Apple Ups the Ante With Snow Leopard

As the Snow Leopard release grows closer more details have been released about the upcoming operating system, according to an AppleInsider report.

Apple initially seemed to suggest that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard would be a minor release following 2007's 10.5 Leopard, citing support for Exchange Server push messaging as the only customer-facing feature. However, Apple historically directs attention upon its currently shipping products rather than its future plans. As the Snow Leopard release grows closer (remarks at WWDC last summer indicated it would ship "in about a year," or Summer 2009), more details have been released.

Snow Leopard will deliver a full 64-bit kernel, requiring the same significant "all at once" upgrade in device drivers that Vista's significant kernel changes did. Apple will likely have an easier time pulling this off, as Snow Leopard is only designed to run on a relatively small number of higher end PCs, all made by Apple. Rather than trying to get lots of vendors on board as Microsoft must, Apple will be supplying the majority of kernel-level drivers for Snow Leopard.



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