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Apple director admits Tiger users can upgrade with Snow Leopard DVD

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mac-os-x-snow-leopardFinally, someone at Apple has officially conceded what we knew all along — that the Mac OS X Snow Leopard upgrade DVD can be used to upgrade any Intel-based Mac, though the company frowns at such a practice and points at the licensing agreement.

After some squirming and question avoidance, Alan Eyzaguire, director of software product marketing at Apple EMEA, told Charles Arthur at The Guardian that customers could buy the SL upgrade disc and use it directly, instead of buying the four-times-more-expensive “Mac Box Set” that’s meant for users of Tiger and earlier operating systems.

Alan repeatedly extolled the virtues of both iWork 09 and iLife 09, which come in the full-blown box set, as reasons why Mac users will play fair and buy that version. [Read more…]

Originally posted on September 14, 2009 @ 12:26 pm

Snow Leopard Finally Shows Web Colors Properly

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Snow LeopardHave you ever noticed that Web page colors generally look brighter on Macs than on PCs? Contrary to what Mac fanboys will tell you, that’s not a result of Steve Jobs’ infinite wisdom. Macs use a gamma of 1.8 to match most printing presses. Windows uses a gamma of 2.2 to match the HDTV capture standard.

The gaudy brightness of Web colors on Macs is merely a vestige of print publishing. That’s why Web design newbies on Macs tend to come up with dark layouts that are hard to read on PCs.

People who still publish on dead trees would appreciate Mac displays matching print. The difference between how Macs and PCs show Web colors, however, has been a pain in the ass to Web designers for years. That pain is about to go away, as Mac OS X Snow Leopard switches to a gamma of 2.2.

For years, Mac fanboys have been trying to convince me that their brighter Web page displays are better. For years, I’ve been tolerating unreadably dark Web pages from newbie designers on Macs. Turns out they were all just hanging on to outdated specs.

Originally posted on September 7, 2009 @ 8:44 am

Microsoft partners impressed with Apple’s Snow Leopard

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mac-os-x-snow-leopardDon’t get too excited — nowhere do we see evidence of Microsoft itself being impressed with the next version of Apple’s operating system. However, channel partners do seem to be impressed with Snow Leopard, and they aren’t afraid to talk about it.

For example, the president of Global System Services, Ron Herardian, noted that Snow Leopard would likely far exceed Windows 7’s 64-bit and multicore hardware performance, while the president of Daystar Technology, Gary Dailey, said that Apple was still able to improve on a mature OS while Microsoft tried to recover from the Vista disaster.

Not every one of Microsoft’s friends is that impressed, of course, with the CEO of InterKnowlogy suggesting that some of Snow Leopard’s new technologies — including Grand Central and OpenCL — are features achievable using .Net. [Read more…]

Originally posted on August 26, 2009 @ 7:11 am