While the morning of the first day of WWDC 2008 belonged to the iPhone, attention turned to Mac OS X in the afternoon. Apple previewed the next major OS X upgrade, codenamed Snow Leopard. With it comes a new focus for Apple:
Taking a break from adding new features, Snow Leopard – scheduled to ship in about a year – builds on Leopard’s enormous innovations by delivering a new generation of core software technologies that will streamline Mac OS X, enhance its performance, and set new standards for quality.
Among the improvements that Apple promises for Snow Leopard are support for Microsoft Exchange 2007, improved multi-core processor support with a new set of technologies called “Grand Central,” improved 64-bit technologies with support for up to 16TB of RAM, a new QuickTime X that promises to be a streamlined, next-generation platform that advances modern media and Internet standards, and OpenCL (Open Compute Library) that lets applications use GPU cycles for more general computing (essentially using your graphic processor power to complement that of your main processor).
Apple plans on shipping Snow Leopard in about a year.