9 comments

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  Bassguy

  7 months ago

  I couldn't disagree more. Frankly, Apple is in a lose-lose situation here. If they skipped the release of 10.5, and waited until 2009 to release this theoretical MEGALEOPARD, there would be uproars from the community about what is taking so damn long with the new release. Not to mention that their major competitor in the OS space released a major upgrade last year, so having an operating system that came out in 2005 isn't the greatest thing.
  
  Leopard is a complete operating system. There isn't any glaring omission, so I don't think it is possible to claim that Leopard users got screwed. In fact, it is very hard to go back to a machine running Tiger, and try to live without things like Coverflow in the Finder and QuickLook.
  
  Forcing new releases of the OS to be packed with frills and whirlly-gigs to pacify Joe Consumer, I argue, hurts the overall product. In fact, some may argue that is exactly what happened with Vista. Instead of releasing just a feature packed stable release, they added a lot of fluff to make it seem new and exciting. That seems to have backfired a little bit.
  
  OS X is mature now. I am glad that they are focusing on optimizing and strengthening everything under the hood. Now that they don't have to worry about wowing SillyBilly sitting at Macworld, they can focus on making your computer better than it ever has been.
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  macgasm

  7 months ago

  Some excellent points man, but I kind of see coverflow and quicklook more as features then necessities. You're right, I'd have a hard time living with out them, but it freaks me out that it's starting to seem like we are paying for one set of feature updates, and one set of under the hood updates. Man, I hope I'm wrong!
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  GlutenBoy

  7 months ago

  I think Snow Leopard contains major architecture changes and have the possibility to affect many applications or new release of applications. In that case developers need to put their hands on a beta release to add and test the new architecture changes in their applications and this is not possible with a simple software update.
  
  Now I will agree with you, as a consumer I don't want to pay for this either, except if there is major benefit in the short term and I don't think it is the case here.
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  macgasm

  7 months ago

  To steal an idea from microsoft, wouldn't that then make this more of a service pack than an actual os update? Should consumers be expected to pay for an upgrade that primarily benefits the developers? I have a really hard time trying to figure out how consumers should be expected to foot this bill.
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  GlutenBoy

  7 months ago

  Exactly. I hope they won't change for this or they put something in the Snow (haha) that we couldn't resist, ala "one more thing".
  
  I would add that in the future we will see less and less big major release like Tiger and Win95 was. I think software company now realize that the Agile way of releasing smaller but more often is a better way of creating more stable, efficient (cost wise and productivity wise) software. The problem is how and when do we charge for this?
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  Bassguy

  7 months ago

  It isn't just developers that benefit, though. Your machine will run faster and smoother. When developers are delivered great new tools, that leads to great new apps.
  
  I see where you're coming from, but I really do believe this is the right move for Apple at this stage of the game. The benefits aren't as apparent this time around, but I'll be happy as a clam if all of a sudden my encodes take 20% less time or all of my apps start launching in one or two bounces.
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  Scott

  7 months ago

  I think Mac users have accepted the fact that OS X product releases are value for money purchases. We are not talking about £3-400 release as is the case with Microsoft new versions and I am personally happy to pay £99 every year or so for the sort of updates that Apple produce. I have upgraded ( over a number of machines ) from Panther to Tiger and Leopard and each upgrade I have felt was a major step forward over the previous and fully worth the purchase price.
  
  The Apple model of annual upgrades for £100 rather than 4-5 year upgrades for £3-400 has been discussed many times and personally I am comfortable with this.
  
  From what I have understood so far of the Snow Leopard update there are potentially MAJOR architectural improvements that promise to deliver further REAL benefits to users. Compare this the the changes in Windows with each update which inevitably require a machine of higher spec to produce the same ( or in Vista case lesser ) performance than before the upgrade.
  
  Of course consumers can always vote with their dollars ( or pounds in the UK ! ) by not upgrading but I think history has shown that Mac devotees are quite happy to pay for the sort of improvements that Steve and his teams deliver with each of their OS upgrades.
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  Laydros

  7 months ago

  But most of the releases up to leopard were around 1.5 years apart I agree that performance and stability upgrades should be free, but in terms of schedule this is more of a return to the norm than a change.
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• 

  macgasm

  7 months ago

  Yeah, that's probably my relatively new to the mac opinion coming through there. The first os I used was Tiger, so the time between Tiger to Leopard is probably adding to my bias a little. I never got to experience the Puma -> Jaguar -> Panther -> Tiger progression.
  
  The Panther through Leopard releases all seem to have some pretty huge additions to functionality, but it seems like Snow Leopard is going to fall short of those releases. It's more of a cheetah to puma release.
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