Filed under: Macworld, Rumors, Snow Leopard
MacNN: Snow Leopard could ship 1Q 2009
Snow Leopard could ship as early as January, according to comments made by the director of Apple's Unix Technology Group.
Jordan Hubbard said at the Large Installation System Administration conference last week that Mac OS X 10.6 will ship in the first quarter of 2009, according to MacNN.
This primes the Macworld Expo rumor pump: Scheduled for January 5, Steve could debut new quad-core iMacs in addition to showing off this new version of the operating system.
This is not to be confused with Mac OS X 10.5.6, a minor update, which could be available as soon as Friday.

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Elias G. said 12:52PM on 11-19-2008
Sounds a bit early for it to be shipping already.
I think perhaps we'll see the first public previews.
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Brian said 12:32PM on 11-19-2008
Yummy... as a new switcher (nearly a year now) I love my mac so anything new will be fab.
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ghostshadow said 12:37PM on 11-19-2008
I doubt they'll release another version of OS X this soon. I don't see it happening. They might announce it during Macworld, but I don't see it being released this soon.
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Devon said 12:51PM on 11-19-2008
More like WWDC at the earliest.
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Fernando said 12:51PM on 11-19-2008
Already? Wow.
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franktinsley said 2:10PM on 11-19-2008
I could see it coming that soon. Haven't they been using it at Apple HQ for a while now? And it's really just a big bug fix so what I'm half expecting is that it'll be either free or at a much reduced price.
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Ariel said 12:26PM on 11-20-2008
franktinsley, this is most certainly NOT just a bug fix. The under-the-hood improvements are enormous, and there are STILL a handful of really useful new features.
wicktron said 2:24PM on 11-19-2008
I think it gets announced @ MacWorld, gets released around WWDC. Think of it as a pre-emptive strike vs Windows 7.
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Ariel said 12:28PM on 11-20-2008
Who knows. They released Jaguar as a preemptive strike against Vista, but Vista was delayed, so they released Tiger to combat Vista. However, Vista was delayed so much longer after Tiger's release they had to do Leopard. :P
Patriks7 said 4:09PM on 11-19-2008
Perfect timing :p I will be getting my unibody MBP in february next year, so I won't have to transition from Leopard to the Snow one :p
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Jesse said 5:37PM on 11-19-2008
My guess is a demo of the main new technologies (Grand Central, OpenCL, 64-bit kernel, 64-bit Finder, etc...) at Macworld and a release at WWDC or soon after.
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imatt said 12:20AM on 11-20-2008
may be splitting hairs, but isn't it "Q1" not "1Q"?
And for God's sake PLEASE get rid of that horrid ad that takes over the whole window when you navigate away/click a read link or go to previous stories. And to top it off, it's broken now and just makes it go black with no way to escape it. Hasn't Weblogs learned from trying that shit on Engadget earlier this year? Those kinds of ads are AWFUL!
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Ariel said 12:30PM on 11-20-2008
imatt, it IS Q1. That means 1st quarter. Confusing, I know.
And uh... ever try Firefox with Adblock Plus?
imatt said 10:01PM on 11-20-2008
wow... thanks Ariel for opening my eyes to a whole new way to browse!
Mia said 12:36PM on 12-07-2008
A little off of topic, but I have a PowerBook G4 that I bought when the first Mac Book Pro came out. I would like to upgrade the OS to the Snow Leopard, but was wondering if I should just buy a new mac altogether? If I upgrade the OS and dont buy a new mac, will I lose all of my data/applications?
Also, if I buy a new mac with the new OS already installed, will I just be able to transport my current hard drive to the new computer so I wont lose files?
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Maggy said 11:16PM on 12-17-2008
there is a video on the apple website that demonstrates the upgrade process. u will not lose any of ur files and once the upgrade is complete all ur existing files will be right where u left them.
if u buy a new mac all together, if u take ur old laptop with u to an apple store the apple genius will transfer all ur files on to ur new laptop for free.