I understand Lion is coming out. End of updates for Snow Leopard?

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I have Snow Leopard on my Macbook. I understand the new OS coming out will be Lion. If I want Lion I will have to pay for it obviously, but money is tight now and I don't know if that will change when Lion comes out. If I can't afford Lion and decide to stick with Snow Leopard, will there no longer be software updates to download?
 
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Not even close. Lion won't be out until probably August 2011. 10.6.5 is seeded to developers right now and nearing release candidate state. Many more updates to come, and probably one or two points after Lion drops as well.
 
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There really is no need to worry about whether there will be anymore major updates when Lion comes out. Unless you are having problems currently with Snow Leopard then is there really a need to worry about Snow Leopard updates? Apple will still provide security updates for awhile after a new OS comes out or if there are any major flaws that turns up.
 

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They are still updating 10.5 Leopard leave alone 10.6 Snow Leopard. Some are worried that when 10.7 comes out next summer updates for 10.5 which is the last version that works on Power PC Macs will not be updated. Time will tell on that one.

So no worry. When 10.7 finally comes out there will be maybe 2 years of updates for 10.6 SL.
 

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If I want Lion I will have to pay for it obviously, but money is tight now and I don't know if that will change when Lion comes out. If I can't afford Lion and decide to stick with Snow Leopard, will there no longer be software updates to download?

There's also no rush to update to 10.7 "Lion". We don't even know what all of the new features or improvements there will be in 10.7. It's quite possible that for some folks...the new features & improvements will not be worth it to "rush" into the upgrade.

I'm positive that you could easily continue to run 10.6 Snow Leopard for another 2-3 years no problem...and by then...the money issues will be a thing of the past!:)

- Nick
 
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And when OS X.7 is released, don't rush in. If Tiger OS X.4, Leopard OS X.5 and Snow Leopard OS X.6 are anything to go by, wait until update OS X.7.3 becomes available before purchasing. That way most of the bugs will be ironed out.
 

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It's quite possible that for some folks...the new features & improvements will not be worth it to "rush" into the upgrade.
I think that may be why many people are staying with Leopard. That and PPC support.

Lion is quite a ways out and even when it does come out, it'll be a while until SL is phased out.

If I want Lion I will have to pay for it obviously, but money is tight now and I don't know if that will change when Lion comes out. If I can't afford Lion and decide to stick with Snow Leopard, will there no longer be software updates to download?
Let's use Leopard as a standard for cost (SL was likely an exception in pricing IMHO). Leopard was $129 when it came out. Let's also say that Lion comes out July 15th ("middle of summer", arbitrary date). July 15th is 196 days into the year and there are 69 days left for a total of 265 days until my made up release date. If that's the case, you only need to put aside 49¢/day (give or take, not including taxes).
 
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Apple have really been driving down software costs - the new iLife is $49, which is an utter bargain. I paid $79 for my first ever iLife upgrade ('08). So the Snow Leopard pricing may continue, who knows.

As others have said, Lion is at least 10 months away, perhaps even as late as September next year. I also have the feeling it may drop more than just PPC - I think it will drop 32-bit Intels AND Intel GPUs and need a minimum of a 9400m to run.

That would probably mean Leopard and SL are supported for at least another 3 or 4 years each.
 

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I also have the feeling it may drop more than just PPC...
That's already been done with SL. ;)

I agree with the software prices. My post was a "worst case."
 
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They will probably still have a few security/compatibility updates, but probably no new features. But Snow Leopard will continue to get feature updates probably within a month or two of Lion's release. In fact, Windows 2000 is still getting regular security patches. Not that that is a good comparison...
 

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In fact, Windows 2000 is still getting regular security patches. Not that that is a good comparison...
No it isn't. Extended support ended over three months ago (see here).
 
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I am very excited for OS X Lion to come out next Summer! It has some pretty neat features I'm really interested in.

But to answer your question I'm sure Apple will release more minor updates for Snow Leopard. But if anything, they will be updates for either performance and security... new features aren't likely!
 
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That's already been done with SL. ;)

er... I know that :\

The point is, if Leopard isn't supported, then PPC is effectively unsupported, regardless of SL's fate - I think the short-lived Core Duos will be for the chop next... there are probably more active PPC Macs out there right now than 32-bit Intel machines.

No it isn't. Extended support ended over three months ago (see here).

