Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard to retail for $29 in September
Apple on Monday offered attendees at its annual developer conference an overview of its nearly finalized Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system, which the company said will be available in September as a $29 upgrade for users of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
"We've built on the success of Leopard and created an even better experience for our users from installation to shutdown," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "Apple engineers have made hundreds of improvements so with Snow Leopard your system is going to feel faster, more responsive and even more reliable than before."
To create Snow Leopard, Apple said its engineers focused on refining 90 percent of the more than 1,000 projects in Mac OS X. As such, users should notice:
-- A more responsive Finder
-- Mail that loads messages 85 percent faster and conducts searches up to 90 percent faster
-- Time Machine with up to 50 percent faster initial backup
-- A Dock with Expose integration
-- A 64-bit version of Safari 4 that boosts the performance of the Nitro JavaScript engine by up to 50 percent and is resistant to crashes caused by plug-ins.
-- Snow Leopard also includes an all new QuickTime X, with a redesigned player that allows users to easily view, record, trim and share video to YouTube, MobileMe or iTunes.
-- Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version and frees up to 6GB of drive space once installed.
For the first time, Apple said system applications including Finder, Mail, iCal, iChat and Safari are 64-bit and Snow Leopard's support for 64-bit processors makes use of large amounts of RAM, increases performance, and improves security while remaining compatible with 32-bit applications.
Meanwhile, Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) provides a new way for software to take advantage of multicore processors. GCD is integrated throughout Snow Leopard, from new system-wide APIs to high-level frameworks and programming language extensions, improving responsiveness across the system. OpenCL, a C-based open standard, allows developers to tap the incredible power of the graphics processing unit for tasks that go beyond graphics.
Snow Leopard also builds support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 right into Mac OS X Mail, Address Book and iCal so you can use these applications to send and receive email, create and respond to meeting invitations, and search and manage your contacts with global address lists. Exchange information works seamlessly within Snow Leopard so users can take advantage of OS X only features such as fast Spotlight searches and Quick Look previews. Snow Leopard is the only desktop operating system with out of the box support for Exchange 2007 and businesses of any size will find it easier to integrate Macs into their organization.
Every Mac includes features and technologies for users with special needs, and Snow Leopard also adds new features that make the Mac experience even more accessible to those with a vision impairment. Apple's Multi-Touch trackpad is now integrated with the VoiceOver screen reader so users can hear and navigate different parts of a window or the desktop by moving a single finger around the trackpad as if it were the screen. Snow Leopard also introduces built-in support for wireless bluetooth braille displays and the connection of multiple braille displays simultaneously to one Mac.
Pricing & Availability
Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard in September 2009 through the Apple Store, Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The Snow Leopard single user license will be available for a suggested retail price of $29 (US) and the Snow Leopard Family Pack, a single household, five-user license, will be available for a suggested price of $49 (US). For Tiger users with an Intel-based Mac, the Mac Box Set includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife '09 and iWork '09 and will be available for a suggested price of $169 (US) and a Family Pack is available for a suggested price of $229 (US).
The Mac OS X Snow Leopard Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller between June 8, 2009 and the end of the program on December 26, 2009, for a product plus shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Users must request their Up-To-Date upgrade within 90 days of purchase or by December 26, 2009, whichever comes first
Snow Leopard requires a minimum of 1GB of RAM and is designed to run on any Mac computer with an Intel processor. Full system requirements can be found here.
"We've built on the success of Leopard and created an even better experience for our users from installation to shutdown," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "Apple engineers have made hundreds of improvements so with Snow Leopard your system is going to feel faster, more responsive and even more reliable than before."
To create Snow Leopard, Apple said its engineers focused on refining 90 percent of the more than 1,000 projects in Mac OS X. As such, users should notice:
-- A more responsive Finder
-- Mail that loads messages 85 percent faster and conducts searches up to 90 percent faster
-- Time Machine with up to 50 percent faster initial backup
-- A Dock with Expose integration
-- A 64-bit version of Safari 4 that boosts the performance of the Nitro JavaScript engine by up to 50 percent and is resistant to crashes caused by plug-ins.
-- Snow Leopard also includes an all new QuickTime X, with a redesigned player that allows users to easily view, record, trim and share video to YouTube, MobileMe or iTunes.
-- Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version and frees up to 6GB of drive space once installed.
For the first time, Apple said system applications including Finder, Mail, iCal, iChat and Safari are 64-bit and Snow Leopard's support for 64-bit processors makes use of large amounts of RAM, increases performance, and improves security while remaining compatible with 32-bit applications.
Meanwhile, Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) provides a new way for software to take advantage of multicore processors. GCD is integrated throughout Snow Leopard, from new system-wide APIs to high-level frameworks and programming language extensions, improving responsiveness across the system. OpenCL, a C-based open standard, allows developers to tap the incredible power of the graphics processing unit for tasks that go beyond graphics.
