Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 - the story so far

Interestingly, developer preview builds of Snow Leopard also include the forthcoming Safari 4, which lets you turn a website into a standalone web application at the push of a button. This isn't merely a bookmark, but a standalone application saved out as a .APP in Mac OS and a .EXE using the Windows version of Safari. Neither work without an internet connection, though storing a cached version of the site should be possible.

Safari 4 also offers 'the fastest implementation of JavaScript ever', which Apple claims boosts performance 'by 53%, making Web 2.0 applications feel more responsive.' Not strictly Snow Leopard features, but a tantalising glimpse of what's around the corner…

ImageBoot

Back to the OS proper, Snow Leopard also boasts a new feature called ImageBoot. Based on the Mac's NetBoot facility which enables it to boot from a disc stored remotely on a network, with ImageBoot, you can boot your system from a disc image stored on any internal or external drive.

At present, you can only have one bootable OS X installation on a single disc partition, but Snow Leopard enables you to store as many as you like. This is ideal for test environments, enabling you to quickly reboot under different configurations of the operating system or carry your own configuration around with you.

QuickTime X uses technologies developed for the iPhone, and according to Apple, "optimises support for modern codecs and more efficient media playback." Again, we shouldn't expect any dramatic changes to the user experience, but a significant boost in performance is on the cards, with the new version of QuickTime taking advantage of Grand Central technology to utilise the power of multi-core machines as well as OpenCL to work the GPU harder.

Requirements and pricing

But what sort of a Mac will you need to run Snow Leopard? No one at Apple is saying, but you can bet your last quid it will be Intel-only.

[Sentence removed - see below] Given the massive reduction in size of OS X and its applications, what could possibly be coming out if it's not the PPC code?

There's no word on Snow Leopard's price, but we hope it's at a level that encourages upgrading. As Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software put it, "Pricing is difficult, because it's hard to ask customers for money to upgrade to something which has few, if any, new features.

I won't be surprised if Apple releases the update as a free upgrade, or charges very little. Remember, it will come with all new Macs from the day it is available." Wise words…

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following sentence has been removed from the body of the article as it is factually incorrect. TechRadar apologises for the error.

While Carbon is designed to offer backwards-compatibility with PowerPC-based Macs, Cocoa most certainly isn't, and so a Finder written in Cocoa just can't be run on a pre-Intel Mac.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First published in MacFormat, Issue 204

Now read 7 things to get excited about at Macworld Expo

Sign up for the free weekly TechRadar newsletter
Get tech news delivered straight to your inbox. Register for the free TechRadar newsletter and stay on top of the week's biggest stories and product releases. Sign up at http://www.techradar.com/register