ for home basic (for your grandma)and 320$ for the corporate-network-usable ultimate edition. What do I get with a newly purchased windows version? I get to buy a lot of new software since my old stuff is no longer compatible. Not so with OSX versions.
OSX considers each 10.x version to be a major release (10.1, 10.2, not v11.0, v12.0), and provides point releases like 10.4.5, 10.4.6 to denote ‘updates’
There are often tens and dozens of intermediate updates to the core products, services and applications of the OSX between those major version updates. Those are the equivalent to Microsoft’s updates and service packs (and lets face it XP’s SP3 BROKE more stuff than it FIXED!) You can keep your ‘latest & greatest’! I don’t have the desire to troubleshoot automatic updates that break the OS, but in my work environment i find myself rolling back updates from time to time because it caused some major functionality issue like being unable to print.
My mac may run OSX 10.4 as it is…forever… without upgrading. and indeed my current version is 10.4.9 (updated).
In new major releases there are substantial incentives to upgrade, for example snow leopard will use the graphics cards and multi-core processors to speed up the whole system’s performance. Tiger had dual-booting and integrated multi-version backups. when I buy snow leopard it will cost me about 130$ after two and a half years.
so:
windows upgrades every three years @ 300$ = 300$
mac osx upgrades every year and a half for 130$ = 260$
so i guess if you think about it with more comparative accuracy AND use math you actually save a little money getting the latest and greatest from apple…even more if you just feel like skipping a release, which i do.
Which brings up a fundamental problem with upgrading…something Brownlee touched on is that his mac feels a little slower after TIGER. This is typical. the software is bigger, but the computer is the same. this is the same with windows or macs…upgrade to the latest greatest uber-blingy versions and performance will suffer slightly. Vista Aero vs XP is a good example, but so is the OSX example.
Which is why snow leopord might actually be worth it. It actually addresses the hardware more elegantly instead of just tacking on more gadgety ‘stuff.’
Forgive my Apple ignorance, but from what I understand, nobody gets any Apple OS updates for free, right? According to the picture above, Apple owners will wind up paying over $100 approximately every year-and-a-half just for the honor of running the latest and greatest?
Windows Vista came out in January 2007. Even people who purchased their copy on the first day can still have the “latest & greatest” just by doing a web update. They will STILL get the “latest & greatest” for free until Windows 7 comes out.
Even people who purchased XP in October 2001 are only one version back. So, in the last seven years, Microsoft has only issued one paid update, versus six for Apple.
Well, I guess it makes Apple more money than releasing service packs. Instead of releasing a service pack, which people expect for free, just bump the version number and get over $100 each. What a business model. If Microsoft tried that, they would be crucified instantly, and we would be at Vista.2 right now. But, somehow, Apple can get away with it.