Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Fwd: OS X Snow Leopard - what it really does



The following is a great account from http://www.Obsessable.com of the advances that the next OS X update will provide.  Handy, since I'm strongly considering a new iMac and want to ensure that it will be fully capable of taking advantage of this!!!  :D

Part one at: http://www.obsessable.com/news/2009/02/10/how-apples-new-mac-os-x-snow-leopard-will-change-your-life-or-wont-pt-1/

Apple is set to release the newest addition to the OS X family, Snow Leopard, sometime this year. However, the slew of interface tweaks and cool new additions that have made OS X such a hot seller will be eschewed for features that will make your Mac a much faster system. Snow Leopard will be that plus a little more. Here's a look at three new features that might change how you use your Mac.
Multi-core utilization
One of the biggest features in Snow Leopard will be Grand Central, Apple's way of micromanaging multi-core processors. This is great news for any one using a Mac Pro or a grid of Xserves as they already have multi-processor configurations at their finger tips.
But the big problem with putting so many cores on a silicon chip is your operating system just won't know what to do with that much processing power. Grand Central is Apple's solution to this problem as it does two very important things: allows developers to better use today's new processor architectures and optimize OS X to scale across multiple processors.
Stripping out some of the geek talk to put things in perspective, you will be bragging about how many engines your car has (suspend your disbelief just for a moment, you can pick it up in the next paragraph) and not how much horsepower it has. For the geek in all of us, you'll be boasting how many cores your Mac has and not how high its CPU clock is.
Why it matters: Computers are advancing all the time but we're starting to reach the point where faster clock speeds don't mean as much as they used to. To combat the diminishing performance gains, processors are going multi-core and aren't slowing down. While four or even eight cores seems like something reminiscent of a towering, obsidian-clad supercomputer, it won't be long until your desktop and laptop have CPUs packing that many cores.
Snow Leopard won't show any speed improvements for the average user but it definitely paves the way for more advanced computing setups to be even more efficient. This doesn't mean you'll have a supercomputer any time soon, but smaller, multi-core devices like laptops and even the iPhone will catch up to desktops in terms of computing prowess.
OpenCL
Similar to Grand Central in that both deal with multi-core management, OpenCL will leverage the vast amounts of processing cycles inside a graphics processing unit. It sounds ambiguous and may have you thinking why this wasn't done sooner but CPUs are vastly different than GPUs when it comes to advanced algorithm calculations. Typically, the later outpaces the former.
Since a GPU utilizes a unique processing method to execute code, you can't run any ordinary application on it. You need an intermediary to translate data that only a CPU can understand into something a graphics processor can understand. This is where OpenCL comes in. Developers can tap into OpenCL to construct applications that can ship off a large amount of work to the GPU.
Why it matters: OpenCL in Leopard is going to matter as much as Grand Central, while both pave the way to more powerful and efficient computing. The difference: OpenCL is gaining much more traction and Applications are being coded to take advantage of the GPU such as Adobe CS4 which taps into a graphics chip for more fluid photo editing.
The biggest advantage won't be how much faster you can open Text Edit and type out an essay but rather more efficient computing. You'll slowly see some tasks transition from the CPU to the GPU such as video rendering, intense photo editing and number crunching. You'll see massive benefits in some portable devices as well since power hungry processes such as video decoding can be run on a GPU in a shorter amount of time with fewer cycles, saving your battery from having to be recharged as frequently.
64-bit compatibility
You might be thinking: "Isn't Mac OS X already 64 bit compatible?" That's only half true. But Snow Leopard will complete that transition with a full 64-bit kernel, meaning the hardware advantages of such a platform can be fully utilized by the operating system. Having a full 64-bit kernel means the older 32-bit architecture that you've been used to will be rendered obsolete in a few years but developers will be making sure their software runs on tomorrow's newest hardware. In a nutshell, 64-bit systems can access more stuff at a time than 32-bit systems. It doesn't stop there.
32-bit systems could only take advantage of four gigabytes of system memory; anything more than that and the system won't recognize it. 64-bit capable systems can allocate up to 16 exabytes of memory, or 17.2 billion gigabytes. We won't be hitting that limit any time soon and Snow Leopard's 16-terabyte memory support is more than what's needed today.
Why it matters: Despite RAM coming in capacities of only a few gigabytes, we won't be adding terabytes of memory any time soon. Cost and physical space are all limiting factors but we're slowly progressing. Snow Leopard and later versions of OS X could speed up programs by ending dependence on virtual memory, a kind of cheat that uses hard drive space when RAM runs low.

