[earthlings]

Will the Snow Leopard version be replaced with a new mac os x version this year or next year?

[AKcrab]

Yes.

[turtle777]

Soonish.

-t

[besson3c]

That depends, are you wearing a bow tie?

[Chuckit]

Almost certainly not this year. Possibly next year.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

That depends, are you wearing a bow tie?

Contrast Linux OS release parties, which require a tux.

[P]

Apple has said that updates should come on an 18-24 month cycle. With SL released in August of 2009, we have a range from February to August 2011 as the likely release date for 10.7, but noone outside Apple really knows anything at this point.

[Oneota]

Actually, given how early in the development process they are for 10.7, it's likely that no one inside Apple knows anything about the ship date, either.

[Big Mac]

How long was the period between Leopard and SL? If we use that as a metric we can assume 10.7 will take even longer because it makes sense to expect that 10.7 will be more ambitious, feature-packed release of the OS compared to the refinement of Leopard that we saw with Snow Leopard.

[TheoCryst]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Contrast Linux OS release parties, which require a tux.

Boo.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by Oneota 

Actually, given how early in the development process they are for 10.7, it's likely that no one inside Apple knows anything about the ship date, either.

QFT. Apple doesn't really seem to hold itself to a release schedule very tightly anyway. I'm guessing that work in earnest won't begin until this spring or summer.

[turtle777]

I never craved for a new OS X version less than now with SL.

It's not perfect, but it's so good, I really don't miss anything that 3rd party apps don't do well for me.

-t

[EndlessMac]

Unless it's a really worthwhile upgrade I don't really care when the next Mac OS comes out. I don't really need to go through the mess of waiting for bug fixes and software compatibility issues all over again.

Basically I don't want them releasing new a OS simply for the sake of releasing a new OS every so often like Microsoft seems to do. And speaking of Windows, I really loved that long time frame that XP stayed the majority Windows OS which is an example of what I'm talking about.

Since Apple isn't only a software company they aren't as dependent on selling their new OS and other software to make money. I rather they just keep perfecting their OS and give us an incredible user experience. I'm not saying that they shouldn't make new OS but just make them a worthwhile upgrade rather than a only money maker upgrade like Windows does with releases such as ME, Vista, etc. If an OS is good I don't think we really need upgrades so often unless it's worthwhile like I said.

[Big Mac]

I hate to say it but Windows 7 is an excellent Windows release. I still prefer OS X for many reasons, but the quality gap has gotten much tighter because M$ has succeeded in covering over much of what made Windows suck and has successfully copied many of the advanced UI features OS X brought us in 2001. We may be approaching the point at which desktop GUIs have achieved near perfection. Therefore, I hope Apple has an ambitious roadmap for the future of desktop computing. My fear is that Apple cares a lot more about the iPlatforms than the Mac.

[EndlessMac]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I hate to say it but Windows 7 is an excellent Windows release.

I was commenting more about the way Microsoft seems to be milking people for money with their release rather than truly concentrating on the user's experience. Windows 7 is an improvement in OS related stuff but they still have that milking the user mentality with their need to have a Home, Professional, and Ultimate version. Whereas with Mac OS, unless you want a server, everyone gets a full featured OS and not a crippled one unless you buy the most expensive version like Windows makes you do. That's the benefit of not being only a software company and having most of your income come from that.

I welcome the competition between Mac and Windows because it does drive them to be better. I believe that's one of the reasons why Apple has been so innovative because they have always been the underdog and were forced to stand out from the crowd. That's what my point is. I don't want Apple to just keep upgrading the OS for the sake of upgrading but rather to stay innovative and make truly worthwhile upgrades.

[P]

There is a problem when you have an OS as entrenched as XP is, or a browser like IE 6 - there is no real reason to move away from it, and without a critical mass, it's hard to make people develop and test for it. OS updates every 2 years is about right, I think, but then the second to last version needs support for some time after that.

It's rather pointless to speculate about 10.7 until we know what will be in it. In 2011, we will have Sandy Bridge processors with AVX - Intel finally makes some modern vector instructions - and you know that Apple will update for that. We are also transitioning from HDs to SSDs, and the OS needs updating to make best use of that. I could see something like an SSD/HD combo with one filesystem where the file system driver automatically optimized what was stored on the flash and what was stored on the actual disc. We don't even have TRIM support yet, and HFS is positively ancient.

[thunderous_funker]

Seems to me that Apple has taken the time to prep SL for the next generation of hardware. Its all the under-the-hood improvements that will really bear fruit over the next 18 months. While I'm willing to concede that Windows 7 made massive strides, it seems to me that its still fundamentally grounded in technologies that are already out of date and will be glaringly out of date in 2011. You need to throw some pretty serious new hardware to get Windows 7 to shine (and, yes, its very shiny and they deserve credit for it) while installing SL on my old hardware made it shiny and I can't even imagine how it will perform on hardware available later this year.