The turnout was, however, modest at Apple retail stores in contrast to the release of Leopard two years ago. In 2007, Apple sold 2 million copies during the first weekend.
The new operating system is not expected to match its predecessor’s sales. Analysts expect the sale to range between 2.5 million to 3 million for the quarter ending Sept. 30.
A performance upgrade
Mac OS X 10.6, an upgrade on its predecessor Leopard, will offer users new feature like 64-bit versions of Finder, Mail, iCal, iChat, and the Safari Web browser.
But the Snow Leopard lacks slew of visible features and is more a stability and performance upgrade over its predecessor as certain codes in the operating system have been redefined.
Quick Time has been reworked on. As a result, the vulnerability that was easily exploitable on recent versions of Leopard will not be there in Quick Time in the new operating system.
Further, the easily targeted OS X parts, which include the H.264 video codec, will now come loaded with sandboxing, thus restricting the type of functions they can perform.
The new operating system is priced $29 for single license and the five-license Family Pack will cost $49. However, Snow Leopard will be functional only on Intel-powered Macs.
Limited anti-malware feature
Though Snow Leopard is out with anti-malware feature, it is limited.
Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at computer security firm Sophos, said that the anti-malware feature only detects two files - The Rs-Plug Trojan and the iWorkservices Trojan. Apple will probably overhaul this feature to protect users against other malware files in future.
The new operating system also lacks the industry standard technology known as ASLR or address space layout randomization. This technology uses a separate memory location to load components each time OS is started.
Thus lacking randomization means that attackers who identity a bug in the components of OS X can easily exploit that vulnerability and implement malicious codes to take over the system.
ASLR is really only useful if EVERYTHING is randomized," Charlie Miller, co-author of The Mac Hacker's Handbook, wrote in an email to The Register. "If there is anything that is not randomized, it defeats the purpose mostly. This is a major shortcoming of Apple, and I'm disappointed they didn't take this opportunity to implement full ASLR."
He added that Apple has not incorporated all the security features that Vista has, so despite improvements they are still behind.
THIS ARTICLE IS OFF THE WALL
This article was either written by someone who knows nothing about Mac, Apple or Unix or who was paid to write it. Security is a Windows problem. It doesn't exist for Mac, Unix or Linux users.
Why is that?
Obscurity? Market share?
Give me a break.
Do some research if you're going to publish something.
Snow Leopard is a wonderful upgrade. Faster, tighter code taking a smaller footprint, more responsive, nice little improvements. For 29 dollars!
What are you getting with Windows 7?
Something faster than Vista, but slower than XP.
A poor attempt to copy the Mac GUI.
The result of committee think.
Sorry, but the gap between Windows and Mac has just got wider.
This article was either
This article was either written by someone who knows nothing about Mac, Apple or Unix or who was paid to write it. Security is a Windows problem. It doesn't exist for Mac, Unix or Linux users.
Why is that?
Obscurity? Market share?
Give me a break.
Do some research if you're going to publish something.
Snow Leopard is a wonderful upgrade. Faster, tighter code taking a smaller footprint, more responsive, nice little improvements. For 29 dollars!
What are you getting with Windows 7?
Something faster than Vista, but slower than XP.
A poor attempt to copy the Mac GUI.
The result of committee think.
Sorry, but the gap between Windows and Mac has just got wider.
Really Jaspreet, you would
Really Jaspreet, you would be much better off not commenting on things you obviously know little about. Do you know the old saying - 'it's better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than open your mouth and remove all doubt"? Possibly you should stick to providing opinion on Microsoft stuff.
"...despite improvements they are still behind."
Lol, "still behind" Windows," when it comes to security? Just too funny. :))
In fact implying the Mac is behind Windows at anything would be pretty much hilarious.
An obvious hit piece. Be a little more discreet next time you try to smear an upgrade.
Behind? In security? When
Behind? In security? When Microsoft even begins to implement a real user/administrator account scheme, please let me know. As is, as always, users are encouraged to run as an administrator all the time. This is a complete joke of security! Microsoft is way, waaay behind in security, and user/administrator accounts are as old as operating systems themselves.
Misinformed Tripe
Jaspreet Virk is clearly getting paid to publish disinformation about Snow Leopard. This article is full of lies and distortions. Why do you people bother?
What did you expect from the Peanut Gallery?
Laughable article....FUD and so obvious even the most gullible would not believe the honesty of the hit piece.
Hey! Give Apple some time to report its figures.
This article has so many errors, misjudgments and slurs that it could be dictated from Redmond.
Your statements are premature. How can anyone say that the sales are lackluster? There are too many sales locations to keep track of now. Several years ago, there were fewer outlets, so people had to bunch up. We won't know how many copies will be sold this weekend until the weekend is over. Your attempt to dismiss Apple, thus, fails dismally.
Amazon is overloaded with pre-orders. I won't get my copy shipped until Sept 10 to the 15th. That's fine with me, because I never install .0 software. It saves headaches to wait until the first bug fix is out. But, the early adopters are experiencing little remorse.
Some of my hardware is old enough, that it will be hit by Snow Leopard. My HP all-in-one printer is seven years old and works fine, but HP isn't issuing any drivers for it, so I will be running 10.5.8 in a separate partition for a while until enough 64 bit apps appear to force me to move.
The author said:
"Further, the easily targeted OS X parts, which include the H.264 video codec, will now come loaded with sand-boxing, thus restricting the type of functions they can perform."
