MacRumors.com

Arstechnica reports on more details about the next major version of Mac OS X (10.6). According to the news site, the next version of Mac OS X will indeed be an Intel-only release and that it is code named "Snow Leopard".

Ars can also confirm the expected release target of January 2009 as well as a focus on speed and stability:

Snow Leopard is currently on track to come out during next January's Macworld, and it will not contain major OS changes. Instead, the release is heavily focused on performance and nailing down speed and stability.

The author points to future mobile devices as the driving force behind this focus on performance and stability. There is also a suggestion that Apple may move Mac OS X 10.6 to "Cocoa-only", but the full meaning of this remains vague:

There may be some disagreement here as to what exactly "Cocoa-only" means, so take that into account when thinking about this. For example, Apple may only axe Carbon UI stuff.

Update: John Gruber clarifies that "pure Cocoa" does not have anything to do with dropping Carbon from the OS.