Speculation mounts over imminent 10.6 unveiling

Posted on 5 Jun 2008 at 09:30

There is mounting speculation that Steve Jobs may next week provide a first glimpse of what Mac users can expect from the next version of OS X.

The Apple chief executive makes his annual address to Mac developers on Monday and is widely expected to unveil a new, 3G iPhone at the same time as confirming the completion of the phone's new 2.0 software and developers' tools.

But sources in the US, as well as a MacUser source in the UK, have suggested that OS X 10.6 - possibly codenamed "Snow Leopard" - will also be on Jobs' agenda.

The codename, if accurate, suggests that the upgrade may be more concerned with addressing the underlying structure of the current Leopard version of OS X, rather than a feature-packed release such as Leopard itself.

Possible changes include the dropping of Power PC support and the abandoning of support for Carbon, the programming interface that smoothed the transition of applications from OS 9 to OS X.

Talking about 10.6 so soon after the October 2007 release of Leopard would not be particularly unusual. Had Leopard been released on schedule, and not held up by the iPhone, it would have shipped a year ago. Jobs first unveiled Leopard at the 2006 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), a year after Tiger was released. Extrapolating, that suggests a 10.6 beta release to developers some time next year, with the final release to follow a few months later.

However both TUAW and Ars Technica sources have suggested that developers will get a beta at next week's WWDC ahead of a January 2009 release. Indeed, an emphasis on the underlying OS, rather than on features, may enable Apple to shorten its normal development cycle.

Jobs' WWDC keynote kicks off at 6pm BST on Monday, 9 June.

[photo: Snow Leopard by itshears]

Author: Simon Aughton

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