Snow Leopard also builds support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 right into Mac OS X Mail, Address Book and iCal so you can use these applications to send and receive email, create and respond to meeting invitations, and search and manage your contacts with global address lists. Exchange information works seamlessly within Snow Leopard so users can take advantage of OS X only features such as fast Spotlight searches and Quick Look previews. Snow Leopard is the only desktop operating system with out of the box support for Exchange 2007 and businesses of any size will find it easier to integrate Macs into their organization.
Every Mac includes features and technologies for users with special needs, and Snow Leopard also adds new features that make the Mac experience even more accessible to those with a vision impairment. Apple's Multi-Touch trackpad is now integrated with the VoiceOver screen reader so users can hear and navigate different parts of a window or the desktop by moving a single finger around the trackpad as if it were the screen. Snow Leopard also introduces built-in support for wireless bluetooth braille displays and the connection of multiple braille displays simultaneously to one Mac.
Pricing & Availability
Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard in September 2009 through the Apple Store, Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The Snow Leopard single user license will be available for a suggested retail price of $29 (US) and the Snow Leopard Family Pack, a single household, five-user license, will be available for a suggested price of $49 (US). For Tiger users with an Intel-based Mac, the Mac Box Set includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife '09 and iWork '09 and will be available for a suggested price of $169 (US) and a Family Pack is available for a suggested price of $229 (US).
The Mac OS X Snow Leopard Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller between June 8, 2009 and the end of the program on December 26, 2009, for a product plus shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Users must request their Up-To-Date upgrade within 90 days of purchase or by December 26, 2009, whichever comes first
Snow Leopard requires a minimum of 1GB of RAM and is designed to run on any Mac computer with an Intel processor. Full system requirements can be found here.
Comments
when some enterprising people get this working on Dell and HP laptops, i'll be all over it. i'm not in a position to buy a high end laptop right now.
bla bla bla...
MS IS DEAD. WINDOWS 7 IS DEAD.
Considering Entourage is not.
Incredible offer from Apple; this upgrade is simply a NO-BRAINER!
MS IS DEAD. WINDOWS 7 IS DEAD.
Nope.. For the first time in my life I will not be buying an OS from Apple, nor will my next hardware purchase be an Apple until the have Full BluRay support. I mean Full. The pro apps getter be able to author BluRay, I better be able to play it and iDVD better have that functioning added too. To have to boot into Windows to run a BluRay is absolutely Pathetic Apple. It's very possible my next machine will be a PC. At least MS tries to support STANDARD technologies.
At least MS tries to support STANDARD technologies.
IE being a shining example!
Nope.. For the first time in my life I will not be buying an OS from Apple, nor will my next hardware purchase be an Apple until the have Full BluRay support. I mean Full. The pro apps getter be able to author BluRay, I better be able to play it and iDVD better have that functioning added too. To have to boot into Windows to run a BluRay is absolutely Pathetic Apple. It's very possible my next machine will be a PC. At least MS tries to support STANDARD technologies.
whaa whaa whaa whatever.
BluRay licensing is being made simpler, probably for this reason. BluRay has been seen in iTunes messages, it is coming, the question is when.
Leopard came out at the same time as Vista. The $29 upgrade price at the same time as the more expensive Windows 7 comes out is just there to rub it in.
I was expecting it to be cheaper, but not that cheap.
September can't come sone enough
G4/G5 no more?
It appears so. And that is ok by me. My last gen G5 is still kickin and 10.5 on it works fine. I will however be looking into MacBook sometime in the future though.
Nope.. For the first time in my life I will not be buying an OS from Apple, nor will my next hardware purchase be an Apple until the have Full BluRay support. I mean Full. The pro apps getter be able to author BluRay, I better be able to play it and iDVD better have that functioning added too. To have to boot into Windows to run a BluRay is absolutely Pathetic Apple. It's very possible my next machine will be a PC. At least MS tries to support STANDARD technologies.
until i can legally or otherwise rip a movie i buy from disc to electrons, i'm not buying blu ray so i can rebuy the same content 20 times for different devices. DVD's you can rip
I thought they will offer it at 79$.
By the way, I guess those MS ads did their thing. Some serious price drops on those laptops, but only on the laptops! This is what MS was attacking.... of course the economy is doing its thing too.
Windows isn't going anywhere, OS X isn't going anywhere, Linux isn't going anywhere. They all will co-exist just fine in the way they have for years. How much will it cost Tiger owners to get 10.6? Probably $129.
$169 which includes iLife '09 and iWorks '09.
Current Box Set is listed for Leopard: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB...mco=MzA3MTE3Ng
Source: http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html
Upgrading from Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger.
If your Intel-based Mac is running Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, purchase the Mac Box Set (when available), which is a single, affordable package that includes Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard; iLife ’09, with the latest versions of iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, and iDVD; and iWork ’09, Apple’s productivity suite for home and office including Pages, Numbers, and Keynote