The Apple store had been down for quite a while today, and lo and behold when it was reinstated Mac OS X Snow Leopard became available to mankind – that is to say you can now pre-order a copy. The major update to OS X, aka 10.6, will start shipping next Friday August 28, as had been rumored by websites like Macenstein and MacRumors since last Thursday.
As our MG Siegler wrote a while back:
OS X Snow Leopard is going to sell for only $29.99, as Apple is considering it mostly a performance upgrade over OS X Leopard. But the performance improvements are expected to be significant, and the footprint of the install has been significantly reduced (due mostly to the fact that it’s Intel-only).
The price is actually $29, but the real question is: are you buying?
I’m going to the apple store on Friday. I want a free T-Shirt.
Chloe? Can you get me one too?
Pffffff, get it yourself!
*sulks*
They’re giving away t-shirts? I’m in!
They did for Leopard. Whether you bought anything or not! Of course, they might be white shirts with the snow leopard from the box on it.
Which would not bode well.
if they have the cat from the shirt on them, that would be amazing! Maybe an airbrushed portrait of the snow leopard with some sparkles on the whiskers. yes.
I only want a t-shirt if they be-dazzle the snow on the leopard with rhinestones
… yes, i have a mullet
Free t-shirts? Sweeeeet like an Apple.
Preordered!
Can’t wait for the speed increases. Just upgraded my Macbook to 4GB RAM and a 500GB HD, can’t wait for this final icing on the cake.
HUZZAH!!!
think i’ll hold the thgt of formatting my macbook pro for now. I’ll do that once i get my paws on snowleopard.
I’m buying, but my black Macbook is filled to the brim, so I’ll be dumping video onto an external hard drive so I can make room for Snow Leopard and just every day normal stuff.
Why would you need to dump stuff? Snow Leopard is 6GB smaller than Leopard
Still need 5GB free for the install to proceed.
I order it now. Can’t wait for it.
YEAH! Ordered as fast as I could
Yes
Awesome.. thanks for the info TC!
yes, taking in consideration how hard it is to re-write parts in a working software to make it work more efficient, I think that $29 is a very fair price.
It’s a service pack people. Settle down.
yes, maybe so, and if this was windows, I would agree with your enthusiasm, but this is like calling windows 7 a service pack to vista ultimate; its getting SMALLER and increasing capabilities, instead of just adding bloat for more unnessary features.
haha burn
Yes i’m buying,,,its like windows 10 to every body,,becuase Leopard is like Windows 8 in features,performance and stability….
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
yeah? So Apple is clever and has been incrementing their release version number by 2? that means leopard was 4 and snow leapord is 5? Still ways to go to reach 7;)
TIMMMMMMAAAAAY!
Why not put an Assle ad there. Maybe TC can make more money.
Very excited for anything that makes my Mac faster. Can’t wait to test it out.
Is it normal for Mac users to pay for updates?
No.
Waiting to see if Apple does a mild refresh of the notebook line, speed bumps and screen refresh or graphics power increase before I buy.
Yes I am buying! I’ll be at the store Friday!
Is this the first time a major OS upgrade has been released ahead of schedule? Looks like apple learned from their iTunes melt down when the 2nd Gen iPhone came out to give themselves ample time for a software release!
Typical us Brit’s get ripped off again. £25 in the UK, $29 in the US. That’s a 70% markup. Not even that can be explained away by our included sales tax (VAT).
My bad, got the maths wrong, still the price difference cannnot be explained away by tax
I can’t wait to installed this!
Yes. I am buying. Unlike over 15 years’ Windows experience, I have yet to be disappointed with an Apple OS update.
Well apparently your weren’t disappointed with leopard the way I was.
Leopard is slow and buggy compared to Tiger.
Yes, I’ll buy an upgrade. Looking forward to it!!
This is funny. Like someone said above this is really a service pack. If this was Windows and they charged you for a service pack you would be screaming foul play at the top of your lungs.
You’re not familiar with Windows 7 then, which is a service pack for Vista
Ha ha! Excellent point!
Ya, because Microsoft would so willing improve 64bit support, add Exchange integration to all the included native apps, shrink the space the OS takes up, and add all kinds of performance improvements like Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCl in a service pack.
Actually yeah they did,Windows 7 64 is actually all 64 bit,GPU acceleration is coming in Direct x 11for Windows 7 and Vista.
Most of the big changes was done in Vista. modularized kernel,lots and lots of security work which is why vista broke so many apps.
Win 7 is fast and light, runs on older hardware or net books which Vista could not.
As for Exchange support, I believe you’re covered if you need it in Windows 7.
Lots of polish and the addition of the Min Win Micro Kernel.
There’s lots in Windows 7,and as I posted earlier I’m getting ready to buy a new Macbook Pro with Snow Leopard, that way I can Dual Boot and enjoy both OS’s.
Yeah, but you’re still paying for a service pack.
Juan,
Could you be more clueless if you tried?
No, I don’t believe you could. I mean it’s nice that Apple have finally gotten round to having a fully 64 bit OS. It’s a shame they’re about five years behind everyone else though.
Still never mind, eh?
I’m glad I’m not the only one who realizes this is nothing more than a service pack that Apple is charging you money for.
And yet, the throngs of sheeple will show up en masse to give away their money for something that should be free.
