Predicting the unpredictable
26 March 2009

"Even the most hardened Mac addict will be hard pushed in the current economic climate to buy an operating system that, on the face of it, looks and operates exactly the same as the one it replaces."

Before the end of the year both Microsoft and Apple will be releasing new versions of their main operating systems. Microsoft will try to fix the disaster that was Windows Vista with the slightly more sanely named Windows 7. Meanwhile Apple will replace Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard with 10.6 Snow Leopard.

You won't be surprised to hear that I'm mainly going to be talking about Snow Leopard.

You could be forgiven for thinking that my preoccupation with Snow Leopard is because I use Mac OS X as my choice of operating system. Now while there may be an element of truth in that (I'm typing this sat in my lounge on my MacBook with occasional nudges from the dog asking to be put to bed) I do hold a passing interest in what Windows 7 may have to offer. I will neither buy it nor install it, but I will read about it. However, my main speculation between now and the expected release in August will be what Apple will be doing to convince people to buy their new OS.

You see, while Microsoft will be painting Windows in different colours on the surface and thereby selling gazillions of copies of it, Apple have said since Snow Leopard was announced that they intend to freeze the feature set (with one or two small exceptions such as Exchange support) and concentrate on optimising what they've already got instead.

To be honest, while not sounding very exciting this is precisely where Microsoft have got it so wrong in my opinion. In the rush to always be seen to be improving (if 7 years between some releases can be called a rush, of course) they've tried to keep their OS backwards compatible where possible and this means that they can't seem to shift the problems inherent in the system. At least that's what I think. There are green shoots of improvements (Windows 7 appears to be much better than Vista in the current beta) but underneath it's still Windows and it still has those Windows problems that just won't go away.

Meanwhile back in Steve's Reality Distortion Field (temporarily being marshaled by Tim Cook) even the most hardened Mac addict will be hard pushed in the current economic climate to buy an operating system that, on the face of it, looks and operates exactly the same as the one it replaces. In essence, however, that's exactly what Snow Leopard will be doing. At least, that's what we're being led to believe.

Make it nice and shiny
I think that the average punter needs to feel that they're buying something fresh and new. Many people think that Apple will wait until OS XI before borrowing Microsoft's pot of paint and creating a new user interface (UI) and while a total change may very well be some way off, I believe that a big update is on the horizon with Snow Leopard. It doesn't matter how much Apple have improved the core of the operating system, there needs to be something tangible for the punters to start opening their wallets.

In a way, this is a shame, as the work done to fix some of Mac OS X's long standing problems and just generally tidy things up a bit is to be applauded. From a programming point of view, much of what Apple is doing in 10.6 is stunning. It's just that this is all (as they themselves put it in the original announcement) "under the hood". The average Mac user just won't notice the difference (other than their computer running a whole lot faster and more responsive but that won't be enough to justify the upgrade cost).

The Apple World Wide Developer's Conference (WWDC) has been announced for early June. The latest theory (and one that seems to make sense to me) is that Apple will demonstrate a release candidate (or final beta) of Snow Leopard at the conference together with a new interface that is rumoured to be called Marble. They may also announce a shipping date that some think will be August, although I personally see it being more like September or even October.

Having said all of this, there's no evidence that Marble exists. Nothing anywhere to suggest that a UI update is on the way. Infact, there were similar rumours circulating when 10.5 Leopard was under development about an interface called Illuminous. That didn't happen, and neither may Marble. However, I think that this time a UI update is much more likely. As I've already said above, the average Mac owner won't appreciate the improvements that they will get from the highly optimised Snow Leopard OS so they need something to convince them to buy it. Apple have admitted that the Finder - the main interface that the Mac boots up in to - has been re-written in Cocoa from the ancient Carbon version in use since OS X 10.0 (if this is gobbledegook to you, then take it from me that this is a major change to OS X). To me, this is the main reason why a new interface makes sense. Apple need something to persuade the punters to buy their new OS and they've re-written the Finder from scratch. Seems like a great opportunity to me to write something with lots of nice new features!

Of course, I may be way off the mark here. Perhaps OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will be the "under the hood" upgrade that's been announced. If that happens then personally I think that this will be a missed opportunity and will mean that the only way Apple will sell 10.6 upgrades is to offer it at a very (and I mean VERY) cheap price point. After all the work that will have gone in to the new OS that would, I believe, be a commercial misjudgement.

Only time will tell.