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Mon, 08 Jun 2009 Updated - WWDC: Snow Leopard gets a $29 September ship date

But "Details of pricing will be available at launch" for UK customers

Philip Michaels Macworld.com

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Snow Leopard, the next major update to OS X, will be available in September, Apple announced during Monday’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote. However, OS X 10.6 will only work on Intel-based Macs, leaving the owners of aging PowerPC-based hardware without the ability to upgrade.

First announced at the 2008 WWDC, Snow Leopard doesn’t offer the parade of new features Mac users might have come to expect from a major OS X update. Instead, much of the focus with Snow Leopard has been behind the scenes, with Apple looking to improve the performance and increase the power of its operating system.

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During Monday’s keynote, Apple senior vice president of software engineering Bertrand Serlet said the next major version of OS X would be characterized by powerful new technologies, refinements to existing features, and support for Microsoft Exchange.

Snow Leopard will cost $29 for Leopard users, with a family pack available for $49. That’s a far cry from Apple’s usual price on OS X updates - it costs $129 to purchase Leopard, for example.

“We want all users to upgrade to Snow Leopard, because Snow Leopard is a better Leopard,” said Serlet of OS X 10.6’s price.”

Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard in September 2009 through the UK Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorised Resellers. A press release has yet to confirm the UK price only to say: "Details of pricing will be available at launch."

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Comments received


grumpy Giraffe said on Mon, 08 Jun 2009

I'm actually looking forward to this, but, I can't seem to stop the ever mounting suspicion that us UK users won't be quite so lucky when it comes to the upgrade price. I hope that I'm pleasantly surprised, but....

Chris said on Mon, 08 Jun 2009

I suspect it will cost us about £22-25 to upgrade to Snow Leopard, or £38 for family pack, even so that is still very cheap considering what you get for the money.

Role on September this I can't wait for

alan said on Mon, 08 Jun 2009

what about upgrading from tiger?

Chris said on Mon, 08 Jun 2009

I guess upgrading from TIger will cost about £85 or so

HeavyH said on Mon, 08 Jun 2009

What is the selling point, other than it is newer?

Caitlin said on Mon, 08 Jun 2009

It's faster, offers full MS Exchange support (that alone costs a lot from Microsoft). Uses half the footprint of the current Leopard, Grand Central will take full advantage of multi core computers, OPen CL will help make the most of powerful GPU's nd will speed up machines.

64 Bit without the hassle you get with Windows 64. It has very few new features, but it will make the most of your Mac. I personally think this is a great step forward, preparing the way for the next big leap.

Shaun said on Tue, 09 Jun 2009

Upgrade price is also $9.95 for people buying Macs today.

Ascylto said on Tue, 09 Jun 2009

Going by o2's calculator, that'll be £28 for a UK upgrade.

If you've got any US dollars, I'm sure o2 will be only too keen to give you a good US$ to GB£ rate!

Ken (not the ex-Mayor) said on Tue, 09 Jun 2009

Groan! I will have Snow L on my Macbook Pro, L & Tiger on my G5 (need Tiger for Classic+68000 emulation - yes!), Tiger on the old G4s (3 of them) 9.2.2 on the G3 & 8 on my Powerbook 940. So it goes.

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