Snow Leopard: Apple's $66 million OS
Photo: Apple Inc.
As expected, the latest update to Apple's (AAPL) flagship Macintosh operating system — Mac OS X Snow Leopard — is going on sale Aug. 28 for the previously announced price of $29. (Press release here.)
Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster has done some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations and concluded Apple is in it less for the money than for the strategic advantage it hopes to gain over Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows 7, schedule to ship in October.
According to Munster, Apple is likely to sell 5 million copies of Mac OS X v10.6 in the remaining month of its fiscal fourth quarter for an average selling price of of $22 — less than $29 and more than the $9.95 Up-to-Date price Apple has offered customers who bought MacBook Pros after June 8.
At 60% gross margin, that comes out to $66 million, or $.05 per share — a bump that Munster believes has already been baked into the Street's Q4 estimates.
So what's really going on here, he asks rhetorically?
Despite the long list of improvements Apple is touting — it claims to have "refined" 90% of the more than 1,000 "projects" that make up the OS X — Munster describes Snow Leopard as "a minor upgrade … without many significant new features."
In Munster's view, Apple is using Snow Leopard as
"an opportunity to sell it at a lower price ($29 vs. $129 previously) and market the new OS as a selling point for the Mac platform over the Windows platform. In other words, Apple is promoting the Mac platform as a superior alternative to Windows in terms of newer technology, more frequently, for less money. The release of Snow Leopard is not about new features; rather, it is about keeping Mac users up to date with the latest technology vs. Windows XP and Vista users on antiquated technology."
You can learn more about Snow Leopard — including what's new, compatibility and tech specs — at Apple's website here.
As a 100% mac user at home, and working in the IT industry with 100% PC usuage, it's interesting to compare apples to oranges. Everyone always is like wow when I bring my macbook in, as it's ten times better than there crappy IBM desktops.
But getting to the main point, Windows 7 which I have installed for the last two weeks is Vista SP3. Nothing but a big ole service pack with no functionality to write home about. It's amazing how people compare an inferior OS (windows) to a mature stable OS like OSX, you just can't. OSX is built on UNIX, and solid, while windows is full of bugs, spyware, viruses, and the same ole security holes which microsoft fixes every week. Again, you can't compare a snow leopard (mac) to a turtle (windows), cause they're not in the same league.
The funny thing about that Doug Hall's comment mocking Steve Ballmer and his "Developers Developers Developers" incantation, is that the reasons he lists as being proof of Snow Leopard's superiority are all things present in Windows Vista or 7 (with some things being present since Windows 2000!).
Vista x64 supports 64 bit and 32 bit apps on the same system. Grand Central Dispatch — multicore scheduling has existed in Windows since Windows 2000. OpenCL has its equivalent in DirectX Compute, with industry support as well.
"Developers!, Developers!, Developers!" [... ad naueaum] -Steve Balmer
Well, ol' Steve can vocalize it, but only Apple is able to actually produce an operating system which supports the concept. That's exactly what Snow Leopard demonstrates. Apple has sold a lot of iPhones and iTouches due to their great operating system and developer tools. Likewise, they'll sell a lot of Macs due to Snow Leopard. This is how Apple works. The software sells the hardware. For Microsoft, the opposite is true.
By and large, operating Systems are not about "features". Applications have "features". An operating system should get out of the user's way. Operating Systems are about supporting "features" that are commonly implemented in applications — the user interface, I/O, memory, peripheral support, security concerns, accessibility features, etc. So to even talk about the fact that Snow Leopard doesn't actually "do" much more than Leopard, misses the point.
What IS the point, is that the operating system (and developer tools) should provide a robust, consistent and usable interface to its underlying abilities.
With that in mind, here's a rundown of what's new in Snow Leopard:
• 64-bit operating system and apps
- faster
- more secure
- still supports 32-bit apps
• "Grand Central Dispatch"
- operating system-level support of program "threads" – which take advantage of multiple cores.
- developers supported with debugging and performance tools with access to the GCD work queue.
• OpenCL
- takes advantage of fast, but under-utilized GPUs
- open standard
- industry support (AMD, Intel, NVIDIA)
• QuickTime X
- much faster
- more efficient
- (is 64-bit and uses OpenCL)
• Accessibility improvements
• Microsoft Exchange support built in
Really, only the last two offer additional functionality to the user. Perhaps Quicktime X offers some new functionality, but it doesn't appear to be very much. Most everything else is about improving speed. But these underlying improvements WILL be noticed. The additional speed and minor "tweaks" throughout will definitely be noticed. I've heard from switchers who were sold on the Mac because of how quickly Macs awoke from sleep mode.
