Filed under: OS, WWDC, Developer, Snow Leopard
Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" confirmed to be Intel-only
We speculated before the WWDC Keynote that Mac OS X 10.6 might be Intel-only. Now it looks like (to many a PPC Mac user's chagrin) that rumor might actually be true. MacNN got a copy of the system requirements for Snow Leopard. One of the main changes: "An Intel processor" required.
Some of the other system requirements include:
- An internal, external, or shared DVD drive
- At least 512 MB of RAM (more is recommended for development)
- A built-in display or display connected to an Apple-supplied video card supported by your computer
- At least 9GB of disk space available, or 12GB of disk space if you install the developer tools
Keep in mind that these system requirements refer to the Developer Preview handed out at WWDC. Snow Leopard isn't scheduled to ship for a year, and things can change. That being said, it might be time for you PowerPC Mac owners to start saving for a new Mac.
[via MacNN]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
netkas said 12:22PM on 6-12-2008
Cory, next time check it urself ;)
$ file mach_kernel
mach_kernel: Mach-O universal binary with 3 architectures
mach_kernel (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
mach_kernel (for architecture i386): Mach-O executable i386
mach_kernel (for architecture ppc): Mach-O executable ppc
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noza said 12:44PM on 6-12-2008
The iPhone SDK is also described as being "Intel-only" and yet its binaries have PPC code.
I've been curious ever since why Apple is choosing to hide that fact...
Maybe in time we'll know.
Kai Cherry said 2:44PM on 6-12-2008
Netkas, you rascal! You're a Bad Man ;)
You run that against the frameworks, too, to see if the have been thinned yet/first?
Your Pal across the sea,
darkten :)
Zachary Hinchliffe said 12:22PM on 6-12-2008
That's kinda lame, especially for such an incremental upgrade over Leopard.
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Jason said 1:32PM on 6-12-2008
On the surface, it may appear to be incremental, but once more details surface, you'll see that it's a fairly significant upgrade under the hood. Can't say more due to NDA.
Doug Adams said 12:28PM on 6-12-2008
From what I've read, Snow Leopard won't be available until next year, when the last PPC Mac will be, what, 2-3 years old? Also, what is to prevent Apple from continuing to release updates of 10.5 for PPCs? Afterall,they have said there will be no new features in Snow Leopard, just stability fixes. As I recall, they released at least one version of OS 9 (9.2.2) after OS X was made available. Just a (hopeful) thought.
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mattstocum said 1:54PM on 6-12-2008
The bit about "no new features" is marketing, there are a lot of new features to Snow Leopard, just most of them are under the hood. Full Exchange support and QuickTime X are the only things users are going to notice, but Grand Central and OpenCL are pretty freaking huge features for developers. Personally I think you're going to see a lot of Snow Leopard only apps, especially in the multimedia arena.
Keith Sheehan said 12:30PM on 6-12-2008
It's good that the Core Duo MacBook Pros (32-bit) are still going to be supported.
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Max said 12:32PM on 6-12-2008
It was pretty obvious really and the right way to go. I predicted that more than a year ago
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Jon said 12:33PM on 6-12-2008
How many computers go through more than one OS upgrade in their lives either on the Mac or Windows side of the world?
I think Snow Leopard being Intel only is no big deal... the world moves forward.
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Temporal said 1:05PM on 6-12-2008
My Blue and White G3 has been through six major OS: 8.x, 9, X(10.1), X(10.2), X(10.3), X(10.4).
Other G4 era PowerMacs that I have supported had the same.
It's too soon to drop PPC in my opinion. However if this is just a maintenance release and not a feature release then it might be ok. As long as they aren't implementing a lot of new stuff that will create a bunch of "Snow Leopard Required!" applications.
Brandon Martinez said 1:22PM on 6-12-2008
Six?!?! Count your blessings then! The average Windows PC can barely make it through the one!
Seriously though, there will be some "10.6 Only applications", or at least, with features only 10.6 supports (especially since they are building Grand Central and CLU). I would, however, only expect these to be very high-end applications; I don't see a need for word proccessors and media players to require (I said require, they could still possibly _want to use_) the extreme multi-threading and borrowing from the GPU.
At least Apple is moving forward instead of trying to support every legacy device (ehem, Windows).
Brandon Martinez said 1:23PM on 6-12-2008
*ahem? I'm not too keen on spelling onomatopoeias.
akatsuki said 12:38PM on 6-12-2008
I imagine a lot of the footprint savings are from this. I'd also expect that they will push some stuff down to Leopard for PPC as appropriate.
Since this seems like a glorified maintenance release, I would expect a layer of polish that goes above and beyond the norm. Finder mounting of network drives, speedy iDisk, a better Finder period, all the small annoying interface nits fixed. Frankly it had better be near perfect right on the 10.6.0 release. And I am still not convinced that it'll be enough to get end-users to pay for an upgrade.
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Erik said 12:53PM on 6-12-2008
It seems important/significant that Apple is touting the "up to 16Tb" max for RAM on the Snow Leopard architecture. Perhaps we will see huge advances in RAM as a more semi-permanent to permanent method for storing information -- in addition to significant price drops in RAM. Accessing enormous files from RAM will make read and write speeds of 7200RPM a thing of the ancient world. Of course, some sort of power management will be required to ensure that all data isn't lost or something like that, but with backups becoming a more common tool -- even for casual computing, it is possible that catastrophic disc failures won't even matter as they once did.
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Zak said 12:53PM on 6-12-2008
It may not be a paid upgrade. Also, because apparently they're focusing on optimizations for Intel, 10.6 wouldn't do anything for PPC anyway. Additionally, Apple will continue to support 10.5 for PPC after 10.6 comes out, just like how they're supporting 10.4 right now with continued updates. Dropping PPC support in 10.6 is pretty much a non-issue.
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Kizorblade said 1:02PM on 6-12-2008
Actually, they may just have "Intel" only for the developer preview to reduce the amount of load on supporting any bugs and stuff, and when they're fine with that, they might start accepting PPC machines.
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Le Big Mac said 1:40PM on 6-12-2008
Yeah, isn't it a bit early to call this one? The developer release is intel only, but are developers likely to be using PPC? That said, it does make sense--even the name Snow Leopard for Leopard--suggests an incremental change that would be intel only, leaving all systems with the most recent OS having some version of "leopard"
Sparks said 1:35PM on 6-12-2008
Which is pretty standard behavior for Apple, after all.
The iPhone SDK final build is supposedly going to be Intel and PowerPC, but by arbitrarily limiting to the newer hardware for the first phases of testing, you can focus on finishing up everything before you start in on 'is this a bug in the code, or a difference between the platforms.'
tony said 1:14PM on 6-12-2008
It's a pretty bold move to both drop PPC support and focus an entire major release on re-architecting. I suppose they figure they've got the time between Vista and 7 to come out with a very strong performance upgrade, since MS is just trying to play catch-up to Leopard at this point. What I'm certainly not getting is, _if_ it is destined to be a paid upgrade, how they expect home users (ie, their largest base) to cough up $130 for benefits that are most likely intangible to them. I'm placing my bets on it being a paid upgrade since they're spending so much time on it (18mo, just like every other major release) and I doubt shareholders would put up with them going two release cycles without a revenue boost (MS's 7 years nonwithstanding).
I just don't see how they're going to sell stuff like Grand Central and OpenCL to home users... they aren't even all that useful to the millions of Mac's out there with integrated graphics. I'm not saying I disagree with the point of the release -- it's a smart move given the direction Intel's taking Nehalem -- I just don't know how they plan to sell it.
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