To be fair, more than 10 years of support is pretty impressive.
 
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So far, Apple have given no indication that they will drop support for Core Duo or Core Solo machines. I'm not saying they won't, I'm saying there's no sign of that at this point and I don't think those machines are quite old enough for the chop just yet (opinion).

There's also no technical reason for Apple to drop support for any model based solely on video card/video chipset, as the OS doesn't really require much firepower in this regard, so I doubt that GMA machines will be unsupported either. They obviously won't perform as well, and future Apple *retail* software will probably drop support for such machines, but there's no technical reason for these chipsets to be unsupported in the OS until Apple moves to an entirely new graphics engine/goes 3D like Avatar. :)
 
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So far, Apple have given no indication that they will drop support for Core Duo or Core Solo machines. I'm not saying they won't, I'm saying there's no sign of that at this point and I don't think those machines are quite old enough for the chop just yet (opinion).

There's also no technical reason for Apple to drop support for any model based solely on video card/video chipset, as the OS doesn't really require much firepower in this regard, so I doubt that GMA machines will be unsupported either. They obviously won't perform as well, and future Apple *retail* software will probably drop support for such machines, but there's no technical reason for these chipsets to be unsupported in the OS until Apple moves to an entirely new graphics engine/goes 3D like Avatar. :)

You may be right, but you also need to look at where OpenGL and GPGPU is going... Apple has been very aggressive at taking sudden paradigm shifts and killing off anything outmoded. GPGPU processing is the next big leap for desktop operating systems. Anything without CUDA, is useless.
 
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Lion will be a disaster. It will be Apple's Vista. I have no doubts about it. I watched the last keynote. I see where they are going...

Steve Jobs is trying to put his hands on all apps for mac. He wants to monopolize all mac apps like he did in iphone, ipad, and ipod. Developers will need to pay 30% to Apple of every app sold via mac apps store.

So you see where it is going.. maybe not in Lion but in next version after Lion our macs will behave like ipods. you wont be able to install anything that is not approved by Apple. The greed will kill this company.

I wonder if Microsoft would sell Office via mac store and pay 30% to Apple LOL. If Microsoft wants to kill Apple they can do it easily. Just stop developing Office for mac, many people just won't buy mac because of that. I'm afraid that Steve Balmer has no guts to do it though lol. They must have some kind of agreement, I bet Apple is paying a lot of cash to Microsoft just to develop Office for mac. they did that before when mac os didn't have own internet browser, they paid Microsoft to develop internet explorer for mac and it was official browser for macs for a while till they figure out how to make browsers lol. And they dare to say Microsoft is always copy them?

But guys at Redmond dont want to kill it because there is no point. Macs have only 20% market share and only because now you can run windows on macs. they just laughing on their way to the bank. So even if mac's share grows more , Microsoft is making money out of it. Remember it's a software company, they don't really care about hardware they can make software for any machine.
 

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No it won't. Apple, as I have mentioned before, would have to be the most incompetent company in the world to lock down OS X as they have the iDevices. A significant number of smartphones depend on a store for app distribution so Apple can get away with it. They won't be able to do the same thing with OS X. On top of this, nothing precludes Apple from having the MAS and allowing people to install apps themselves.

Apple also exercises a lot of clout in the mobile market space which allows them to have the App Store. You can't do the same thing to a set of machines that have nowhere near the same influence in the market.
 
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No it won't. Apple, as I have mentioned before, would have to be the most incompetent company in the world to lock down OS X as they have the iDevices. A significant number of smartphones depend on a store for app distribution so Apple can get away with it. They won't be able to do the same thing with OS X. On top of this, nothing precludes Apple from having the MAS and allowing people to install apps themselves.

Apple also exercises a lot of clout in the mobile market space which allows them to have the App Store. You can't do the same thing to a set of machines that have nowhere near the same influence in the market.

they don't need to officially do it. They will just "teach" people that using mac app store like on idevices is the only way to install software on your mac and many people will believe especially when you put one big icon in the dock - "install new apps" with nice link to their apps store and give warnings that installing apps from other sources is "extremely dangerous for your machine".
 

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There are too many users used to the current system of "free for all" software installation for that to become the only means through which people install software. I'll use Linux distributions as an example. Despite the pervasive nature of package managers and the ease of use, software is still distributed outside of official software repositories.
 

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