Apple's 5 Biggest Moments in 2008

We’ve seen editorials and articles analyzing Linux and Microsoft’s performance over the last year so we thought it only fitting to share this link to Apple's 5 biggest moments in 2008.

And while it doesn't appear that Apple plans to slow down any in 2009 -- despite the seemingly endless supply of rumors about the health of CEO Steve Jobs -- it's worth reflecting on some of the most notable innovations from Apple in a year that easily ranks as one of the most significant in its 31-year-history.

I think Steve is secretly an Apple fanboy given how much he posts about the company even with fluff articles like these. Admit it Steve, you gave Jobs the AIDs.

Snow Leopard is a brilliant idea, one MS could take notes from. And just may be with Windows 7 (to a certain extent).

Keep the new features down, except for those that really count (64-bit improvements, etc...), squash bugs, optimize the OS, slim it down, and improve performance.

The question will be if it will be a full price upgrade. They could stump their toe on that one. People will bitch, but the thing with Apple is people will still buy it.

Originally Posted by TechLarry

Snow Leopard is a brilliant idea

Only Apple fans would think that making some performance tweaks and other little adjustments to the OS is "brilliant". It's something that should be EXPECTED, and also included in every OS release.

Windows 7 is essentially the same thing, and I wouldn't call that brilliance, either. It's simply a performance release to get away from the "Vista" name and throw in a few features for good measure...

To summarize for others:
1) iPhone 3G
2) iPhone SDK and App Store
3) iTunes Update
4) Macbook
5) Snow Leopard

Originally Posted by TechieSooner

Only Apple fans would think that making some performance tweaks and other little adjustments to the OS is "brilliant". It's something that should be EXPECTED, and also included in every OS release.

Windows 7 is essentially the same thing, and I wouldn't call that brilliance, either. It's simply a performance release to get away from the "Vista" name and throw in a few features for good measure...

To summarize for others:
1) iPhone 3G
2) iPhone SDK and App Store
3) iTunes Update
4) Macbook
5) Snow Leopard

Apple did work extremely hard to get OpenCL all ready for launch and there's a lot of big names behind it besides Apple, like AMD and nVidia...

Something that open could prove very beneficial to the community at large, Win/Lin/Mac, whoever.

But of course, there's no way to know anything completely solid about Snow Leopard until it's released in retail. Some things might not make it to production, etc..

Originally Posted by TechieSooner

Only Apple fans would think that making some performance tweaks and other little adjustments to the OS is "brilliant". It's something that should be EXPECTED, and also included in every OS release.

Yes, because building in new technologies that allow easier GPU and multicore multithreading for common applications right into the operating system is no big deal.

It goes pretty far beyond "tightening things up under the hood", these are new technologies. For someone who supposedly likes it when companies "invent" something, you should be getting off on this right now.

Oh, wait, fanboy, never mind.

And based on their track record getting Vista out the door, this would be billions in research and a decade away if this was to come out of a MS operating system. Despite you poo-pooing Windows 7 as merely a performance tweak (I believe it is much more than that), you would also be hailing it as the most innovative, awesome thing since sliced bread.

Originally Posted by Optional87

But of course, there's no way to know anything completely solid about Snow Leopard until it's released in retail. Some things might not make it to production, etc..

I am very curious to see what the actual benefits to OpenCL and Grand Central will be. Benchmarks will be very very interesting...