[Macworld]

Post your comments for Snow Leopard: Back to Basics here

[Schneb]

I prognosticate that when Jobs demonstrates Snow Leopard a year from now, it will be a series of charts showing blazing rendering speeds. Hopefully this will include $29 for current Leopard owners (Rick LePage was spot-on!) and $129 for all others.

[deemery]

Where Snow Leopard will bite me the most is not on the 'client' side, but on the server side. I'm running Leopard Server currently to support a home office, and I'm doing so on a G5/2ghz DP machine with a total of 4x 500gb drives.
Snow Leopard will cause me to have to upgrade that machine as well as the software. For my 2 person/4 (non-profit) website installation, I can't justify an XServe, but I depend on the ability to have multiple drives for RAID redundancy so I can't migrate to an iMac very easily.
So this is one cat that I'm very mixed about...
dave

[bitburn]

Brilliant! Focusing on Speed & stability is exactly the way to go; I was pleased when Jobs announced the news at WWDC. Better use of quad core CPUs, etc. Now we're talking! ;-)

[natmusak]

The reality is with so many innovative features introduced in Leopard, Apple has less and less to add. Also, if anything, the iPhone is already running something close to Snow Leopard, so they'll be taking cues from that, not so much the other way around.

[flowney]

No argument with what you say -- its is all good. However, some of this decision may be due to the fact that the supply of really good ideas for MacOS X was running a little low. many people have looked at various features in Leopard and correctly asked, "What is that for?"
Of course with more power and stability and the iPhone to blaze new paths, I'm sure the coders block will lift in a grand way.

[Javair]

Hmmmm....
What if making Snow Leopard a more "back-to-basics" version is the heretical move to allow OS-X to install on other computers with Intel processors. Could this be a bid by our ever-expanding Apple Inc. to sell a more "basic" OS-X?
I know, many will say no way, and I'd be inclined to agree. But, I can't help but wonder about this unprecedented move by Apple to remake a CURRENT version of OS-X; to not add features, but to..."stabilize" them.

[veggiedude]

Parallels Desktop will get a great boost from Snow Leopard. With just a little tweaking, they'll be able to get what VM Ware had to build from scratch, utilizing more than one processor. Just one example of the benefits of SNL.

[mistersquid]

One of the things that amazes me about the response of Mac users to the "no new features" version is how accepting and excited everyone is.
I don't understand how putting out a somewhat-better-than-beta version of an OS (Leopard) and then charging money for making it stable and its parts harmonious wins accolades from current users.
In my opinion, this promise of an update is outrageous. I'm really irritated that the upgrade to Leopard destabilized my machine and even more peeved that I'm going to be charged to have it work properly.
I also have serious suspicions of Mac users and Mac readers to have any kind of objectivity or critical faculty when it comes to Apple announcements and releases.

[Strawtag]

Users should never have to pay for an update that will primarily provide increased speed and stability. Those sorts of improvements should be expected to be covered under whatever license has already been paid for. Any lack of speed and/or stability fixed by software improvements should be considered equal to defects in the manufacturer's workmanship and/or materials. The fact that the improvements have already been announced indicate that the defects have been identified early enough to qualify for coverage under warranty. Maybe Apple will decide to release 10.6 as a free upgrade to 10.5 the way 8.6 was released as a free upgrade for 8.5.

[mark_G4]

I think speed and stability is a feature. Instead of saying "The World's Most Advanced Operating System" the should also say the "The World's Fast Operating System". Apple should market it that way.

[Argent]

mistersquid said:

One of the things that amazes me about the response of Mac users to the "no new features" version is how accepting and excited everyone is.

Saying that Snow Leopard won't have any "new features" isn't quite accurate. Just because it won't have any "showcase" features to make it a "must have" upgrade doesn't mean that there won't be any welcome additions. For example, native support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 in Snow Leopard might seem insignificant to some people, but the long-term ramifications for Apple's growth of the Mac and iPhone in the enterprise market is pretty big.

mistersquid said:

I don't understand how putting out a somewhat-better-than-beta version of an OS (Leopard) and then charging money for making it stable and its parts harmonious wins accolades from current users.

C'mon, it could be worse?you could be using Vista.

[Olu]

The whine meter seems to be set on high for this thread.
1. "Snow Leopard will cause me to have to upgrade that machine as well as the software. " Why? Will Snow Leopard some how cause your machine to stop working? Snow Leopard is not adding any significant functionality, and believe you me, some of the benefits of refining Snow Leopard will be wrapped up in Leopard point updates.
2. "Users should never have to pay for an update that will primarily provide increased speed and stability." 1st of all we don't know how much or even if we'll have to pay. 2nd Stability and speed increases if significant enough are worth paying for.
In OS is never perfect, but Apple seems ready to try and get OSX there, by freezing some of the features. Personally I like the idea.

[jonro]

I hope that security will also be addressed in the Snow Leopard update. Not that I've had a problem with Leopard's security, but the interface needs to be revamped and immunity from attacks needs to be ensured. There was one enhancement that's pretty big in my book: compatibility with Sun's ZFS file system. That's a huge win for the file system's speed and stability. We could get some major performance boosts from that as well as from multi-core optimization.