The "feature" enhancements will come later, when developers start using OpenCL, "Grand Central Dispatching" and making their applications 64-bit. They will discover that features previously thought wasteful or impossible, are now possible on Snow Leopard machines.
Mmm. Didn't Apple say last year when they first announced Snow Leopard (which, BTW, was well before they had any knowledge of the timetable for Windows 7) that Snow Leopard was not about new features, but about tuning up and streamlining Mac OS X? Duh! Who's paying this guy Munster, anyway?
I believe part of the objective was also to optimize OS X for use in the upcoming Mac tablet. Beating Windows 7 to market was just a fortunate coincidence.
What I want to know is if windows user's posts here are by M$ shills or just bored and unemployed MS IT. If not, where do you find the time to search for Apple blogs and post a long comment on matters that doesn't involve what you use?
Just saw the Masable post wherein they reveal the photoshop "clean up" of the Snow Leopard image used by Apple. A spot of blood was removed from the cat's mouth to make him/her appear to be a bit more tame.
If you haven't seen the Planet Earth documentary series … I highly recommend the segment on the Snow Leopard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIVcg0eGEsg
That cat can fly
If you think the "cool factor" is the only reason to use a Mac then you should just keep using a PC. Mac users are people that have already figured out that there IS a difference.
Its amazing how Windows users say they can get the same machine for 25% of the price….try configuring a windows laptop or desktop with the same features…many times we will see that the Mac ends being on the cheaper side..then there is the OS…there is no price for user experience..
Economy is in a recesson, but people still want the cool factor by spending $1300 on a mac book where you can get a nice loaded laptop for $400 running windows!
For the guy comparing BMW to Toyota..the speed and performance of a Windows machine is better than that of a MAC. Only thing lacking is the cool factor which people don't realize is not worth paying twice the amount for a MAC.
I have both Windows (Dell) and Mac systems. Actually two of each – a pair of notebooks and two desktops. Windows systems are almost idle all the time – I use my Dell XPS only when I go to a business trip for a simple reason that all my compilers and tools are installed and locked to this system. Most of the time we use Macs in our family. I think this is not because we are not computer-savvy but simply because MacOS and its applications have everything we need and much easier to use than Windows. And also every application for Mac looks better than its couterpart for Windows. Even MSOffice for Mac is better than one for Windows. I often feel ripped-off when I buy Windows half-baked software but I pay with pleasure for a nice Mac app.
The bottom line the difference between MS and Apple is like between a computing appliance and ultimate computing machine. And guess what – I do prefer my BMW to any Toyotas 
Windows users can keep drinking their magical delusional elixir. P.S. Everyone knows IT guys are jaded.
PC or Mac, I have both. For the things the "average" user needs a computer for, such as photo editing, browsing the web, email, really any computer will work. The biggest difference is not the hardware, its the OS and at least by my experience, and that of my wife, my father and both of my brothers, all who have Mac's, is that the Mac just works. Day in, day out the performance is the same. No virus issues, no registry compression, hard drive scans or compression, virus sweeps, malware sweeps, yada, yada, yads. That is what I love about my Mac, it works exactly the same today as the day I bought it and I have never had to adjust, scan, compress or delete anything. Simple.
If Snow Leopard is a service pack, then Windows 7 is also a service pack.
But Snow Leopard costs $29. Windows 7 is going to cost $129 to $500. It is a huge difference in cost for a service pack.
If you can't afford a Mac, get a second job. Apple targets the high end, not the low end where cheapskates are. Apple computers are very similar if not lower in price to other name-brand computers at the high end of the market. Since Apple makes huge profits doing this, they don't have to bow to cheapskates.
Apple has its fanboys
Windows has its shills.
What name would you rather have?
Yes, 64-bit Windows exists. But hardly anyone uses it. It runs hardly any software since apps have to be re-compiled for it and it has hardly any drivers.
Ok, I will admit I favor MS over Mac. But it is not because of anything other than practicality. I Work in IT. Business runs MS and many varieties of Unix/Linux, with the occasional Mac. The questions I have for Mac "Fanboys" are:
1. Why is the Mac OS $600? If you compare part for part, a Mac is $400 more the a PC(the differece of 600 is the 400 cost difference plus 200 for the cost of Vista on a new PC.)
