Well, Apple is already working on their newest version of OS X?

This makes me wonder something.
I think Apple was a little worried of Micro$ofts new version of Window$, whih is coming out the same time that Apple plans to release Snow Leopard.

Microsoft had big plans for Windows 7, but now that their biggest plan to change Windows for the better(?) is no longer being used. But what was their biggest change?
Consumers and businesses crushed Vista at how much of a memory hog it was. They were very unhappy at it mainly because of nothing improved in Vista, but a basic change in UI. But for a simple change of UI, you would need to upgrade your current PC to the max. And for a simple UI, adjustment. Do you really want or need Vista?

All that aside. Windows 7 was supposedly going to have a stripped down kernel and make it so your computer only needed a 100Mhz CPU, 64mb of RAM and a very little hard drive. They dubbed the kernel "MinWIN" But you know what a new Windows kernel means. If the next version of Windows has a completely different kernel than WinFS, it won't work with Boot Camp .

Boot Camp has helped Apple A WHOLE LOT in the Mac market. Boot Camp allowed you to run ANY OS of ANY kind right on your Mac. Since Mac is 100% legally multi-platform, and PC is only 99.99% multi-platform(Will not run OS X legally). The good choice for a computer is a Mac.

Apple noticed Microsofts plans for Windows 7, and probably began to worry that this next version of Windows might just ruin Mac OS X. But now that Microsoft isn't using the new kernel any more; What Does Apple Have to Worry?

Microsoft is going back to the basic Windows Vista kernel instead of MinWin. Yep, the same kernel being used for Windows Vista. If Microsoft keeps this up... there might not be a Windows for much longer...

I'm not sure what Vista has to do with Snow Leopard, but if you ask me if I would buy Snow Leopard when it's out I say: yes!

Reasons? Well, Snow Leopard should be much more optimized for the 8 cores in my Mac Pro and 100% 64bit, which should speed up this beast here under my desk a bit more.

My 50cents on Vista? Tried it several times on my PCs and honestly - I hate it! It's kinda uncomfortable and even my wife who likes it before is now running a Hackintosh instead of any Windows (ok - we installed VMWare Fusion for her games and this runs great on the Opteron-Hackmac).

I rather conserve my money until I find something really intresting.

OpenCL bores you? how?

I hope that Snow Leopard will be free, and I believe it will be. Why? Well, first off, if this is just an optimization version of OS X and no new features are added, why wouldn't you just wait until the next OS X version (10.7) to get the optimization AND the new features? If Apple charges anything substantial for this release (more than $20), I think a lot of people will just skip this version all together.

It actually seems not out of line for Snow Leopard to be free.

Imagine the goodwill Apple would generate if that is the case.

Snow Leopard will be just an update to leopard so why will be more than 50$ for Example?.

i think Apple will make something Great in Snow Leopard CERTAINLY.

QuickTime X will support WMV and AVI?

anyway i will buy it only if it will be less than 60 or 70$ i think this is enough for leopard update.

Khaled.

Vista is more than an UI change. They rewrote a lot of stacks (network, audio, video), they improved the memory management (yeah, a lot of things are cached in memory, that's why people call Vista a "memory hog") and created a new toolkit (WPF).

And MinWin is not a new kernel, it's in Vista and Server 2008 too. They are just making it more and more modular with each new Windows release. By using the Vista/2008 kernel, they want to make sure Windows 7 is going to run very well on Vista-capable computers.

Oh, and isn't Boot Camp just translating BIOS calls into EFI calls? Even if they made a new kernel, it would still boot on a Mac, if it supported EFI .

So Microsoft and Apple are doing the same thing: they optimize their current version and add 2 or 3 new features. Apple has nothing to fear of.

From what I've seen so far, SL looks like it'll be a great release. I've got a MacBook (black, penryn), and any more performance I can squeeze out of it is fantastic.

I think it'll be $69 - it's not enough for a full release, but more than a free upgrade. It's the same price as iWork, which is fine.

Oh, and WinFS isn't a kernel. It's a relational database-based filesystem. It was removed because it performed badly.

Micro$oft

I think that I would pay anything below $99 for it, mainly because of the optimized file sizes. My HDD will be cleaner

$now £€opard?

lol

Wow, uh, fail... >_>

I think the features being added to snow leopard don't necessarily equal monetary value. Quicktime has been free forever, so i doubt they will charge for the new one. As for multi-core optimization and the ability to use 16 terabytes of ram, big whoop. Who has 16 terabytes of ram in one machine? NASA?
I also thought 64 bit was already present in OSX since the G5's, don't get why this is a big deal. Also, the kernel in OSx i thought already supported multicore very well. I've noticed my laptop performs tasks very well on 10.5.4, i would like to see the snow leopard on this to actually view the difference first hand. When are the betas due?

