Snow Leopard continues Apple’s drive towards the future and break with the past. Millions of PowerPC-based Macs have just been abandoned, and the remarkable library of classic Mac applications has been long forgotten at corporate headquarters. But we understand and accept that as the price of progress.
It seems very obvious that Apple’s goal is to wean its customers off PowerPC hardware. At $29 per copy, Apple’s not trying to get rich from software sales, and a more likely explanation is the desire to cut costs by eliminating support and engineering costs for continuing PowerPC support. Cutting those expenses undoubtably makes business sense, and, no matter how many million they are in number, Apple’s not making much money off those customers still running PowerPC systems and older Mac operating systems for economic reasons, or because they have legacy hardware and software that are not supported by the latest Mac products.
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On Freedom
Andy Ihnatko, in discussing MobileMe’s value makes this excellent point:
Apple — with some justification — has a nasty reputation for wanting and exerting this kind of influence and control. If that’s their reputation, why don’t they leverage it to the consumer’s maximum advantage? An Apple computer on an Apple network using an Apple online service to interact with an Apple mobile phone could be an absolutely glorious totalitarian state in which every app, document, and device you use has a passported conduit to everything else you use.
Reporting on a Non-Issue
A developer Friday told AppleInsider the drive on his Mac mini was only used a handful of times before the attempted install of Snow Leopard. After he inserted the installation disc for Mac OS X 10.6, the drive would not mount any other optical discs. Now, he said, the drive will not read or write any CD or DVD.
“Unfortunately, I have not been able to get Apple’s cooperation on resolving this,” the developer said. “For now, I am advising all my Mac clients not to upgrade and I am not guaranteeing that any solution I build will run on Snow Leopard.”
iPhones Overloading AT&T’s Network
“It’s been a challenging year for us,” said John Donovan, the chief technology officer of AT&T. “Overnight we’re seeing a radical shift in how people are using their phones,” he said. “There’s just no parallel for the demand.”
No kidding.
10.6 Using Older Version of Flash
So, lets explain what’s going on here. Imagine you have a Mac. Imagine you have been really diligent about keeping your copy of Adobe Flash up-to-date (Adobe is commonly targeted by the bad guys, and so Adobe has been releasing regular security updates for Flash and PDF Reader)
Now, imagine (like me) you got your copy of Snow Leopard on Friday, and have now updated your computers.
Unfortunately during the course of that update (and unknown to you) Apple downgraded your installation of Flash to an earlier version (version 10.0.23.1), which is known not to be secure and is not patched against various security vulnerabilities.
MacFixIt Absorbed into C|Net
We’re moving! We’re currently migrating all MacFixIt articles to our new home in CNET. We’ll be redirecting all traffic to the new site this afternoon, but if you want to get a sneak peak you can visit the site now at http://reviews.cnet.com/macfixit.
It’s kinda sad to see it go.
WTF, Cisco?
Gizmodo linked to this Cisco ad that blew my mind. Watch, but be warned, there’s partial nudity. And lots of sweet Cisco gear.
Creation from Re:Birth Films on Vimeo.
Merlin Mann on Snow Leopard
Mann’s had some issues, it seems:
Yes, I will update my apps on five computers. Yes, I will buy or borrow as many rubber chickens as I need to return all my preferences that have magically albeit subtly disappeared. Yes, the new Dock is pretty. Yes, I can’t wait to see all the cool apps people build using the extra gigawatts afforded by the 64-bit flux capacitor.
But, fucking A, guys. I realize you’re having a big, beardy lemon party about all these homeopathically non-obvious new features, but come on.
Backblaze Talks Hardware
Backblaze, the online backup company, has posted a lengthy blog entry about the custom hardware they’ve designed to store customer data:
A Backblaze Storage Pod is a self-contained unit that puts storage online. It’s made up of a custom metal case with commodity hardware inside. Specifically, one pod contains one Intel Motherboard with four SATA cards plugged into it. The nine SATA cables run from the cards to nine port multiplier backplanes that each have five hard drives plugged directly into them (45 hard drives in total).
The 10.6 Review We’ve Been Waiting For
John Siracusa of Ars Technica has written incredible reviews of each OS X release for years — 10.5 Leopard, 10.4 Tiger, 10.3 Panther, 10.2 Jaguar, 10.1 Puma, the original release of OS X, and even the public beta.
His take on Snow Leopard is no different. All 23 pages of it are great. He covers the installation process, the 32- vs. 64-bit debate, QuickTime X, new development tools, various tweaks throughout the OS, performance increases and more.
The Box
![The Box Has Shrunk [243/365; 08/31/2009]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3510/3876989182_82237baba6_b.jpg)
Loads and Loads of Snow Leopard Tricks
Mac|Life has discovered 100 tweaks on Snow Leopard — including some very obscure ones. It really shows the level of detail Apple went to on this release.