While everyone focuses on the iPhone next update, a new rumor posits that Apple will already have a new version of Mac OS X available for testing in early form at WWDC, with its actual launch appearing as early as next year's Macworld event.Similar to Mac OS X 10.1, however, the release would more closely resemble a maintenance release than a complete overhaul. The primary change would be a complete transition to an Intel-only, 64-bit platform that drops PowerPC support, pushing developers to code only for the x86 architecture at the heart of all Macs released from 2006 onwards.
Expectedly, Apple has refrained from discussing any of its post-Leopard plans to date. The company has nonetheless dropped early signs that it may be preparing for the new release, with reports of a small 10.6 reference surfacing in the latest build of the iPhone's software development kit.
View: Full Story and AppleInsider
Now, of course it will support 32-bit, but maybe it will be more focused on 64-bit (I never understood the 64-bit part in Leopard actually).
I don't know where people get all this info about 10.6 though. Just because it's written "10.6" in two places now, they say it will only be a maintenance release rather than an overhaul. Care to explain?
It's not Neowin's fault for this article, but I really don't like it.
1. There's still a significant user base of PPC macs.
2. The last PPC mac to ship was the xserve G5 in late 06. That was only 2 years ago. It's too soon to kill support for it. Doing so would **** of a lot of users.
3. Historically, the requirements of OSX releases haven't jumped significantly. Killing PPC support would represent a huge (and unnessesary) jump in system requirements.
4. The effort involved in maintaining a second architecture isn't as high as some people may think. A clean code base makes it easy to maintain multiple architectures. Look at Linux and *BSD. Having to support multiple architectures helps to promotes a clean code base.
If I had to guess, I would assume that Apple will offer a 64bit kernel in the 10.6 release and will offer PPC support as well, but will make significant changes to their developer tools to make a shift over to being Intel exclusive.
1. There's still a significant user base of PPC macs.
2. The last PPC mac to ship was the xserve G5 in late 06. That was only 2 years ago. It's too soon to kill support for it. Doing so would **** of a lot of users.
3. Historically, the requirements of OSX releases haven't jumped significantly. Killing PPC support would represent a huge (and unnessesary) jump in system requirements.
4. The effort involved in maintaining a second architecture isn't as high as some people may think. A clean code base makes it easy to maintain multiple architectures. Look at Linux and *BSD. Having to support multiple architectures helps to promotes a clean code base.
Historically, Apple has regularily ****'d their users everytime they want to do a major upgrade or save some money.
As for the effort involved, I think Apple is aiming for 0 effort, so 'not much' would be way too much for them.
1. There's still a significant user base of PPC macs.
2. The last PPC mac to ship was the xserve G5 in late 06. That was only 2 years ago. It's too soon to kill support for it. Doing so would **** of a lot of users.
3. Historically, the requirements of OSX releases haven't jumped significantly. Killing PPC support would represent a huge (and unnessesary) jump in system requirements.
4. The effort involved in maintaining a second architecture isn't as high as some people may think. A clean code base makes it easy to maintain multiple architectures. Look at Linux and *BSD. Having to support multiple architectures helps to promotes a clean code base.
Don't forget Apple makes most of it's money from selling hardware. Surely they get some money from sales of OSX but don't for a second think it's their biggest cash cow. Apple is a hardware company first and foremost
As for the effort involved, I think Apple is aiming for 0 effort, so 'not much' would be way too much for them.
In fact, Apple always did nice and smooth transitions from what I've seen so far. They always worked hard to make these transitions as smooth as possible. Now I am thinking about the PowerPC to Intel transition specifically, but also Carbon to Cocoa. They had to do this "extra work" to get things compatible you know, like create this whole Rosetta emulator to support older apps, etc. etc.
Also, in two years, you PowerMac or whatever it was called will probably
1. be old
2. be 25% as fast as what we see now on the market
3. won't be able to handle these new heavy applications with all the new sexy graphics and everything
The only good thing maybe will be your memory.
