Snow Leopard set for early release?

Posted on 20 Nov 2008 at 10:11

Apple may be planning to release the next version of OS X earlier than expected, after the director of engineering for Unix Technologies let slip the release date during a presentation.

In a slide listing the successive OS X releases, Jordan Hubbard has 10.6 as arriving in the first quarter of 2009. Apple had previously said that the next version, known as Snow Leopard, would ship “about a year” after it was announced in June of this year.

One reason for the earlier introduction - if that is indeed the case - maybe the fact that Snow Leopard does not contain any new applications or headline features. Instead it focusses on under-the-hood technologies, designed to provide the basis for generations of the OS to come.

These include Grand Central, which enhances support for multi-core processors, the new Open Computing Language (OpenCL) to allow applications tap into the huge but often unused power of graphics processors and a completely new multimedia engine, QuickTime X.

Author: Simon Aughton

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