[AppleChic]

There are rumors circulating that the new version of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard has been seeded to some of the top developers for beta testing. The latest build is said to be 10A261. The prior version of Snow Leopard delivered to developers was in December (build 10A222).

According to Macity, the latest version does not seem to contain anything different but does seem to be more stable. They report:

"The interface has not been revised and currently there are only small changes in System Preferences, have been resolved a few bugs in the Finder and little else. According to the sources of Macity the impression is that this release is more reliable than those previously distributed."

Apple has said that they intend to focus on quality and performance in Snow Leopard and there have been rumors for some time saying that Apple has been tweaking the OS to achieve this. Apple has also made it clear that the OS will give exceptional support for multi-core processors and GPU processing.

Apple also said they intend to release Snow Leopard within a year's time of last year's June developers conference; so it could show up any time between early spring and the fall.

Yay for stability – hopefully Apple will work out all the bugs in beta testing before people actually buy the new OS.

Source: New Snow Leopard Build (10A261) Seeded to Some Developers - Mac Rumors

[tsunami78]

Leopard is a great OS, but definitely is less stable than Tiger was. I really look forward to the stability improvements, and the native 64 bit kernel.

[BenzoHartt]

I just got my 1st macbook this past weekend, and i love it. How could they improve greatness?!? Can't wait to find out. :-)

[gotjpeg]

I hope they fix the freezyness problems that leopard had

[vonellisMANG]

Dang another one already? Well i can't wait. I'll buy anything thats apple. HAHAH

[StealthBravo]

It has already been leaked (You know where)

[drgopoos]

Originally Posted by BenzoHartt

I just got my 1st macbook this past weekend, and i love it. How could they improve greatness?!? Can't wait to find out. :-)

Time to update ur signature

[Poseidon79]

So what are the general benefits of Snow Leopard over Leopard for an average user?

[tsunami78]

My understanding is that there will be significant rewrites of many of the core OSX kernel modules and applications including finder and itunes. Supposedly this will greatly improve the performance of said apps. In addition, the new kernel is supposed to make significantly more efficient use of multi core processors as well as offload some operations to the GPU, which would futher speed up overall system processing.

That said, anything that improves stability and increases performance is good in my book. My main hope is a complete redesign of finder. Honestly Microsoft Explorer kicks the $#!t out of finder hands-down. I would like to see something closer to Explorer replace finder. I'm not holding my breath however...

[wgm214]

Im hoping to get a new laptop in about 2 weeks, is it worth holding off do u think for snow leapord or should i just order it now??

[sziklassy]

upgrades to leopard are usually 100 bucks for one user or 200 for a 4 user family. If you have some "family" to split the cost 4 ways, you are only throwing down an extra 25 bucks. Really just depends on how much money you want to spend.

[BenzoHartt]

Originally Posted by drgopoos

Time to update ur signature

i knew i forgot to do something. I'll get to it sometime today.


Has anyone been using yet?

[bluskool]

Improving stability and performance. In other words, fixing problems. I thought that that was what updates were for. Instead of fixing leopard's problems, we get to buy a new OS. Woo hoo! Sounds a lot like what Adobe did with releasing Acrobat 9 in the middle of the CS3 cycle. Acrobat 8 had many know issues, but instead of fixing them, us Acrobat users got the fine privilege of paying again for basically the same app just without bugs. Don't get me wrong, I am glad Apple is focusing on fixing the problems instead of adding features, but I get a little pissed when we have to pay for their haste and mistakes.

[rdwalsh]

Originally Posted by bluskool

Improving stability and performance. In other words, fixing problems. I thought that that was what updates were for. Instead of fixing leopard's problems, we get to buy a new OS. Woo hoo! Sounds a lot like what Adobe did with releasing Acrobat 9 in the middle of the CS3 cycle. Acrobat 8 had many know issues, but instead of fixing them, us Acrobat users got the fine privilege of paying again for basically the same app just without bugs. Don't get me wrong, I am glad Apple is focusing on fixing the problems instead of adding features, but I get a little pissed when we have to pay for their haste and mistakes.

Its not just the bugs they are focusing on with this new release. Like the post said it is also looking into really rebuilding the kernel to better support the multicore processing units. Something Apple has somewhat touched in the past when the G5 hit the shelves, but didn't pull too much focus to. It's optimization for 64 bit is also there as well. Which is really going to blow the OS out of the water.

I agree with you to the point that, bug fixes shouldn't require a new OS, and that the consumer has pay the price for a company's failing point in pursueing the issues more hands on. But there is a lot of new technology they are working into this OS. Its not just the bug fixes. As well, with the Adobe reference, well thats only somewhat true. There are a lot new features between 8 and 9, that I use on a daily basis that Adobe had thrown in. When it comes to a world of working with Pre-Press and Publishing, Adobe takes the cake, and I'd be lost without them. But on that point, average joe who has Acrobat, doesn't even know what he has in his hands. I'm not assuming you are the average joe user, but those that are, dont get it, get reader. If you want a pdf maker theres lots of freebees out there.

But back to the topic, Snow Leopard is more than a bug fixer, take a deeper look at what they are doing, and you will understand that.

[bluskool]

Do you work for Apple? To be fair, I'll give you that Apple is putting a lot into Snow Leopard. My point was that improvements are not new features as would warrant a new version. It is interesting that they are calling it Snow Leopard. I guess they are running out of fast cat names.
Anyway, I have to completely disagree with you on Acrobat. I work in pre-press and use Acrobat everyday. Aside from a few additions to the pre-flight function, what new features did Acro 9 add? Almost every pre-press feature was already in Acro 8, but it just didn't work. For example, the convert colors command is broken and has serious problems with clipping when going from one space to another and the edit object and edit text tools rarely work as indicated and often crash the program. I love Acro 9, but it is really just what Acro 8 should have been. If you already paid that much for features, you should not have to pay again just to get them to function as advertised.