Apple's New "Snow Leopard" Update is a Lot Like The Past

People remember Snow Leopard as the release that made Leopard faster. That’s true, but it misses the bigger story. PowerPC compatibility was fading away. Old game consoles running PowerPC CPUs still proudly chugged along, but macOS had to move from a clunky and literally hot architecture. Snow Leopard wasn’t merely an update, it was part of the next decade of Apple computing. Signaling a new era.

Apple calls their newest “27” OSes a “refinement release” but that phrase could not be more rephrased as “the one time Apple made a Snow Leopard for IOS” and the comparison goes beyond performance improvements. This release arrives as Apple draws a harder line around what it considers a modern device. The clearest example is Apple Intelligence. For the first time, Apple is treating an AI assistant with more capabilities. A more personal Siri called Siri AI will make documents, messages, workflows, search, and do everyday tasks for you.

Even the name of macOS 27 being “Golden Gate” instead of San Francisco, not because San Francisco the Apple-made font exists, is less like a fresh start and more like a continuation of a larger transition.

A part of a refinement would probably be to let old devices run as smooth as possible. They did this with IOS, as the iPhone 11 and co. will still be getting support. Yet Apple is simultaneously narrowing support across parts of its ecosystem. Older Apple TV models, older Apple Watch models, and Intel Macs continue to function perfectly well for many users, but they no longer represent the future Apple is building toward and therefore have received the chopping block.

If you have read anything else I made before, you would know I have touted the Apple TV HD as “good enough” for the average person. Yet, this time, after many updates, they finally decide to retire it. Yes, it isn’t perfect, but you’d believe this device would be perfect for the refinement release. In fact, that device should be first in line VIP as it had been the oldest device they literally ever supported at all! This was their turning point. They are not trying to make a new version, they are making a new era. I attribute this to what devices disappeared as the HD was not capable of running true liquid glass.

And I couldn’t help but notice more similarities to the product it believes too beholden to. macOS Snow Leopard. There are many similarities to Snow Leopard that few people are discussing.

In 2009, Apple was betting heavily on technologies that most users barely understood like 64-bit applications, multicore scheduling, etc. This was a bet for the future of their computer. In a way, Apple is making another bet with AI. Users are expected to trust an assistant that can be seen anywhere in their OS, which writes documents, summarizes information, performs actions, and increasingly inserts itself between the user and the operating system. Apple presents these tools as the future of computing, yet the industry has repeatedly demonstrated that AI systems can be confidently wrong.

When a voice assistant sets a timer incorrectly, the mistake is obvious. When an AI summarizes a conversation, finds an email, recalls something your mother supposedly said last week, or extracts information from your documents, the mistake may not be obvious at all. That creates an unusual situation. Apple is simultaneously asking users to trust AI more than ever while the technology itself remains imperfect and unpredictable. Trust is a core principle in the design of new Siri. If it shows you the source of something, will you actually check to see if it got that right? You will probably not.

Like Snow Leopard, the release is less about what exists today than what Apple believes computing will look like tomorrow as evidenced by the new yearly device graveyard of iPads, Apple watches and more. Thankfully, Apple may continue to update 26 for a while for security, but, say goodbye to cool new features on those aging devices. They do this song and dance every year, so some legacy devices were bound to be removed, however, they even discontinued the 1st gen Apple TV 4K streamer which is just slightly newer than the HD, and should be able to handle a light tvOS experience like it already does now (albeit also without true liquid glass support).

But enough about legacy, as I have clearly stated. I can only partly believe Apple is right about making this drastic of a shift. I am sure some of it could have been released now because of the legal problems they have been facing, but, I think there is more to it. Clearly many companies will, wrongly, continue to use the technology but this push to get consumers may largely be worthless. Sure, for some, it can become the norm, but, so many people call and text, write and talk all day, and we are just expected to go “Nope, my life is too busy, Siri can you write 1000 words to this contractor?” like this is some elysian bit of computing which solves all problems.

This was an opinion piece, feel free to share your thoughts with me.