Ars Technica's John Siracusa has posted an exhaustive review of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard that delves deep into some of the technical changes behind Apple's latest operating system. The 23 page review covers topics that were previously covered under developer non disclosure agreements.
Siracusa covers technical topics such as Grand Central, OpenCL, as well as the typical user interface tweaks. They also explain why Mac OS X 10.6 does not boot into 64-bit mode and why you shouldn't really care:
If it makes you feel better to know that your kernel is operating more efficiently, and that, were you to actually have 96GB of RAM installed, you would not risk starving the kernel of address space, and if you don't have any 32-bit drivers that you absolutely need to use, then by all means, boot into the 64-bit kernel.
For everyone else, my advice is to be glad that K64 will be ready and waiting for you when you eventually do need it -- and please do encourage all the vendors that make kernel extensions that you care about to add K64 support as soon as possible.
Siracusa also explains that many of the underlying changes in Snow Leopard are to push developers into the right path for the future of Mac OS X, and the $29 price is meant to help drive user adoption. He also speculates that Snow Leopard is a prelude to radical new features in the next revision of Mac OS X.
As for the future, it's tempting to view Snow Leopard as the "tick" in a new Intel-style "tick-tock" release strategy for Mac OS X: radical new features in version 10.7 followed by more Snow-Leopard-style refinements in 10.8, and so on, alternating between "feature" and "refinement" releases. Apple has not even hinted that they're considering this type of plan, but I think there's a lot to recommend it.
Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app.
Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
Thursday January 16, 2025 6:45 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple today adjusted estimated trade-in values for select iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models in the U.S., according to its website.
Some values increased, while others decreased. The changes were not too significant, with most values rising or dropping by $5 to $50.
We have outlined some examples below:
Device
New Value
Old Value
iPhone 15 Pro Max
Up to $630
U ...
Sunday January 19, 2025 6:58 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple on late Saturday removed TikTok from the App Store in the U.S., and it has now explained why it was required to take this action.
Last year, the U.S. passed a law that required Chinese company ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok due to potential national security risks, or else the platform would be banned. That law went into effect today, and companies like Apple and Google...
Thursday January 16, 2025 12:39 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple provided the third beta of iOS 18.3 to developers today, and while the betas have so far been light on new features, the third beta makes some major changes to Notification Summaries and also tweaks a few other features.
Notification Summary Changes
Apple made multiple changes to Notification Summaries in response to complaints about inaccurate summaries of news headlines.
For...
Saturday January 18, 2025 10:28 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 19 will not drop support for any iPhone models, according to French website iPhoneSoft.fr.
The report cited a source who said iOS 19 will be compatible with any iPhone that can run iOS 18, which would mean the following models:
iPhone 16
iPhone 16 Plus
iPhone 16 Pro
iPhone 16 Pro Max
iPhone 15
iPhone 15 Plus
iPhone 15 Pro
iPhone 15 Pro Max
iPhone 14
iPhon...
Friday January 17, 2025 3:38 pm PST by Juli Clover
For the last several months, we've been hearing rumors about a redesigned version of the iPhone 17 that Apple might call the iPhone 17 "Air," or something along those lines. It's going to replace the iPhone 17 Plus as Apple's fourth iPhone option, and it will be offered alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max.
We know the iPhone 17 Air is going to be super slim, but...
Sunday January 19, 2025 6:02 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple plans to expand the iPhone's redesigned Mail app to the Mac starting with macOS 15.4, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
The first macOS 15.4 beta should be made available in the coming weeks, and Apple has previously suggested that the iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS 15.4 series of software updates will be released to the public in April.
The revamped Mail app debuted on all...
Sunday January 19, 2025 8:25 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In September, Apple said that it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and it appears the wireless earbuds are coming very soon.
Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the Powerbeats Pro 2 in regulatory databases last month, Gurman said Apple is...