On the flip side, I did see some of windows 7 features. Some of the stuff is a direct iphone/macbook air ripoff (multi-touch zoom), but it definitely seems like a more "finished" OS than vista was/is. I do like vista, better ram and video management. Direct x 10 is a definite improvement.

Anyone share my opinion on snow leopard being overrated? sorry, I just seem to fail to see the value of a few tweaks being a giant release.

privatesnuffy, what people mean is that SL will be FULLY 64-bit. Yes, 64-bit has been included in osx for a while now, but it would only use it if it was on a compatible cpu, meaning it was 32-bit, but it could use the 64-bit instructions for other tasks. SL will be entirely in 64-bit and hopefuly emulate 32-bit instructions for "legacy" programs, just like ppc and rosetta.

Also, i share some of the same views as you on vista. Sure, better management of things is a plus, but it was just rushed and unpolished.

I wish they'd use the mini kernel, since a some of the DSL and Feather Linux users might switch. I don't get why no one has patched snow leopard yet, a Mac Developer leaked the code out on some torrent site. (At least I heard)

They are idiots for not using MinWin. They keep trying to improve their OS by using the same old components, but it doesn't get them anywhere. It's like putting on 5-year-old, worn-out clothes and adding some shiny stickers to make them look good, then going out in public and expecting to be taken seriously.

Anyway, nothing Microshit makes can compare to the the quality of an Apple product unless they make some major strategy changes. Plus, Apple has momentum thanks to all the switchers of the Vista era.

My advice to Microsoft: when you are in deep {censored}, stop digging.

Will it blend? That is the question....

I plan on purchasing a Family pack. Upgrade my MacBook Pro, Hacintosh, and older PowerBook. I am all for building a hacintosh, but I will always support the software.

yeah the OP is very very misinformed. But he probobly gets all his info from the mac commercials. LOL

I will not buy snow leopard.

I'll download that like Leopard and Windows Vista

My wife hates osx.... dammn! i had to put back vista in our toshiba and use it only as usb drive...wich works also for my travelmate 6410 "office pc" heh!

I still dont understand this Leopard, is half way betw tiger and the real leopard (snow!)

just because at the moment SL has the same wallpaper and dock of leopard, doesn't mean it doesn't have innovations... lol

I definitely will get Snow Leopard as soon as it becomes available. I've always followed Mac OS X versions, and I prefer to keep my software up-to-date

I'll be getting it for my hack and macbook pro, Quicktime X and multicore improvements sound good. I don't have a problem with leo interface although Apple should make it easier to switch between programs that are running and closing the program window should exit it intead of having to press the apple+Q keys. Hopefully the new version of Safari will be a big improvement cuz the current release is a giant security hole.

This is not going to change. It's not part of the OS X/Unix philosophy. The idea is that an application and a window are two different things, and are treated separately, unlike in windows, and that idle programs consume very little resources, so why would you want to quit them?

There is to much windows hating. Mac vs Windows...blah blah blah. They are just Os's, not religions. I treat them as tools in a toolbox. Did you throw away your flathead screwdriver when you bought a phillips head screwdriver? I happen to use both all the time, they both have pros and cons. There is nothing wrong with Vista, or XP. You try to build an OS that runs on any and every PC. Apple is lucky that they only have to deal with a small set of hardware.

Min Win is already in use. Stopy saying its not, Vista uses it right now.

SL looks like everyone said, a performance upgrade, so if its free or not i'll prolly get it since im using Tiger on my macbook still.

Windows 7 is a performance upgrade too, and its one hell of a performance upgrade. I installed it on my macbook in parallels, and its a LOT faster than vista. With the semi-new UI windows will have, and the performance increases they have atm, this version might be one of the best yet. (Although Vista x64 always was good, I ran it on a single core, and quad core and it always was faster than 32 bit, and even on the single core ran just as good as XP 32 bit did).

Congrats Chetzar, you have just proven that you haven't a clue what you are talking about!

While Microsoft announced MinWin back in 2003, they stated publicly that it did not make it into Vista and that the most recent incarnation that made it into Server 2008 in some minimal fashion was still not truly MinWin but instead a stripped down version of the Vista kernel.

Microsoft then proceeded to say that MinWin will be a complete redesign from the Vista kernel to be more resource efficient at the expense of backwards compatibility.

It was only then that Microsoft later announced that MinWin will not be ready for Windows 7, and would include a modified version of the Server 2008 kernel.

Please try to keep a little closer to the facts from now on rather than stating what you wish could be but sadly never made it's way into reality.

~Adrian