2. All this bashing of PC's for Malware comes from where exactly? Did you know Mac's are the first thing to be hacked at CES, White Hat, and Black Hat? Did you know a properly informed user of windows Vista, configured per MS recommendations, really doesn't need an Anti-virus?
3. Why again do I, an IT admin, work primarily with MS software? (Maybe because the business part of the world deems cost vs. practical features, and the PC continues to win that comparison?)
All this talk of Mac is really getting boring. I still don't understand the fuss between MS vs. Mac, really you can't compare a public OS and a private one.
MS is universal, and well a Mac… is a Mac. You have companies like Dell, Acer, Toshiba, HTC, Samsung and many others using one system at affordable prices and then you have iMac's. Let's see if Apple gives us their OS to install on a regular Acer and see what happens.
I've got both and sure my Mac works great with Adobe products and it has a better interface with products such as Photoshop but I feel over controlled by the Mac Universe when using it. For everything else… I'll stick with my Windows (oh and the iPhone is awesome)!
To those who think Snow Leopard is a minor upgrade, equivalent to a MS Service Pack, look at these:
1. Back to some time in 1998. Apple introduced a FREE minor update that saves on hard disk space (amongst other features). Then MS touted this as a huge feature and charges it in its major upgrade.
2. Apple is more of a hardware than a software company unlike MS. Apple usually sells software at huge value-for-money. Ref: Final Cut Pro, etc.
3. Those who "see" Snow Leopard as a minor update are seeing it through a narrow vision of a drinking straw. The depth of technical accomplishment is huge! The value offered is huge. At least, a once paid for Quicktime Pro is now a given in Quicktime X!.
4. Windows Service Pack are free??? The times it cost you to perform each SP update costs you your time and money! The deferred promises is another.
MS-Windows users, please evaluate it with equality. The differences between OS X and Windows (of all flavors) is greater as time moves on. Wake up to reality and be not left behind the shadows and illusionary hopes laid by MS.
Let's see, I've been on 64-bit Windows for 2 1/2 years now, and just updated things to 64-bit Windows 7.
Apple is JUST NOW releasing a 64-bit OS.
I heard Dell's fall lineup of back-to-school laptops ONLY come with 64-bit Windows.
It's nice to see Apple finally is giving the extra memory capacity and performance that Windows users have had for 2 1/2 years. Do you think this will help Adobe deliver a Mac version of 64-bit Photoshop, which has been out since last fall for Windows. And how long will it take hardware vendors to deliver 64-bit drivers for Snow Leopard, making your hardware compatable with your OS again. Microsoft went through the 64-bit third party driver update pain 2 1/2 years ago, and Apple is just begining that painful phase.
And oh my, I just installed 32-bit Windows 7 on an 6 year old IBM laptop (which has similar performance to a modern netbook), seems to work. Oops, people with 6 year old Mac's with PowerPC processors have just been left in the cold.
Offhand, Windows 7 seems like it polishes 64-bit technology that Microsoft has been shipping (in about 20+% of the 300+ million Vista systems shipped in the last couple years). They also have not totally made your 6 year old system a paperweight.
I'm sure glad I haven't been paying twice as much for Apple hardware, when it's only feature is it runs an OS that's been 2 1/2 years behind the curve. Of course none of my computers are lime or mauve, so I guess I missed out, bling is such an important computer feature (oh wait, I see many Windows machines do come in colors than black, white or silver now). Funny, iPhones only come in black or white, the same colors Windows machines always came in, maybe mauve was not that popular, or mauve plastic cut into Apple profits too much.
Wow, the fanboys are out in force! I wonder how many black turtlenecks have placed a comment here?
…
Posted By Brett: August 24, 2009 11:24 PM
And you must be a paid M$ troll? At least we don't search for and post on every microshit blog.
Wow, the fanboys are out in force! I wonder how many black turtlenecks have placed a comment here?
Originally, I kind of felt that this was more of a token upgrade myself. However, when a OS goes from a mostly 32 to 64 bit architecture with core applications, that's significant enough to me to be a new release. However, with relatively little change to the GUI, it's less significant and at $29 is priced just about right.
WIndows users should just accept their inferiority complex. We don't care that your so stupid and afraid to learn a new OS that you stick with MS products. There are many options beside the Mac—Linux, Unix, Solaris, hey, even OS/2. It's not like you know when something sucks.
Stuck up losers? Wow, now there's a well reasoned point of view. Statistics and everything! Remarkable really. Well done.
Since when has Apple ever cared what MS does? Zune, MS stores, ah heck, the list is too long. Apple doesn't care what they do but MS sure knows a good thing when they see it.
All that money and not an original thought to be found.
Snow Leopard is not a service pack. In Mac the service packs are the next digit. So 10.6 is a paid upgrade. 10.6.1 is a service pack, and like Windows those are free.
It's a significant upgrade but in terms of the OS it's mostly under the hold. The bundled apps get a lot of improvements. It's certainly a more incremental OS release than the previous ones but it's also well worth it.
The thing about Windows is that they have not had a successful OS upgrade for the last 8 years – that in itself is astounding. So of course Win& has to be more anticipated. XP shipped in 2001. Vista was not adopted by many. So Win7 seeks to answer a lot of pent up demand for a new OS.
It is not surprising the Microsoft shills are coming out in force just before Windows 7 release. Thats why they are paid for. Of course this is an idiotic thing for Gene to say. First Snow Leopard is a very significant upgrade and second it has been in development for years and the release date known long before Microsoft announced the Windows 7 release date.
For the Windows kids who "hate" Macs, Apple, or Mac users, nobody cares, but you do have to wonder what is wrong with someone who claims to "hate" such things. You should look into your issues. Besides envy I mean.
Andrew, sorry to remind you how truly awful Windows is. The truth hurts sometimes, sorry to bring it up.
I truly hope WIndows 7 is every bit as successful as Windows Vista was. And there is no reason to think otherwise, so cheer up. Wait…
I truly hope WIndows 7 is every bit as successful as the Zune was. And there is no reason to think otherwise, so cheer up. Wait…
Nevermind, Just go play on your X Box. Every IT guy and Microsoft employee has one, right? Does this explain why you guys haven't done anything since the X BOX shipped? We could be onto something there…
If you are on Tiger you don't need to buy the boxed set (unless you want a great deal on iLife '09 and iWork'09) you can buy Leopard for about $93 (Amazon) and Snow Leopard for $29 = $122.
Munster's right…and he's wrong.
Snow Leopard clearly demonstrates a cost advantage as well as possessing truly modern technologies vs. the creaky, antique, backward-looking nature of Windows 7. On the other hand and contrary to one of Munster's assertions, Snow Leopard's modern technology will provide very real advantages to its users, primarily related to speed and power. Those are the "new features" of Snow Leopard. Under the hood, the changes are huge.
Reading many of your comments reminds me of high school boys arguing over which pick-up truck is better. Grow up! I prefer working on Macs and will probably upgrade to 10.6 once 10.6.2 comes out. But I also use Windows machines. Both have a place in this world; both have stable OS's.
yea, but when MS issues a "service pak" it is to turn a non functioning bug laden hair ball into something that works ok and includes all the neat Mac OS ideas they wish they had thought of.
Its so 64-bit compatible that you have to either hold down the 6 and 4 key at boot or modify some boot up strings. Way to go on that one and congrats for finally getting a 64-bit OS out the door, though akwardly. It will be interesting to see all the security patches for this cat, knowing how there was a boat load for the other versions. Fire up the patch machines.
Wow‚ Greg. You're shockingly insightful for a M$ shill. Not.
"Remain significant"? You think companies just chuck updates out in the wild to keep their name out there? Are you serious? Unlike Microsoft‚ some companies actually bake a responsible amount of forward-thinking into their OS releases. The technologies‚ which you can call "the road sign"‚ "the stoplight" and "the speedometer" to keep it simple for yourself‚ will change the nature of computing for the next decade.
If there was any justice‚ your head would have exploded a millisecond after pressing "send your comment" from the sheer stupidity of your knuckle-dragging thought process. If not‚ please post more!
How about a significant improvement to the overall performance and freeing up 7GB of hard drive space! Every Windows SP I've ever had experience with just made things slower and ate another chuck of HD space. I give Apple credit…it's hard to find things to improve upon in an OS when you close to perfect already!
Dave H and Billy G-
Thanks for supporting Mac without resorting to trying to bash Microsoft.
Brian – shhhh… honestly, you are the reason 90% of non-Mac users hate Mac users.
I'm not sure that you can say that Windows 7 is just a patch. It sounds like we are looking at two developers that are fixing their product gambles. They seemed to think that OS's would drive the future of systems when in reality we are seeing Web Apps dictating consumer demands. Web Apps need a smooth OS instead of a utility belt OS.
Snow Leopard is MOST DECIDEDLY NOT a "service pack!" It is a complete re-write of the OS, that purges all of the old PowerPC code and makes everything important fully 64-bit compatible, while remaining backwards compatible with 32-bit applications.
The addition of Microsoft Exchange Server 7 compatibility is huge… It will allow lots of folks to use Mail instead of Entourage.
The key here is that everything will run much faster on the Core 2 Duo and later Intel chips. New applications that take advantage of 64-bit processing, multi-core processing, and Open CL, will scream.
This was about doing something that Microslop can't do… Clean house! It's Apple saying, "Well, we built a great model on the breadboard, but a lot has changed in ten years of tweaking it, and we're not using a lot of what's there any more. So let's move forward and start over, make it look the same, but pare it down and tune it up to work better, faster, and allow room for future expansion like we have never had before."
Users may not have much to point to this time around, but once they start using it, they'll understand. Apple has even said they're keeping the price very low so that everyone with a compatible Intel Mac will want to upgrade. It sets the stage for many new things to come.
If you reread the article, you'll see that the release isn't just a "Service Pack". The code size of Snow Leopard is almost half the original Leopard. Execution times for critical OS operations are almost halved. Last time I checked, service packs only added to the bloat and slowed things down!
To those who would have you equate this to a Windoze service pack, it's amusing how delusional you are.
Service packs are always free on OS X, those are minor version upgrades, just like in (horrible, slow, outdated, buggy, single user at the core) WIndoze vWhatever.
Thanks, Dave H., for being the voice of reason here. Snow Leopard lays the groundwork for the next 5-10 years of innovation on the Mac platform.
True, users don't see the whiz-bang coming out of the gate. However, that does not mean that the new OS does not bring significant value that will benefit them for years to come.
Whereas Windows 7 really is a patch to Vista, Snow Leopard is an immense coding effort poised to run rings around the competition as its core is put to use.
To quote Ballmer, "Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers..".
I disagree, Jim. We've hired some five-year-olds in our marketing department and they make some really childish mistakes.
Anyway, Snow Leopard is a minor update to users, but it is absolutely HUGE internally. It is the kind of major infrastructural upgrade that software companies dream of: it is a housekeeping operation. Apple has cleared away cruft, disassembled and fine-tuned the internal guts of the OS. Everything important is now 64-bit compatible. Everything user-facing (except iTunes for some reason) is now built on Cocoa. Everything's ready for more parallel processing as new Intel chips come out. The image processing and algorithmics are built atop the new OpenCL general-purpose GPU framework.
Don't underestimate the importance of this upgrade just because it doesn't have (as far as we know so far) glitter, bows, and ribbons on it.
10.6 is far from "thunder". It's offered for less because it is less. There's no leap in this new cat.
I see it more as Apple trying to remain significant. Their hardware sales have not been good, and the prospect of being confronted by significantly cheaper equivalent hardware on the PC side coupled with Windows 7 should have them concerned.
I've been tinkering with the OS X 10.6 beta code and there isn't much fanfare there. I've been using the Windows 7 Beta, RC, and now the RTM heavily and Microsoft will be able to deservingly blow their own horn with this launch.
This is not a fair comparison.
So Apple is charging you $29 to upgrade to their Service Pack?! Thats ridiculous. That should be FREE!!!
Windows gives out SPs for free yearly.
Apple, come out with a full blown OS for $29.
To: Jim, Italy
You mean the second paragraph where he says, "…concluded Apple is in it less for the money than for the strategic advantage it hopes to gain over Microsoft's Windows 7, schedule to ship in October." ?????
Munster is not very accurate.
29 dollars for Snow leopard is for the upgrade from Leopard.
Many people are still on Tiger on their intel machine and will have to pay 169 dollars for a Mac Box set including iLife 09 and iWorks 09.
Err, what about beating Windows 7 to the punch thus stealing some thunder?
Any 5 year old would have caught that.
I can run Windows Vista and Windows Vienna (7) in a window on my MacBook…and they start up and run faster than they do on my newer desktop PC. Mac wins.