That is silly, the applications will be able to do anything it needs to, and nothing that it shouldn't.
ALL APPLICATIONS will be sand boxed in Snow Leopard. This is a vast increase in security. It keeps a vulnerability in an application or file from taking over your computer. If only Windows had that, then the Internet wouldn't have any malware problems.
"Though Snow Leopard is out with anti-malware feature, it is limited.
Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at computer security firm Sophos, said that the anti-malware feature only detects two files - The Rs-Plug Trojan and the iWorkservices Trojan."
Apple's anti-malware feature isn't limited; the quantity of Mac malware is limited. That is because there are only two Mac Trojan Horses in existence and they never caused any harm.
The Mac's BSD UNIX foundations prevent it from being harmed by the virus', worms, adware and spyware which is so common in the Windows OS. System Seven won't change that fact.
But, social engineering malware can trick anyone into giving away their passwords, so it's good that Apple included that. Last year, people were tricked into adding malware from downloading porn and pirated copies of iWorks 2009. That malware was easy to remove in Terminal, but it's helpful that Apple will warn Mac newbies now. There was no warning, last year.
"The new operating system also lacks the industry standard technology known as ASLR or address space layout randomization."
That is false. Snow Leopard does have ASLR in 64 bit apps, which includes the OS. 90+% of Mac apps will be 64 bit next year, because it is so easy to upgrade with a recompile of Cocoa code.
"He added that Apple has not incorporated all the security features that Vista has, so despite improvements they are still behind."
That is partly true, but your imprecation is false. Apple has not duplicated some of Microsoft's designs, because they are not necessary.
Apple's BSD UNIX foundations are much stronger than Microsoft's. Some of MS's designs include a real performance hit which Apple thinks is not worth the trouble.
Nor has Apple signed onto MS's bureaucratic way of implementing change. Apple's software update system is much better than Microsoft's. Besides, Apple is constantly upgrading its software. Leopard 10.5 had 8 bug fixes in 19 months. This is much faster than MS.
Constable Odo said:
"Snow Leopard only runs on Intel Macs and that's a whole lot less of the user base. But it will be relatively inexpensive and easy to do an in-place upgrade for users so migration to Snow Leopard will proceed quickly."
My understanding is that, since October 2007, 91% of the Mac user base is running Leopard. And that 75% of the Macs in existence are Intel Macs, now. I fully expect that 90+% of Intel Macs will migrate to Snow Leopard this year. Meanwhile, Apple will be adding between 9 and 11 million new Macs, so the Intel Mac community will become between 80 to 90% of its user base.
There are reasons to push people to migrate, besides the low price. There are all those Yummy 64 bit apps which will be coming out. The 64 bit apps have the ability to use the increased number of registers in the Intel Core 2 processors. That overcomes the increased overhead of moving around more bits, thus giving the apps a net gain a 25 to 50% more speed. Not bad for a software upgrade.
Selling 5 million copies in
Selling 5 million copies in pre-order is pretty good. It is a shame that all these Microsoft shill sites are so desperate to knock Snow Leopard. MS must be pretty scared if they have to resort to these types of antics.
So the real question is: How much did Money times get paid from Microsoft??
Lackluster sales would be expected...
Leopard was able to run on nearly all late model Intel and PPCs which was a fairly large base. Snow Leopard only runs on Intel Macs and that's a whole lot less of the user base. But it will be relatively inexpensive and easy to do an in-place upgrade for users so migration to Snow Leopard will proceed quickly.
Trying to compare Snow Leopard sales numbers to Windows 7 sales number would be a farce. Windows 7, in theory, runs on all Windows PC hardware with a user base of well over 300 million potential users. Microsoft owns the computer industry and Apple market share is less than 10% and Intel Macs probably only account for 4%. Microsoft wins without even trying. Apple only has to sell enough copies of Snow Leopard to keep the current Intel Mac users happy and gear up for the next group of Intel Mac buyers.
We'll see how many Windows PC users upgrade to Windows 7 and how long it's going to take. Doing a fresh install from Windows XP to Windows 7 is not going to be easy or going to happen quickly. Most users will probably wait until Windows 7 comes on their next computer. Microsoft is going to be financially squeezed if the revenue doesn't flow in fast enough.
"He added that Apple has not
"He added that Apple has not incorporated all the security features that Vista has, so despite improvements they are still behind."
That must explain why there are so many Mac viruses [virii?] in the wild, while Windows users have remained immune to this threat. HA!
Be careful...
Be careful... Just because they don't exist as plentiful doesn't mean your OS is more secure. It's just not as tested. Macs do, largely, have security through obscurity. The Windows virus market is simply more fruitful for virus writers.
We will be finding that out, next year.
Snow leopard is much more secure than Windows and the reason is not Security by Obscurity. Windows weak security invites attack.
The Mac's market share has quintupled since 1999 and there have been no exploits. There have been a few Trojan horses and some phishing scams. We don't know how effective Apple's new malware programs regarding those will be.
The problem is that it is difficult to produce real figures and people like yourself will not credit our sources.
Even so, System Seven will remain as problematic as Vista was. And there will be no serious exploits of Snow Leopard.
I'm not certain if there will be vulnerabilities in Mac OSX's BSD UNIX foundations for Mr Miller to take advantage of for ConSecWest. One thing will be different, this year: any exploit based on that vulnerability will be sand boxed so it cannot do any harm.
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