Snow Leopard bares its fangs at WWDC

Apple has announced that Mac OS X 10.6 - or 'Snow Leopard' - will ship in September.

Apple decided - quite rightly - that OS X's latest Leopard iteration was so good, the wheel didn't need reinventing. But why not improve it? With that in mind, Apple's engineers focused on refining 90 per cent of the more than 1000 projects making up Mac OS X.

The promised result, announced today, is a more responsive Finder; Mail that loads messages 85 per cent faster and conducts searches up to 90 per cent faster and Time Machine getting an up-to-50 per cent faster initial backup speedup.

The Dock will have Exposé integration and Snow Leopard will include an all new QuickTime 10 (QT X), with a redesigned player that allows users to easily view, record, trim and share video to YouTube, MobileMe or iTunes.

Snow Leopard will be half the size of OS 10.5.7, freeing up to 6GB of drive space once installed.

Snow Leopard's support for 64-bit processors makes use of large amounts of RAM, increases performance, and improves security while remaining compatible with 32-bit applications.

There isn't a 'special' version of Snow Leopard with this support - Apple makes one version of its OS and all users get all the features. For the first time, system applications like the Finder, Mail, iCal, iChat and Safari will be 64-bit.

Grand Central Dispatch provides a new way for software to take advantage of multicore processors and that's also integrated throughout Snow Leopard, from new system-wide APIs to high-level frameworks and programming language extensions, leading to improved responsiveness across the system.

OpenCL, a C-based open standard, will allow developers to tap the power of the graphics processing unit for tasks that go beyond graphics.

Snow Leopard will have support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 built right into Mac OS X Mail, Address Book and iCal so people can use these applications to send and receive email, create and respond to meeting invitations, and search and manage contacts with global address lists.

That means Snow Leopard users can take advantage of Apple's fast Spotlight searches and Quick Look previews while they're using Exchange, giving them an advantage over Windows users of Exchange. Businesses of any size will appreciate this, as it will be easier to integrate Macs into their organisations.

There are new features to aid accessibility, too. Apple has long included VoiceOver voice support for those with visual impairments - now Apple's Multi-Touch trackpad is integrated with the VoiceOver screen reader so users can hear and navigate different parts of a window or the desktop by moving a single finger around the trackpad as if it were the screen.

Snow Leopard also introduces built-in support for wireless bluetooth braille displays and the connection of multiple braille displays simultaneously to one Mac.

Apple says Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard in September 2009 through the Apple Store, Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorised Resellers. For Tiger users with Intel-based Macs, the Mac Box Set includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife '09 and iWork '09. (Details will be available at launch, says Apple).

But what if you buy a new Mac between now and Snow Leopard's release?

The Mac OS X Snow Leopard Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorised Reseller between 8 June, 2009 and the end of the program on 26 December, 2009, for a product plus shipping and handling fee of $19.

You have to request your Up-To-Date upgrade within 90 days of purchase or by 26th December, 2009, whichever comes first.

Snow Leopard requires 1GB of RAM and is designed to run on any Intel Mac; the full system requirements are here.

SAFARI 4

Meanwhile, a new version of Safari was announced and made available immediately. This takes on board the criticisms of Public Beta testers and improves the tabbed interface over previous versions.

It includes the new Nitro JavaScript engine and claims to execute JavaScript nearly eight times faster than IE 8 and more than four times faster than Firefox 3.

Safari 4 quickly loads HTML web pages more than three times faster than IE 8 and three times faster than Firefox 3, according to Apple's testing on an iMac 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system running Windows Vista, with 2GB of RAM. Apple's JavaScript benchmark is based on the SunSpider JavaScript Performance test. The HTML benchmark is based on VeriTest's iBench Version 5.0 using default settings.

Safari 4 includes HTML 5 support for offline technologies and support for advanced CSS Effects, enabling a new class of web applications that feature rich media, graphics and fonts. Safari 4 adheres to the CSS, JavaScript, XML and SVG standards specifically designed for dynamic web applications.

Once OS X Snow Leopard ships, Safari will run as a 64-bit application, boosting the performance of the Nitro JavaScript engine by another 50 per cent. Snow Leopard will make Safari more resistant to crashes, says Apple, by running plug-ins as separate processes. In other words, if a plug-in crashes, Safari continues to run and the user simply has to reload the affected page.

Safari 4 is available for both Mac OS X and Windows as a free download now [www.apple.com/nz/safari]. Safari 4 for Mac OS X requires Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7 or Mac OS X Tiger v10.4.11 and Security Update 2009-002, 256MB RAM and it's designed to run on any Intel-based Mac or a Mac with a PowerPC G5, G4 or G3 processor and built-in FireWire.

(Safari 4 for Windows requires Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista, a minimum 256MB of RAM and at least a 500 MHz Intel Pentium processor.)

Roll on, September ...

- Mark Webster mac.nz