Don’t forget Snow Leopard
In all the hoopla around the introduction of the new iPhone 3GS and its new operating system, we seem to have lost sight of that other OS news: the pending introduction of Mac Snow Leopard.
The iPhone news is sexier than the critical in-the-basement features being implemented with Snow Leopard, the new Mac OS. Still. Apple is a computer company, and Snow Leopard is a significant step forward in the evolution of the Mac operating system. While we may also get some glitzier improvements, such as interface tweaks, we are certainly getting an operating system that looks deep into our needs in coming years.
There are a million (seemingly) small tweaks coming in the new operating system, due to be released in September carrying a price of just $29, which is $100 less than the other upgrades that have happened in recent years. Finder is new and improved, much more versatile. Snow Leopard is faster to shut down and to wake up. It installs easier, and is smaller, the latter thanks to ending PowerBook support. Better support for Services. Improved file sharing. Vastly improved assistive technologies. The list of improvements that we will see every day really does seem to go on forever. There’s a full list at Apple.com.
But the really important stuff is under the hood, things that you would not normally notice, though you may feel some of the improvements. For one thing, all of the critical system applications have been upgraded to 64 bits. The new system takes full advantage of graphics co-processors in all situations, using the graphics CPUs for more purposes in games and big graphics applications, through the inclusion of OpenCL technology. Quicktime has been beefed up and made into a much more user-friendly and more useful video application.
But perhaps the most important single advance is deeply hidden indeed. Snow Leopard includes new technology called Grand Central Dispatch. This core system lets Mac developers take full advantage of the latest in multi-core processors. Grand Central uses new algorithms and threads to dispatch work more efficiently to both multiple cores and multiple CPUs, making Mac systems vastly more efficient. We are moving into a future filled with multiple processors and cores, and Snow Leopard will allow developers to take full advantage of them, and Apple users to fully benefit from them.
It is not inconceivable that this OS X technology could bleed over into smaller devices like the iPhone and iPod Touch, or into the rumored new Mac tablet computer, which may well merge technology and software from both platforms. As Apple devices, both large and small, continue to push the technology envelope, the lines will begin to blur between small and large, stationary and mobile. The new core technologies in Snow Leopard will help pave the way.
Related Posts:
