Apple to Ship Mac OS X Snow Leopard on August
28
It's official: Mac
OS X 10.6 ("Snow Leopard") will go on sale Friday, Aug. 28,
at Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers, and that
Apple's online store is now accepting pre-orders.  It will be
available as an upgrade for Mac OS X 10.5 ("Leopard") users
for US$29.



"Snow Leopard builds on our most successful operating system ever
and we're happy to get it to users earlier than expected," says
Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software
Engineering. "For just $29, Leopard users get a smooth upgrade to
the world's most advanced operating system and the only system with
built in Exchange support."



He says that, to create Snow Leopard, Apple engineers refined 90
percent of the more than 1,000 projects that make up Mac OS X. Serlet
says that users will notice refinements including: a more responsive
=46inder; Mail that loads messages up to twice as fast; Time Machine
with an up to 80 percent faster initial backup; a Dock with Expos=E9
integration; QuickTime X with a redesigned player that allows users to
view, record, trim and share video; and a 64-bit version of Safari 4
that is up to 50 percent faster and resistant to crashes caused by
plug-ins. Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version and
frees up to 7GB of drive space once installed.



=46or the first time, system applications including Finder, Mail, iCal,
iChat and Safari are 64-bit and Snow Leopard's support for 64-bit
processors makes use of large amounts of RAM, increases performance
and improves security while remaining compatible with 32-bit
applications. Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) provides a new way for
software developers to write applications that take advantage of
multicore processors. OpenCL, a C-based open standard, allows
developers to tap the incredible power of the graphics processing unit
for tasks that go beyond graphics, according to Serlet.



Snow Leopard is the only desktop operating system with built in
support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, and it allows you to use
Mac OS X Mail, Address Book and iCal to send and receive email, create
and respond to meeting invitations, and search and manage contacts
with global address lists. Exchange information works within Snow
Leopard so users can also take advantage of OS X only features such as
fast Spotlight searches and Quick Look previews.



Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard, the next major release of the server
operating system, will also go on sale Friday, Aug. 28. Snow Leopard
Server includes new features such as Podcast Producer 2 and Mobile
Access Server and is priced more affordably than ever at $499 with
unlimited client licenses. More information and full system
requirements for Snow Leopard Server can be found at
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/.



The Snow Leopard single user license will be available for a suggested
retail price of $29, and the Snow Leopard Family Pack, a single
household, five-user license, will be available for a suggested price
of $49. For Mac OS X 10.5 ("Tiger") users with an
Intel-based Mac, the Mac Box Set includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife
'09 and iWork=AE '09 and will be available for a suggested price
of $169 and a Family Pack is available for a suggested price of
$229.



The Mac OS X Snow Leopard Up-to-Date upgrade package is available to
all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or
an Apple Authorized Reseller between June 8, 2009 and the end of the
program on Dec. 26, 2009, for a product plus shipping and handling fee
of $9.95.



Users must request their Up-to-Date upgrade within 90 days of purchase
or by Dec. 26, whichever comes first. For more information visit
www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate. Snow Leopard requires a minimum of 1GB
of RAM and is designed to run on any Mac computer with an Intel
processor. Full system requirements can be found at
www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html.