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Snow Leopard has pounced, and so has our 23-page review:
In June of 2004, during the WWDC keynote address, Steve Jobs revealed Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger to developers and the public for the first time. When the finished product arrived in April of 2005, Tiger was the biggest, most important, most feature-packed release in the history of Mac OS X by a wide margin. Apple's marketing campaign reflected this, touting "over 150 new features."
All those new features took time. Since its introduction in 2001, there had been at least one major release of Mac OS X each year. Tiger took over a year and a half to arrive. At the time, it definitely seemed worth the wait. Tiger was a hit with users and developers. Apple took the lesson to heart and quickly set expectations for the next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard. Through various channels, Apple communicated its intention to move from a 12-month to an 18-month release cycle for Mac OS X. Leopard was officially scheduled for "spring 2007."
As the date approached, Apple's marketing machine trod a predictable path.
Apple even went so far as to list all 300 new features on its website. As it turns out, "spring" was a bit optimistic. Leopard actually shipped at the end of October 2007, nearly two and a half years after Tiger. Did Leopard really have twice as many new features as Tiger? That's debatable. What's certain is that Leopard included a solid crop of new features and technologies, many of which we now take for granted. (For example, have you had a discussion with a potential Mac user since the release of Leopard without mentioning Time Machine? I certainly haven't.)
Mac OS X appeared to be maturing. The progression was clear: longer release cycles, more features. What would Mac OS X 10.6 be like? Would it arrive three and a half years after Leopard? Would it and include 500 new features? A thousand?
At WWDC 2008, Bertrand Serlet announced a move that he described as "unprecedented" in the PC industry.
That's right, the next major release of Mac OS X would have no new features. The product name reflected this: "Snow Leopard." Mac OS X 10.6 would merely be a variant of Leopard. Better, faster, more refined, more... uh... snowy. Read the whole review here.
Learn more about Apple's path to Snow Leopard
Ars Technica's John Siracusa has been chronicalling Apple's long path with OS X since late 1999. From the very first developer previews, all the way to the present, Ars and John has been presenting technical, in-depth looks at the UI and internals of "The World's Most Advanced Operating System." dig in:
- Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, October 28, 2007
- Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, April 28, 2005
- Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, November 9, 2003
- Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar, September 5, 2002
- Mac OS X 10.1 (Puma), October 15, 2001
- Mac OS X 10.0 (Cheetah), April 2, 2001
- Mac OS X Public Beta, October 3, 2000
- Mac OS X Q & A, June 20, 2000
- Mac OS X DP4, May 24, 2000
- Mac OS X DP3: Trial by Water, February 28, 2000
- Mac OS X Update: Quartz & Aqua, January 17, 2000
- Mac OS X DP2, December 14, 1999
Top stories: Aug 27 - 3, 2009
 Infinite Loop
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: the Ars Technica review
by John Siracusa
Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard has landed. This time around, Apple goes light on the glitz in favor of some heavy work under the hood. John Siracusa dives deep into Apple's new OS offering to see what's new, what's still the same, and whether it's worth upgrading. Read More
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