Snow Leopard and Phenomenon
We all know Snow Leopard is suppose to arrive sometime in the first half of '09. There are rumors it will even be earlier. I suspect it will be shown at Macworld and ship before April. Here is why.
I suspect Apple needs Snow Leopard for its new pro apps it will announce just before NAB. The upcoming version of Final Cut that has been in the works for the last two years has been know as Phenomenon. Back in '06 it was originally expected to hit in '08, then got pushed back to '09.
Two years ago Phenomenon was rumored to be a native rewrite in Cocoa, 64 bit, and taking greater advantage of all the available GPU processing. Sound familiar? It should. These are the main new features of Snow Leopard. Add in the new Quicktime, which is mainly video, and everything starts to make sense.
It is amazing how little this all is being discussed on the rumor sites. We have had this information for years. Also, now we see Apple starting to use better Nvidia GPUs in their machines. Why? This is because Apple knows Snow Leopard and these apps will take better advantage of the GPU.
Of course we will see iLife get a big boost from the pro app tech trickling down. After all, much of the technology is in the operating system. I also expect iChat and other apps to benefit too.
So '09 seems to be a good year for all Mac users and especially the pro users. Combined with new processors from Intel, we should see big gains in usability and productivity. Just wish the economy was in better shape to take advantage of Apple's progress.
Also, I think this whole situation shows how Apple has an advantage by making the hardware, the software, and the apps. MS is so handicapped by not controlling the hardware or apps. In fact, one could make the case that the only reason MS got to where they are is because they leveraged their Office and OS together.
So while some people have thought Apple was loosing interest in their pro apps, the truth was the opposite. They were hard at work to leapfrog the competition. I think the rumors that Apple didn't care about their pro apps were started by their competitors to stop their bleeding. Apple is kicking some serious butt and companies like Avid are going to go down hard.
So when Snow Leopard comes out, expect many people to miss the whole point. But once Phenomenon and the other rewritten apps are introduced, I think we will start to see it all make sense. The whole will then be greater than the sum of all its parts.
I suspect Apple needs Snow Leopard for its new pro apps it will announce just before NAB. The upcoming version of Final Cut that has been in the works for the last two years has been know as Phenomenon. Back in '06 it was originally expected to hit in '08, then got pushed back to '09.
Two years ago Phenomenon was rumored to be a native rewrite in Cocoa, 64 bit, and taking greater advantage of all the available GPU processing. Sound familiar? It should. These are the main new features of Snow Leopard. Add in the new Quicktime, which is mainly video, and everything starts to make sense.
It is amazing how little this all is being discussed on the rumor sites. We have had this information for years. Also, now we see Apple starting to use better Nvidia GPUs in their machines. Why? This is because Apple knows Snow Leopard and these apps will take better advantage of the GPU.
Of course we will see iLife get a big boost from the pro app tech trickling down. After all, much of the technology is in the operating system. I also expect iChat and other apps to benefit too.
So '09 seems to be a good year for all Mac users and especially the pro users. Combined with new processors from Intel, we should see big gains in usability and productivity. Just wish the economy was in better shape to take advantage of Apple's progress.
Also, I think this whole situation shows how Apple has an advantage by making the hardware, the software, and the apps. MS is so handicapped by not controlling the hardware or apps. In fact, one could make the case that the only reason MS got to where they are is because they leveraged their Office and OS together.
So while some people have thought Apple was loosing interest in their pro apps, the truth was the opposite. They were hard at work to leapfrog the competition. I think the rumors that Apple didn't care about their pro apps were started by their competitors to stop their bleeding. Apple is kicking some serious butt and companies like Avid are going to go down hard.
So when Snow Leopard comes out, expect many people to miss the whole point. But once Phenomenon and the other rewritten apps are introduced, I think we will start to see it all make sense. The whole will then be greater than the sum of all its parts.
Comments
Just one thing - isn't Phenomenon supposed to be the next version of Shake, rather than Final Cut?
I know that's just nit-picking