OS X Snow Leopard: 10 must-have features

Apple’s given developers their first glimpse of OS X Snow Leopard, and says the updated OS is not about adding new features, but delivering improved core technologies.

But so far details of the new operating system’s bells and whistles have been scarce. Whatever Apple adds, it’ll fuel the next-generation of Mac computers. Here’s our Snow Leopard wishlist.

WiMax Support
Apple expects to ship OS X Snow Leopard within a year, by which time Wi-Max will have begun to take over the world. There are already networks springing up in the US, as well as across Europe and Africa. By the time the next OS X hits, we want Macs with WiMax built in, and an operating system that can handle it.

Better Bluetooth
OS X Leopard brought stereo Bluetooth support to the Mac, but Apple didn’t make much of a fuss about it. That’s probably because it was flaky, and not very impressive. Fire it up with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse connected, and it’s worse quality than AM radio. Snow Leopard desperately needs to fix this.

More trackpad gestures
The multi-touch support offered by Leopard makes the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro’s trackpad a finger-friendly zooming, rotating and scrolling device. That’s all well and good, but we rarely zoom in, and hardly ever rotate. What we really need are simple gestures for frequent activities. We’re thinking three finger taps for exposé, or a simple S-shape to save the document we’re working on.

Multi-touch support
By the time Snow Leopard pounces we’re expecting Apple to have created its first Mac Tablet, or at least put touchscreens in its MacBook laptops. The iPhone and iPod touch prove Leopard can handle multi-touch on the move, but Snow Leopard should bring it to the desktop.

Intel-only support
By the time Snow Leopard rolls around we don’t expect Apple to be catering for Macs packing Power PC. The result should be an OS that’s Intel-only, trimming away Rosetta and all its extraneous PPC code, making it much speedier.

Blu-Ray support
The HD format war is over. Blu-Ray is here to stay, so Apple needs to step up, shove Blu-Ray drives inside its machines, and build support for all the latest Profile 2 features into OSX Snow Leopard.

Processor powerhouse
Apple says the new Grand Central technology inside Snow Leopard will make the best use of multi-core processors, while support for OpenCL means the computing power of graphics processors can also be harnessed for hard-core processing. Good news we say, as it’ll mean we can encode video, convert audio and crunch through data faster than ever.

New iPhone tricks
Considering the iPhone and Mac are made by the same firm, they don’t show off much when put together. Show Leopard could leverage the iPhone’s popularity by bundling exclusive features. Walk away from your Mac with an iPhone in your pocket and Bluetooth could let your desktop know, powering it down and saving you money. Plug it in, and your Mac could use it as a remote screen to show which iTunes track is playing. A couple of tasty features like those would go down a treat.

Enterprise abilities
Apple says Snow Leopard will bring integration with Microsoft Exchange servers, keeping desktop address books up to speed with central servers, and making Mail play nicely with corporate accounts too. Sounds a lot like the iPhone’s new features to us, so how about some fancy Yahoo and Google integration too? Pretty please?

Tasty price tag
There’s already confusion about whether Snow Leopard will be a paid-for upgrade, or given away to Leopard owners free of charge. Of course, we’d prefer the latter. Come on Apple, spill some more details!

Out 2009 | £TBC | Apple

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