Mac OS X Snow Leopard Launched 15 Years Ago Today With '0 New Features'
Today marks the 15th anniversary of Apple releasing Mac OS X Snow Leopard, which became available to purchase for $29 on August 28, 2009.
After advertising Mac OS X Leopard as having "over 300 new features" in 2007, Apple previewed Snow Leopard at WWDC 2008. Notably, during that year's "State of the Union" session, Apple showed a presentation slide that said the update had "0 new features," as Apple opted to focus on under-the-hood performance and stability improvements.
"We've built on the success of Leopard and created an even better experience for our users from installation to shutdown," said Apple's former software engineering chief Bertrand Serlet. "Apple engineers have made hundreds of improvements so with Snow Leopard your system is going to feel faster, more responsive and even more reliable than before."
With Snow Leopard, Apple said it refined 90% of the foundational "projects" that were built into Mac OS X. Apple pitched the update as offering a more responsive Finder app, an improved Mail app that loads emails up to twice as fast as before, up to 80% faster Time Machine backups, and a 64-bit version of Safari that was up to 50% faster than the previous version. Snow Leopard also took up around half as much disk space as Leopard.
You can watch Serlet speak more about Snow Leopard at WWDC 2009 below.
Popular Stories
Apple's "It's Glowtime" event kicks off today at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, where we're expecting to see the iPhone 16 lineup and some updated Apple Watch and AirPods models unveiled, and perhaps some other announcements. Apple is providing a live video stream on its website, on YouTube, and in the company's TV app across various platforms. We will also be updating this article with live blog...
Apple today announced the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max—its latest flagship smartphones—featuring larger displays, an all-new Camera Control button, and the A18 Pro chip. The iPhone 16 Pro has a 6.3-inch display, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max features a 6.9-inch display—the biggest iPhone display ever. The borders around the display are the thinnest of any Apple device. The...
Apple is "shaking up its color palette" for its iPhone 16 lineup this year, according to well-connected Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. Early iPhone 16 Pro dummy models via Sonny Dickson According to Gurman, the iPhone 16 Pro models will come in a Gold Titanium to replace Blue Titanium, while the Black, White, and Natural Titanium options that debuted with the iPhone 15 Pro will remain...
Apple's next-generation iPhone 16 series is expected to launch on September 20 and will compete in a quickly evolving smartphone market, and with some notable upgrades rumored, the new models could see price changes compared to previous years. Successive iPhone models always come with new features and hardware upgrades, but Apple typically does not increase the retail prices as a result....
Apple today announced that the AirPods Max are being updated with a USB-C charging port and new color options, including Midnight, Blue, Purple, Orange, and Starlight. In addition, Apple said the AirPods Max are gaining support for Personalized Spatial Audio with the upcoming iOS 18 software update. The updated AirPods Max will be available to pre-order for $549 starting today, and the...
macOS Sequoia will be one of the earliest new macOS launches in over a decade, likely releasing within as little as just a week. Internal Apple documentation obtained by MacRumors suggests that macOS 15.0 Sequoia will be officially released to the public by mid-September. The release dates of major macOS updates in recent years are listed below: OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) – October 22,...
Apple at its event today announced the Apple Watch Series 10, featuring a wide-angle OLED display that is larger than the Apple Watch Ultra, with the company describing it as the "biggest display and thinnest design ever." The Series 10 is 9.7mm thick, which is nearly 10% thinner than Series 9, and it weighs 20% less than the Stainless Steel Series 9. The Aluminum cases also weigh up to 10%...
