JRTasel's TV

Snow Leopard not 10.6?

So I was talking with a buddy of mine about the upcoming WWDC and all the things that are supposed to come out.  The new iPhones.  The possibility of a tablet.  Dot Mac changing it’s name and possible function.  The new 10.6 named Snow Leopard.  I’ve pointed out in the past to my friends that I think that’s a stupid name since it’s so close to the current OS.

But tonight, While discusing the rumors that the only “real” big thing with the new OS is that it is going to be PPC only i called it the new version of 10.1.  Aka not really any change and they might just end up not charging for it.  AKA OS 10 Lite.

And then it clicked.  Snow Leopard.  What if it’s not necessarily a “new” OS.  What if the term “snow leopard” doesn’t refer to a cat per se, but “light leopard”.  What would the use there be?

Well lets go over the things that are rumor’d for WWDC.  New iPhones-runs a lite version of OSX.  Check.  Tablet Mac.  Would need a trimm’d down version of the OS.  Check.  Apple TV (ok chances are nothing new…  but still).  Light version of OS.  Check.  All of these systems need to power and flexability of a real operating sytem, but none of the hard computing power.  Enter “Snow Leopard”.

Snow leopard would allow someone to design 1 app, and have it available not just 1 device but 4 (maybe more): iPhone, iTouch, Apple TV, Tablet Mac, and any other “small” device Apple may come out of in the future.  Apple’s been touting that the iPhone is the worlds next true platrform.  They even got a app start up company fund.  

Let’s look at what this new OS is supposedly going to do.  Only run on Intel chips.  Check.  All these devices would be Intel only.  The new OS is supposedly just concentrating on speed and stability.  Well for a full OS, that seems rather silly.  True things can go faster and always be more stable, but those are hardly reasons to create a brand new paid OS.  However creating lite OS that is fast and stable on small amount of processing power while still presenting itself in a mac style, would be a fair challenge. Apple’s upgrading of the supposed new name and functionality.  To work properly it would need to integrate fully with each app.  You would need something at the OS level to properly manage and interact all these devices together.  The new “MobileMe” would fit right in.  Then there’s the lack of the word “mac” in allot of their banners at WWDC.  That seems a bit odd as well, but makes sense for this device based OS.

Snow Leopard = Apple’s new smaller streamlined OS for their all device platform.  Seems like a wise bet to me.