Filed under: WWDC, Snow Leopard
Apple to release $29 10.6 Snow Leopard Upgrade in September
Today, Apple announced a ship date and upgrade pricing for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. 10.6 will debut this September as an upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard users for just $29. "We've built on the success of Leopard and created an even better experience for our users from installation to shutdown," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering in an Apple Press Release. "Apple engineers have made hundreds of improvements so with Snow Leopard your system is going to feel faster, more responsive and even more reliable than before.
Snow Leopard features include built-in Microsoft Exchange 2007 support along with a slicker install process, faster applications, and 64-bit versions of standard applications that boost overall performance. Apple brags that "[u]sers will notice a more responsive Finder; Mail that loads messages 85 percent faster and conducts searches up to 90 percent faster; Time Machine with up to 50 percent faster initial backup; a Dock with Expose integration; a 64-bit version of Safari 4 that boosts the performance of the Nitro JavaScript engine by up to 50 percent and is resistant to crashes caused by plug-ins."
In addition to the $29 single user upgrade, a family pack upgrade will cost $49. Tiger users will pay $169 for a 10.6/iLife box set or $229 for a family pack.
All users who purchased or will purchase a new qualifying Mac between 8 June 2009 and 26 December 2009 will receive a free upgrade package and pay $9.95 for shipping and handling. You must request your up-to-date upgrade within 90 days of your original purchase.
Snow Leopard requires a minimum of 1GB RAM and runs on Intel-based Macintoshes. Full system requirements are hosted at Apple's tech specs page.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
bebopredux said 2:26PM on 6-08-2009
"All users who purchased or will purchase a new qualifying Mac between 8 June 2009 and 26 December 2009 will receive a free upgrade package and pay $9.95 for shipping and handling. "
That is pretty generous if you ask me. I think Apple hit a HR with this alone. I'd much rather see performance upgrades than eye candy. OSX is pretty enough. Can you see MS doing something like this? They hose you on the OS big time. September can't come soon enough for me.
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iBearTouch said 4:30PM on 6-08-2009
"Home run?"
More like a grand slam...
6 Gigs smaller too, not a bad thing. :)
Most grand slam hitters are beefed up on steroids... which makes this one a little more special! This one is like a pitcher on Slim-Fast hitting a Grand Slam.
Enough baseball analogies!
Jetcopter said 6:40PM on 6-08-2009
Actually Microsoft offers the same for users that buy a computer within a few months of a new version of Windows. I know for sure they did it with Vista and are planning on doing it with Win7. I'm not sure if they did it for XP.
It seems to be common practice so people continue to buy computers instead of holding off until the new OS is released.
variaas said 2:14PM on 6-08-2009
Does the $29 upgrade mean that if you want to do a fresh install you'll still have to install Leopard and then run the Snow Leopard upgrade?
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Ryan Trevisol said 4:07PM on 6-08-2009
Doubtful. I'm guessing you'd need your Leopard disc. Also, if you have a newer mac, it would know by the firmware that the machine shipped with Leopard.
There are probably a comparatively smaller number of Intel Macs that would have an issue with this.
fatback said 3:25PM on 6-08-2009
Exchange support was the only thing I wanted out of today's keynote and now I have to wait another 3 months. arrgggh!! I am sick of the iPhone stealing the limelight.
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Quinn Taylor said 3:48PM on 6-08-2009
I thought Snow Leopard got quite a bit of time. The fact that it's shipping in September isn't terribly surprising. Phil established at Macworld that June is iPhone season, and the casual observer will notice that Fall has become the traditional OS X season. Yeah, we'd all love to have the update earlier, but unlike with Leopard, an earlier iPhone release is very unlikely to be at the expense of Snow Leopard — the development has been concurrent, and staggered releases makes things easier internally and provides longer sustained publicity and hype.
Ted said 2:54PM on 6-08-2009
That tech spec link is for regular leopard not snow leopard. I thought snow leopard was 64-bit machines only?
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Quinn Taylor said 3:43PM on 6-08-2009
Snow Leopard is for Intel machines only, no PowerPC support at all. What you're probably confusing is that it *adds* 64-bit support, but still runs on 32-bit Intel Macs.
EMoShunz said 3:12PM on 6-08-2009
can anyone help with some questions?
1) mentioned above, will that $29/$49 allow you to do clean installs?
2) will there be a multi upgrade for leopard (ilife/iwork 09 and 10.6 from 10.5) with a family pack? that's what i need.
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Dano said 8:25PM on 6-08-2009
Agreed - I was looking for the answer to the same question but haven't found it. Value pricing for Tiger users, but none for Leopard users to be found.
EMoShunz said 3:14PM on 6-08-2009
3) does ilife 09 make use of the 64 bit-ness and opencl?
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Murray68 said 4:12PM on 6-08-2009
The Australian Leopard site is showing $14.95 to upgrade vs the main http://www.apple.com/macosx/ versus http://www.apple.com/au/macosx/.
This must be a misprint.
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Evan- said 8:56PM on 6-09-2009
prolly it's in aussie dollars...
Dave Barnes said 4:12PM on 6-08-2009
I am shocked by the pricing.
I had expected Apple to price 10.6 at the $129/$199 price points and tell us that it was worth it.
Now, I get to upgrade my 5 family Macs for $10 each. Amazing.
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Tom said 5:23PM on 6-08-2009
I was glad to see the pricing too. Microsoft needs to take note of this and give Windows 7 to Vista users at a similar price point.
Reminds me of when Apple admitted OS X wasn't quite as ready as it should have been, and gave 10.1 away to 10.0 users.