Apple will be shipping the next iteration of OS X,10.6 (aka Snow Leopard),in September and charging $29 for people on Leopard (is it more for people still on Tiger?) and $49 for the Family Pack. Hear that Microsoft? This is what you are supposed to be doing for people who bought Vista and now want Windows 7! In light that Snow Leopard is an overhaul of the backend code in efforts to make it perform better,take up less space,and decrease security risks,and that there are only a few new visiable features,it makes total sense to be offering it at such a low price. In fact it’s welcomed.
But byeond the price,Apple did showcase some new features. Some of the more interesting ones have to be Quicktime X,which is getting redone with a new logo and UI. It looks much cleaner and up-to-date,and removes the clunkiness that is the current Quicktime. It also adds simple video-editing/trimming options,enhanced codec support,HTTP video streaming,and auto-thumbnail creation for chapter browsing.
Next is the integration of Exchange support for everything from Calendar to Mail to Address Book. This is a really neccessary feature that Apple needed to include to continue to win over both educational instituations and businesses that use Exchange on the back end.
New features they announced was Expose in the Dock and enhancements to stacks. This is clearly in response to Windows 7 having similar functionality in their new taskbar. Basically,now instead of running Expose for all windows or application windows,you can just click and hold on the application in the Dock to activate Expose for all application windows. Stacks has been improved to allow both scrolling and folder navigation within the stack (much needed in my opinion).
Finally,from the back end,there has been a huge push to move all major applications and the OS in general to full 64-bit,allowing for systems to better utilize the memory available to it (in cases where it is more than or equal to 4GB),the development of GrandCentral,an easy way for applications to utlizie CPUs with multiple cores and perform in a multi-threaded environment.
Honestly,as the price suggests,Snow Leopard is definetly a more technical improvement to the OS than a functional one. Instead of rambling on about all the interesting enhancements,I encourage you to read up Apple’s spin on the new features in Snow Leopard.