And re-writing over 90% of the projects within OS X constitutes a ’service pack’? Get real, you troll.
When do the Macbooks start becoming preloaded with Snow Leopard?
Why are you so excited? There’s nothing new there. You can count the visible improvement on your fingers…
Safari 4 and Quicktime X are listed as important updates. Safari 4 has been available for download for month and Quicktime… …it should not even be installed by default.
Preorder Link broken…
Wait, er.. the performance is increased? You mean like Vista SP1? How do apple get away with charging for things like this?
Please don’t cite Vista service packs as a free upgrade. Windows 7 is an attempt to rescue the blood loss from Windows known as Vista.
Oh silly TC readers… you don’t order it “now”. You wait until the blog posts come out about how it caused problem “X” or catastrophe “Y”, and after Apple then ships fixes. Haven’t we studied history
Last years launch of Leopard caused very little to no problems.
I’ll definitely be picking up a Family pack on Friday! STOKED.
Seriously, people are still complaining about paying 30$ for a service pack release? I seem to recall MANY of those over the years with windows.. sure, buy the new 95, er, 98, er.. me.. er.. 2000! yah.. windows 2000! new and so different!
look, when the OS itself is aleady cheaper to purchase that its competitor, and this is literally the ONLY sp release (if you really feel thats what it is), that I’ve ever seen apple bill you for. I mean, you could just go buy a new mac when they come pre loaded with SL, but I see paying on this one occasion for an update pack that you are not going to die without no different than going out to purchase a svp2/3/4/ect windows copy, or like many have already pointed out , 7.
its 30$, get over it already.
I agree that this is much more than a service pack release, because it’s re-architecting much of the OSX foundation on top of the unix layer and certainly worth $30 for the performance improvements–though that’s still to be seen. This is just as much for Apple’s benefit as users though, because they will release themselves from PPC (and all the engineering/financial hasles of two code bases), which should lay a really great foundation for the next major release…unlike…
Win2K
You obviously have no clue wrt Windows. Win 2K was actually born out of NT, not 95/98. It was the first version of NT to include all that crap backward compatibility with DOS/95/98 but was probably the cleanest Windows built (after NT that is). W2K is still the most fuctional mainstream Windows OS (though probably the ugliest).
MS really should have done what Apple did with the OS9 to OSX transition and left the whole DOS legacy behind with NT (gamers were revolting though) There were like 10 games truely compatible with NT. But Windows 7 is a step in the right direction–I’m looking forward to that as much as OSX 10.6.
Yess! It’s finally here!
30 bucks good price thanks apple !
The stuff people are writing about Snow Leopard makes it sound like the Vista of Apple operating systems. Paying for a worse OS than you already have, depending on your hardware (same as Vista was).
your an idiot, how can it get worse? Its the same shell OS it just enables 64bit and uses OpenCL to increase performance.. it cant get worse, I think you’ve experienced too much windows and never apple. They dont release failure products
oooh only $29.00 instead of $29.99, then i’m buying for sure!
My Top 10 Favorite Features of Snow Leopard
http://www.andr...6-snow-leopard/
Does anyone know if you can get the upgrade and then dual boot with 10.5? I need both versions for software testing.
Preorded for delivery at work on the 28th!
It’s a service pack with native support for Exchange built in, which means buh-bye Entourage. Yippee! Forget about everything else – now that’s worth $29 (or EUR 29 in my case) alone!
Apple releases Service packs every 6-8 weeks for OS X. 10.5.1, 10.5.2, etc. Those are service packs. And they’re always free.
Anyone who calls Snow Leopard a Service Pack doesn’t understand how big an upgrade Snow Leopard is. Probably because they think OS updates are all about new features in the UI and marketing spin. There’s a lot more to an operating system than the window dressing.
Snow Leopard has been re-engineered from the ground up, to put OS X on track to be ready another 10 years.
Comparing that to MSoft, which is charging full price for Windows 7, is pretty silly. Windows 7 is more than a service pack, but it’s not as big an upgrade as Vista or XP were. Talk about charging for bug fixes.
I’m glad Apple is only 29.99 to certain people, but come on even 129.99 is not that much money.
The price is not a big deal.
I’m in for the upgrade/service pack or whatever you want to call it.
http://bit.ly/Rverk
So many mac-heads in one place makes me dissy
Now its time to press your favorite mac developers to update their app for Snow Leopard. I still need iStats Menu and USB Overdrive to fix their apps before I can make my switch.
USB Overdrive is essential for anyone who cant use mouse accelleration (feel like dragging through mud). Apple in their infinite wisedom refuses to allow the option to turn it off. Unfortunately the developer of USB overdrive is a cock who charges too much and never updates his software. Oh well, that’s the life of an abused Apple user.
Vista forever!
Just kidding, I’ll prob pick mine up tonight so I don’t have to do laundry.
Knew this was on the cards. I was happy on Monday morning when the Apple store was down! Apple store down = Something new in store
http://tinyurl.com/snwleopard7
Hope it’s HI-RES, dammit!
Apple’s Sept. 9th keynote just got a bit more interesting.
And as usual with any American product, the European countries pay more so that every U.S citizen can get their discounts.
US price: 29 USD
Danish price: 44.07 USD
UK price: 41.24 USD
If I had a choice I wouldn’t buy American.
Good luck.. hope it works