Comments on: Apple Unveils Snow Leopard, But What Does it Mean?

By: apoclypse

apoclypse — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:29:19 +0000

I was having issues with my firebox with 10.5.2. It would kernel panic every time I connected the interface and it was an issue with firewire only as my USB audio device had no issues. Once I updated to 10.5.3 I have had no issues with stability at all and the interface works as it should. I can suspend my Mac with the interface connected and wake it up and it will still work properly, in-fact I keep it connected full time now unless I’m traveling and need to take my MBP somewhere. While I do think performance isn’t as good on OSX as it was when in XP using ASIO, the only crashes I get with Logic are usually from 3rd party plugins, and I haven’t had any major issues with that since I update from Tiger.

I ‘m sure many here are having issues with 10.5.3 but I think that some of it is more sensational than it ought to be.

By: dr.xnlb

dr.xnlb — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 03:43:40 +0000

keep the faith. snow leopard will blow your mind when it drops. the move for apple right now is to extend their os to the web in a huge way. the iPhone is the bridge. mark my words.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:13:25 +0000

Truth is that nowadays the hardware in our hands is way more advanced that the software that runs it. We really need under the hood changes in Operating Systems to allow application development that takes advantages of the hardware we now have at our disposal( as in NOW not in the next generation)

Be patient my friend, we really need to do this ( the industry in general) otherwise we’ll keep having this multicore machines with no real way of utilizing all their potential.

Meanwhile, don’t upgrade with something that works right now and if you are getting new gear, really research that works well together (this sucks as one must end up replacing more gear than needed). As a personal anecdote I had to that with Leopard (stolen laptop, new one with leopard) and my interface (m-audiio) didn’t work. I had to swallow it and bough another one (with a new midi controller to boot) and it works great, yes, I know the new hardware purchase was unwarrented for but if my laptop hadn’t been stolen, I wouldn’t have replaced anything in the fist place.

My point is, if it works don’t upgrade. It really doesn’t make a difference right now. we’ve reached a plateu and current upgrades aren’t really a great leap forward, to do that we have to overhaul the inner workings of OSs to take advantage of all the hardware and technologies, not just use them but really take advantage of them, take a leap forward.

I really applaud Apple’s decision in taking this route (it’s not a popular decision, but necessary and it will reap benefits in the medium/long term).

P.S. ernesto: snow leopard WILL drop PPC support (keep in mind that when SL ships the newest PPC systems (late 2005 g5 quad cores) will be more than 3 years old

By: Rafael

Rafael — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:54:09 +0000

I like your blog, although I think this post is a little misguided and too reactionary and with many misconceptions regarding Operating Systems (especially Leopard). Bashing Snow Leopard (or any other OS) just by speculation doesn’t add too much to discussion.

I’ll leave you with this quote:

“You can separate the OS X feature engineering work done by Apple into two categories. Thereâ€™s the features that are exciting to the typical Mac user, and then thereâ€™s the features that are only exciting to software developers. When Apple says that theyâ€™re â€œhitting the pause button on new featuresâ€, theyâ€™re talking about that first category of features. From a developerâ€™s perspective, Snow Leopard is overflowing with exciting system enhancements, tantalizing new goodies to allow for faster development and huge performance improvements.”

( for the rest of the article : http://macdaddyworld.com/2008/06/15/wwdc-the-line/ )

(

By: Otend

Otend — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:21:53 +0000

Must. Not. Drool.

I seriously want a Mac more than ever. Just the GPU for general processing makes me want to beg for a beta and a free Mac to use it with.

By: ernesto

ernesto — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:35:11 +0000

it seems there is no PPC support on 10.6. anyone with more info?

By: Captain Howdy

Captain Howdy — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:56:45 +0000

For musicians (or at least audio developers) the key move forward is using the GPUâ€™s horsepower.

Errr… what about sound? The recent AirPort 5.3.1 update completely screws up the audio on OS X. I also hear similar horror stories regarding Leopard.

Call me silly, but playing audio without having to worry about the OS causing stutters and glitches in the sound, is important to me.

By: Seba

Seba — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:15:35 +0000

All I have to say is that I’m sure glad I’m still running 10.4.11

Nice and smooth.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:46:20 +0000

@AJ – Key point here is that everything you’ve just said is already true of the CPU (although that’s why multicore improvements do have potential for audio, too). There are already some implementations of GPGPU out there, and not much has happened with audio. It’s coming, it’s just a non-trivial problem. From what I’ve heard, OpenCL should help you maximize your onboard hardware by keeping your GPU busy when doing audio tasks. I don’t yet see this as a revolutionary change, though — certainly not immediately. Long-term payoffs become more interesting, particularly as the architectural bottlenecks between CPU and GPU are cleared. In the meantime, I don’t think you need to drop money for proprietary DSP *now* even without GPGPU. You’d do that basically because some effect/instrument you want to run requires it.

By: AJ

AJ — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:42:00 +0000

For musicians (or at least audio developers) the key move forward is using the GPU’s horsepower. If there were a standardized way for audio apps and plugins to use OpenCL to accelerate processing, it’d mean a HUGE leap forward for DAW performance under 10.6.

Why drop $500-$1000+ for a proprietary DSP card and proprietary plugins — or more — when the OS can thread out DSP-type operations to a $200 graphics card? (heck, you could just buy another NVidia card for DSP purposes, and not even connect it to a monitor).