Mac OS X Snow Leopard
Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6) (also referred to as OS X Snow Leopard) is the seventh major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers.
| Version of the macOS operating system | |
Screenshot of Mac OS X Snow Leopard | |
| Developer | Apple Inc. |
|---|---|
| OS family | |
| Source model | Closed, with open source components |
| General availability | August 28, 2009 |
| Latest release | 10.6.8 v1.1 (Build 10K549) / July 25, 2011 |
| Update method | Apple Software Update |
| Platforms | IA-32, x86-64 |
| Kernel type | Hybrid (XNU) |
| License | Commercial software license and Apple Public Source License (APSL) |
| Preceded by | Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard |
| Succeeded by | OS X Lion |
| Official website | Apple - Mac OS X Snow Leopard - The world's most advanced OS at the Wayback Machine (archived September 29, 2009) |
| Tagline | The world's most advanced operating system. Finely tuned. |
| Support status | |
| Historical, unsupported as of February 25, 2014. iTunes is no longer supported as of September 2014 and Safari support is terminated as well, though the last security update happened in September 2013. An update for the Mac App Store on Mac OS X Snow Leopard was released on January 27, 2016. | |
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Snow Leopard was publicly unveiled on June 8, 2009 at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. On August 28, 2009, it was released worldwide, and was made available for purchase from Apple's website and retail stores at the price of US$29 for a single-user license. As a result of the low price, initial sales of Snow Leopard were significantly higher than that of its predecessors whose price started at US$129. The release of Snow Leopard came nearly two years after the launch of Mac OS X Leopard, the second longest time span between successive Mac OS X releases (the time span between Tiger and Leopard was the longest).
The goals of Snow Leopard were improved performance, greater efficiency and the reduction of its overall memory footprint, unlike previous versions of Mac OS X which focused more on new features. Apple famously marketed Snow Leopard as having "zero new features". Its name signified its goal to be a refinement of the previous OS X version, Leopard. Much of the software in Mac OS X was extensively rewritten for this release in order to take full advantage of modern Macintosh hardware and software technologies (64-bit, Cocoa, etc.). New programming frameworks, such as OpenCL, were created, allowing software developers to use graphics cards in their applications. It was also the first Mac OS release since System 7.1.1 to not support Macs using PowerPC processors, as Apple dropped support for them and focused on Intel-based products. As support for Rosetta was dropped in Mac OS X Lion, Snow Leopard is the last version of Mac OS X that is able to run PowerPC-only applications.
Snow Leopard was succeeded by OS X Lion (version 10.7) on July 20, 2011. For several years, Apple continued to sell Snow Leopard at its online store for the benefit of users that required Snow Leopard in order to upgrade to later versions of OS X. Snow Leopard was the last version of Mac OS X to be distributed primarily through optical disc, as all further releases were mainly distributed through the Mac App Store introduced in the Snow Leopard 10.6.6 update.
Snow Leopard is the last version of Mac OS X that supports the 32-bit Intel Core Solo and Intel Core Duo CPUs. Because of this, Snow Leopard still remained somewhat popular alongside OS X Lion, despite its lack of continued support, mostly because of its ability to run PowerPC-based applications.
Snow Leopard is also the last release of Mac OS X to ship with a welcome video at first boot after installation. Reception of Snow Leopard was positive; see the section below.