Part two at: http://www.obsessable.com/news/2009/02/17/how-snow-leopard-will-change-your-life-or-wont-part-2/

Apple is set to release the newest addition to the OS X family, Snow Leopard, sometime this year. However, the slew of interface tweaks and cool new additions that have made OS X such a hot seller will be eschewed for features that will make your Mac a much faster system. Snow Leopard will be that plus a little more. Here's Obsessable's follow up to part 1 on the ways that Snow Leopard will change your Mac as we take a look at 3 more.
QuickTime X
QuickTime X will be the biggest overhaul to QuickTime since its inception 17 years ago. This release will add a wider support for media codecs and much more efficient playback. This will ensure QuickTime is your default media playback app as other video and audio formats that weren't supported will then be playable in QuickTime X without the need for additional apps or plugins.
Why it matters: When Apple ported the desktop version of OS X to the iPhone, it included one very important component to enable media playback: QuickTime. This of course makes one of the major selling points of the iPhone, the iPod app, work so well. But what separates the mobile version of QuickTime from its desktop counterpart is the expanded support for more commonly used media codecs and more efficient media playback.
The support for more widely used codecs will play a major part in Apple revamping Quicktime which seems to have been a major theme since development on Snow Leopard started. What this ultimately means is Quicktime will use fewer resources when playing. Notebook users could see an increase in battery life and Windows users could finally stop complaining about how sluggishly Quicktime runs under XP or Vista. You will also finally be able to stop hunting for obscure plugins to play media encoded in rarely used formats.
Multi-touch
The iPhone first pioneered the widespread use of multi-touch gestures or using multiple fingers to manipulate on screen objects such as photos or web pages. Snow Leopard will extend that experience outside of the iPhone and the few applications into which Apple has baked the functionality by allowing developers access to the multi-touch tools so they can enjoy the same functionality.
Why it matters: Lately Apple has been shipping Macbooks with a multi-touch capable trackpad. This means that you can use more than one finger to control your Mac, ranging from the simple point and click to using three of four fingers for switching applications and virtual desktop spaces. However, the fun doesn't stop there since the potential for multi-touch trackpads has yet to be fully tapped.
The iPhone is a great example of this but don't expect a touchscreen Mac in a tablet form factorsoon. Snow Leopard will merely make the touch pad of any MacBook capable of accepting multiple types of gestures which could be more productive than just dragging a cursor and clicking. While Apple has been mum on what types of extra gestures will be included with Snow Leopard, there is still time before it is made available later this year.
Location awareness
In addition to QuickTime X, Snow Leopard will also bring with it another component exclusive to the iPhone: Core Location. Since the iPhone started using cellular and Wi-Fi triangulation (plotting a location by calculating the distance from several base stations) inside Google Maps, Core Location has been responsible for making this happen. Making this feature available is cheap and painless since no additional hardware is needed besides an active network connection. While you won't be able to pinpoint your exact location, Snow Leopard will be able to give you a general area of where you may be.
Why it mattersGPS and other software alternatives have come a long way from being a luxury item to another selling point in phones and laptops. What this ultimately means is every gadget you own could become location aware and give a heads up to your whereabouts to social networks such as Facebook or data aggregation services like Google Maps.
This has yet to catch on because it made little sense for someone using his or her computer to know about their general location when they hardly move around. That said, smartphones helped propel the crazy trend of telling you and all your friends the exact location of where you might and extending this to a laptop now seems less far-fetched. If you want a glimpse of where this is going, look at all the location-aware apps available for the iPhone. With an active internet connection you could track down your stolen Mac, find areas of interest within a certain distance, and update your social network wherever you are.