Now, I know you're shocked because Leopard went out at the end of October, but this 10.6 thing is really not happening right now, trust me. They didn't even finish patching Leopard, so it'd be stupid to release another version.
gotta love paying for your open source OS upgrades on your overpriced hardware that already included the price of the OS!
Is Mac OS really that expensive in this market? Compare with Windows yourself. And compare apples and apples, meaning the ultimate vista versus the ulti... errr, wait, there is just one OS X.
I agree that Macs are quite expensive, but it's been told a lot of times. Take that whole package in a Mac, separate every single component/feature that a Mac include, and compare with a PC with the exact same configuration and the exact same components/features. You'll see that Macs are actually quite well priced, but then again you have to add a little price just for the design (as you would do with a PC, if you want a killer case)
If you want to compare the cost of OS X to the cost of Windows you need to also consider the life-span of each version. OS X and XP came out about the same time. Sense then Windows users have had to pay for one upgrade and Mac users 4 (not including this upcoming release). Granted, the XP/Vista interim was a few years longer than normal, but historically MS operating systems stay current about twice as long as Apple's.
Just like "classic", Apple gave their
cultcustomers time to transition and then ended support for Classic. In much the same way, they could announce and end of support for PPC, give customers a chance to transition, then, drop support from OS X. Not a huge deal.cultcustomers time to transition and then ended support for Classic. In much the same way, they could announce and end of support for PPC, give customers a chance to transition, then, drop support from OS X. Not a huge deal.exactly what I was thinking, they did it then, what's stopping them to do it now? it has been almost 2 years since the first mactels came out, that was a long time for people to transition over to intel procs from ppc.
</sarcasm>
cultcustomers time to transition and then ended support for Classic. In much the same way, they could announce and end of support for PPC, give customers a chance to transition, then, drop support from OS X. Not a huge deal.exactly what I was thinking, they did it then, what's stopping them to do it now? it has been almost 2 years since the first mactels came out, that was a long time for people to transition over to intel procs from ppc.
hey maybe they will throw in a free virtual pc like they did last time so you can still run your ppc apps
oh
after you buy a new $2500 mac
</sarcasm>
Yeah it's a shame ignore only works on the forums.
</sarcasm>
Yeah it's a shame ignore only works on the forums.
In this case, you could switch the term 'ignore' with 'sticking your head in the sand'. Both would be applicable.
Now, if they were to drop intel 32-bit, then i would be ****ed. My macbook would only be three years old by then and just barely out of apple care support.
Apple have stated that they are aiming for 12-18months for OS X releases.
The first Intel Mac was sold in 2006 but it wasn't until August of 2006 before the entire product line was available with Intel processors. If this new OS without PPC support comes in early 2009 as bobbba stated then someone with a ~2.5 year old PowerMac would not be able to install it.
Would stand to reason they might discuss it at this WWDC but even then I doubt it.
If you wanna use 10.6, get better hardware. That's the message, basically.
They can't drop 32-bit PPC support without dropping 64-bit PPC support, since they have no 64-bit PPC support (just PAE-hacks to make it sort of kind of allow 64-bit addressing). There is no 64-bit Mac kernel, no 64-bit Finder or other apps. They just have some "64-bit aware" libraries that they claim means they support 64-bit.
They can't drop 32-bit PPC support without dropping 64-bit PPC support, since they have no 64-bit PPC support (just PAE-hacks to make it sort of kind of allow 64-bit addressing). There is no 64-bit Mac kernel, no 64-bit Finder or other apps. They just have some "64-bit aware" libraries that they claim means they support 64-bit.
Interesting. I should learn more about how Apple codes their OS. I must have assumed it was something similar to the universal binaries for application software wherein you could have 32-bit code and 64-bit code in one package. Dunno why I thought they could get away with that in a kernel, though.
If that's the case, maybe they'll go the Vista route and have a PPC/i386 version of 10.6 alongside a PPC970/x86_64 version.
Gossip spread from x3 to x5 fasten for Apple related products.
