15 years of Snow Leopard: When will the next macOS come without new features?
Apple introduced macOS 10.6 15 years ago. For the first time, the company only focused on internal improvements. That wouldn't be a bad thing today either.
Background image of macOS 10.6: Snow Leopard was very stable.
(Image: Apple)
Mac users were able to celebrate a small anniversary yesterday, Wednesday: It was the 15th anniversary of the release of macOS 10.6 aka Snow Leopard (officially called "Mac OS X Snow Leopard" at the time). The operating system update has a special place in Apple's computer history: its sole purpose was to improve and stabilize its predecessor Leopard (macOS 10.5), which had been released two years earlier. "Zero new functions" were integrated, Apple's engineers proudly announced at the WWDC 2009 developer conference.
Stabilization from installation to shutdown
The idea that there doesn't have to be a new macOS every year has only been pursued by Apple once since then: When switching from Snow Leopard to macOS 10.7 aka Lion (which was then officially called "OS X Lion") in 2011. Since then, a new Mac operating system has been released year after year: including this fall's macOS 15 aka Sequoia 13 more versions.
Snow Leopard was a stopgap at the time. After "300 new functions" had been added to its predecessor Leopard, it was realized that the implementation had not gone smoothly at all. Apple's then head of software Bertrand Serlet admitted this himself and said, among other things, at the launch of Snow Leopard that the Finder interface had not been changed, but that internally they had switched to the more modern Cocoa. Users reacted positively to the update, which was finally released on August 28, 2009: The "better user experience from installation to shutdown" (Serlet's own words) ensured a more reliable Mac.
An idea whose time has come again
Even today, we wish Apple thought this way about macOS. But the 13 new versions from macOS 10.7 to macOS 15 speak a different language. New functions are added every year, while some old ones are removed or simply remodeled. Security – Some users would also say: nailing – is being tweaked. Sometimes there are internal changes that many users stumble across, for example in the Preview app.
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However, long-time Mac users are most annoyed by the fact that an annual update means that existing apps no longer work, or at least not in the way they are used to. A macOS update is always open-heart surgery. Avoiding it is not a good idea: after all, only the latest macOS versions really get all the security fixes. And so the hope remains that Apple will perhaps remember the idea 15 years after Snow Leopard: one macOS every two years would actually be enough, wouldn't it? And then one that is (even) more stable.
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