Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / June 2008

Does Apple have an OS X update up its sleeve at WWDC?
http://www.macworld.com/article/133787/2008/06/osx106.html?lsrc=top_2

t’s a widely accepted notion by now that Monday’s Worldwide Developers
Conference keynote is going to be iPhone-centric. Whether that entails
more on the iPhone 2.0 software, the forthcoming App Store for native
iPhone apps, or an entirely new iPhone itself is anybody’s guess. But
it’s not exactly going out on a limb to say that Steve Jobs is going to
spend a lot of time detailing Apple’s iPhone plans to developers on Monday.

But Mac OS X could also be in the mix—specifically, a new version of the
operating system. That’s the rumor currently being floated—at The
Unofficial Apple Weblog and Infinite Loop anyway—that developers will
also receive an early seed of OS X 10.6, which is rumored to be
code-named Snow Leopard.

With the caveat that examining any rumor of this nature first requires a
visit to the folks at Morton to restock your grains-of-salt supply, the
thinking goes that 10.6 will be an Intel-only release, that it will have
no major new features, and that it will be focused on improvements in
speed, stability, and security. And oh yeah, OS X 10.6 will be released
as soon as January 2009’s Macworld Expo, a mere 15 months or so after
the release of OS X 10.5.

So how to react to such possibilities? As a consumer, my first thought
was along the lines of “so tell me why I should buy this thing? It
wouldn’t have any new features at all, and it wouldn’t run on my
PowerBook G4?” Then it dawned on me…maybe I wouldn’t have to buy it.

Instead, what if Apple distributes 10.6—assuming there is a 10.6, as
described above—as a free update to anyone running 10.5 on an
Intel-powered Mac? Sure, we’ve become trained to expect a $129 upgrade
fee with each major change in OS X’s version number. But this wouldn’t
mark the first time the company released a major OS X update for free:
OS X 10.1 was a free update, too, for all those who dove in with 10.0.

So why would Apple give this rumored update away for free? If there
really aren’t any compelling new core OS-level features, I don’t think
Apple would find a lot of buyers willing to pony up $129 for 10.6, even
if it were faster. Although Leopard may have some issues, a compelling
sense of overall slowness is not one of those issues. And clearly nobody
is going to pay $129 for improved stability and security—again, OS X
10.5 doesn’t have stability issues for most users, and the platform is
still yet to be affected by any large-scale virus or malware
infestations. So if Apple can’t make any money on this—in fact, it will
cost the company money—then why do it?

The answer, to me anyway, is resources. Right now, Apple has to extend
its OS X efforts to include hardware that isn’t getting any younger—in
addition to supporting new Intel machines, it also must make sure to
support PowerPC processors. If Apple were to continue on its same
dual-platform approach for a theoretical OS X 10.6 update, this would
mean another 12 to 18 months of work supporting both platforms.
(Remember, Leopard finally made it to market two-and-a-half years after
Tiger.) But if the company instead released an Intel-only OS X 10.6
update very soon, that would clearly tell everyone that the next major
update to OS X would also be Intel-only. So the company can then work on
a full-blown Intel-only OS X 10.7 release, making OS X 10.5 the last
release for PowerPC Macs.

By not including any low-level changes in OS X 10.6, Apple also would
appease its developers, some of whom are just now finishing their
migration to OS X 10.5—the developers would probably not be very happy
next week if they were told that their code needed to be updated yet
again. Similarly, PowerPC users wouldn’t instantly be left out in the
cold—they probably wouldn’t soon face “10.6 only” releases from their
favorite vendors under this scenario, as anything that ran on 10.6 would
also run on 10.5. By delivering a feature-limited free update for all
Intel Mac users in the near term, Apple would free up its resources,
developers wouldn’t be forced to revise their code again, and OS X 10.5
PowerPC users wouldn’t need to fear a short-term abandonment.

Another advantage to this strategy is that by making OS X faster, more
stable, and more secure, it becomes a better OS everywhere it’s being
used—whether that be on a Mac, on an iPhone or iPod touch, or on some
yet-unknown Apple hardware device that we’ll all be craving in the near
future. There is no bad news to improving the OS in these ways, except
for those (if the rumors are true) using PowerPC machines. Thankfully,
OS X 10.5 is a very solid OS, and it will continue to work fine on
PowerPC Macs.

Those who use PowerPC Macs, though, would be put on notice with the
release of an Intel-only OS update: the future roadmap for OS X is
Intel-only, and if they want to move beyond OS X 10.5, they’ll need to
upgrade to an Intel-powered Mac. And just when would the next major OS X
version—OS X 10.7 in my scenario—be released? Ignoring the theoretical
OS X 10.6, which wouldn’t be a major update, I would expect to see OS X
10.7 sometime between April and October of 2009, or perhaps January of
2010 at Macworld Expo. That would make it 18 to 27 months since release
of OS X 10.5, which is in line with the company’s historical timeline
for major OS X updates. It would also be around three to four years
since the release of the last PowerPC machine, which is a relatively
long time in the world of computing. Those who wished to continue using
their PowerPC machines could do so, of course—just not on anything newer
than OS X 10.5.

So how about it? Do you think a free Intel-only 10.6 update is in the
works? We’ll know more on Monday, of course, but until then, let the
debate begin.