4104 Confirming a rash of OS 10.6 rumors that last week, Apple issued an official announcement of the next OS X version update yesterday, and posted a Mac OS 10.6 Web page, which is thin on detail, but does underscore that Snow Leopard is real and as the rumor mills speculated, will "take a break," as Apple puts it, from adding new features, but rather concentrate on streamlining Mac OS X, enhancing its performance, and polishing its solidity and quality.

That's perfectly OK with me. I'm still working through new feature exhaustion from Leopard, and even some aspects of Tiger. I'm perfectly happy, delighted even, for Apple to take a break from new clever innovation and get the existing clever innovation nailed down. The information released yesterday leaves hanging the burning (for some of us, anyway) question of whether Snow Leopard will support Power PC Macs (the reference to Snow Leopard's slimmed-down appetite for hard drive real estate is not encouraging in the context of continued PPC support), and whether 10.6 will be a paid or free update for registered Leopard users.

An Apple Press Release says:

Apple yesterday previewed Mac OS X Snow Leopard, which builds on the incredible success of OS X Leopard and is the next major version of the world’s most advanced operating system. Rather than focusing primarily on new features, Snow Leopard will enhance the performance of OS X, set a new standard for quality and lay the foundation for future OS X innovation. Snow Leopard is optimized for multi-core processors, taps into the vast computing power of graphic processing units (GPUs), enables breakthrough amounts of RAM and features a new, modern media platform with QuickTime X. Snow Leopard includes out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 and is scheduled to ship in about a year.

“We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience, we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system.”

Snow Leopard delivers unrivaled support for multi-core processors with a new technology code-named “Grand Central,” making it easy for developers to create programs that take full advantage of the power of multi-core Macs. Snow Leopard further extends support for modern hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL), which lets any application tap into the vast gigaflops of GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications. OpenCL is based on the C programming language and has been proposed as an open standard. Furthering OS X’s lead in 64-bit technology, Snow Leopard raises the software limit on system memory up to a theoretical 16TB of RAM.

Using media technology pioneered in OS X iPhone, Snow Leopard introduces QuickTime X, which optimizes support for modern audio and video formats resulting in extremely efficient media playback. Snow Leopard also includes Safari with the fastest implementation of JavaScript ever, increasing performance by 53 percent, making Web 2.0 applications feel more responsive.*

For the first time, OS X includes native support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 in OS X applications Mail, iCal and Address Book, making it even easier to integrate Macs into organizations of any size.

*Performance will vary based on system configuration, network connection and other factors. Benchmark based on the SunSpider JavaScript Performance test on an iMac 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system running Mac OS X Snow Leopard, with 2GB of RAM.

For more information, visit:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/

Charles W. Moore

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