I sure hope that the marketing ppl at Apple earn some big bucks because whatever they do, even when doing nothing, works!
Are these iMacs, Power Mac towers, notebooks...?
But then again, there isn't really much more to add in the way of features.
The cougar displays maximum cleavage possible, to captivate her prey. You're watching them bounce, she's about to pounce.
Embra3e it
I had a couple of beige G3 boxes that got left behind when they went to OS 10.2 (Jaguar) and my 600 mhz G3-based iBook and my G4 (400 mhz AGP Graphics based) were able to run 10.4 (Tiger) without any issues. Leopard won't run on my iBook at all and I'd have to replace the processor and upgrade the memory in order to run 10.5 (Leopard) on the old G4 box. Heck, you can't even run Classic apps under OS 10.5 (especially since the OS 9 apps were never meant to run on intel-based hardware).
I could justify buying an iMac, but that's the pattern that Apple expects it's users to go along with. Every few years you'll have to buy new hardware in order to go to a new version of the OS.
Nobody seems to take Apple to task when they make these kind of moves - their users tend to just nod and accept the fact that they're gonna get screwed from time to time. That's the price we pay for being Mac fanboys.
The same thing happened to the old Motorola-based Mac users years ago. Now after years of having Apple sing the praises of the PowerPC chips over Intel (until they made the switch and discovered 2-4 times performance improvements) it's not gonna be that much of a shock when they drop the PPC-based Macs as well.
Owner - Mac Plus, Mac Classic, Mac II, Performa 450, Performa 475, Performa 630, Performa 6400/180, Performa 6400/200, PowerMac 4000/200, PowerMac G3/233 Desktop, PowerMac G3/300 Mini-Tower, PowerMac G4/400, Powerbook 5300c, Powerbook G3 (Wallstreet), iBook G3/300, iBook G3/600 and a Apple Newton 120 (and I still have over half of these machines...)
Something to consider: this could also be a ploy to move more developers firmly to 64-bit Cocoa -- sometimes they (cough-Adobe-cough-Microsoft) can be reticent. Have a nearly 64-bit clean, Cocoa-only OSX early in 2009. Release it only on new gear -- maybe even maintain Leopard as an downgrade option since that's become popular ;-) -- damn, that would be a funny bit of photocopying, and maintain 10.5 for older hardware through the year or until the next release. If it shows a great deal of improvement, many users and many developers will embrace it. Those dependent on older hardware or apps will stick with their existing gear and won't have much to complain about if there's little feature disparity besides performance improvements.
However the timing and pricing works out (this is still a rumor however accurate it is), this has always been planned and foreseeable. 68000 procs > PPC > x86 ... Classic > Carbon > Cocoa.
As you (and I) know... we've lived through it, all of it was quite manageable if you didn't get hysterical.
Apple has a long standing tradition of forcing upgrades as a way of saving themselves extra trouble. look how quickly after the first "transition" they dropped support for 68K systems.
and PowerPC... anyone else here remembers the "propaganda" surrounding the technical superiority of the PowerPC architecture? then to have Apple switch and notice huge performance gains? i'm sure if you found an archive of the old Apple site, they probably even used the same processors for the comparisons.
expect similar propaganda for Intel processors and how much power consumption they save and how much cheaper they are and how many chainsaws they can juggle.
it was inevitable; finally just happened.
Meanwhile, you can still boot Windows XP SP3 with an old Pentium 60 Mhz CPU.
Not very fast, mind you, but it will actually run. Hell, you can underclock it to 8 Mhz and enjou a 10-minute boot time. :lol:
Quite. Leopard runs better and faster on a Dual 2.5, 2.7 and Quad 2.5 than what Tiger did. I can even say this for my Dual 2.7. I can't see any reason why it would not be the same for the Dual 2.0 and 2.3 models.
a buddy of mine runs Leopard on his G4 PowerBook and it's pretty peppy.
Apple just wants to get a break from PPC support; if they can phase them out, they won't have to bother with keeping PPC stuff in Xcode.
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