Apple Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard Family Pack - 5 User License

A finely tuned advanced operating system



[For Up to Five Computers in One Household]

Mac OS X Snow Leopard refines the elegant Mac OS X user experience with lots of little touches and performance improvements that will make using your Mac even more enjoyable. It also includes a few big foundation technologies designed to tap the power of today’s computer hardware and provide a strong base for innovation.

Refined from installation to shutdown, the Mac OS X Snow Leopard enhances your entire Mac experience. Faster, more reliable, and easier to use, it's the Mac you know and love, made even better.  Snow Leopard is built for the future with 64-bit and 32-bit compatibility.  Grand Central Dispatch optimizes multicore performance.  And OpenCL lets applications tap the power of your graphics processor.  The Mac OS X Snow Leopard includes built-in support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, so you can use Mail, iCal, and Address Book at home and at work.




More power to your Mac

The 64-bit transition
The entire computing industry is moving from 32-bit to 64-bit technology, and it’s easy to see why. Today’s Mac computers can hold up to 32GB of physical memory, but the 32-bit applications that run on them can address only 4GB of RAM at a time. 64-bit computing shatters that barrier by enabling applications to address a theoretical 16 billion gigabytes of memory, or 16 exabytes. It can also enable computers to crunch twice the data per clock cycle, which can dramatically speed up numeric calculations and other tasks. Earlier versions of Mac OS X have offered a range of 64-bit capabilities. Now Snow Leopard takes the next step in the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit.

Built-in applications are now 64-bit
Nearly all system applications — including the Finder, Mail, Safari, iCal, and iChat — are now built with 64-bit code. So not only are they able to take full advantage of all the memory in your Mac, but the move to 64-bit applications also boosts overall performance. Together with other refinements and improvements in Snow Leopard, this means that just about everything you do — from launching applications like QuickTime to running JavaScript in Safari to opening image files — will feel faster and more responsive.

Ready for the future
The 64-bit support in Snow Leopard makes Mac OS X completely ready for whatever computing enhancements might arrive in the future. For example, Snow Leopard is ready to support up to 16 terabytes of RAM — about 500 times more than today’s Mac computers can accommodate. That may sound like more RAM than you’ll ever need, but who can predict the requirements of high-performance computers in the future? Mac OS X Snow Leopard comes prepared for anything.

More secure than ever
Another benefit of the 64-bit applications in Snow Leopard is that they’re even more secure from hackers and malware than the 32-bit versions. That's because 64-bit applications can use more advanced security techniques to fend off malicious code. First, 64-bit applications can keep their data out of harm's way thanks to a more secure function argument-passing mechanism and the use of hardware-based execute disable for heap memory. In addition, memory on the system heap is marked using strengthened checksums, helping to prevent attacks that rely on corrupting memory.

32-bit compatible
To ensure simplicity and flexibility, Mac OS X still comes in one version that runs both 64-bit and 32-bit applications. So you don’t need to update everything on your system just to run a single 64-bit program. And new 64-bit applications work just fine with your existing storage devices, PCI cards, and Snow Leopard-compatible printers.

Grand Central Dispatch

With CPUs, more cores is better
In the past, the best way for computer chip makers to improve performance was to turn up the clock speed on the processor. But that generates more heat and consumes more power, which is bad for computers, especially notebooks. So instead the industry has moved to chips with multiple processor cores, which can provide more performance while consuming less power. Today every Mac runs on one or more multicore Intel processors.

Multicore / Multiple challenges
To take full advantage of these processors, software applications must be programmed using a technology called threads. Software developers use threads to allow multicore processors to work on different parts of a program at the same time. However, each application must do its own threading, which reduces the efficiency of the entire system. And because threads can be difficult to program, many developers don’t invest the effort to make their applications multicore capable. Consequently, lots of applications aren’t as fast as they could be.

Introducing Grand Central Dispatch
Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) in Mac OS X Snow Leopard addresses this pressing need. It’s a set of first-of-their-kind technologies that makes it much easier for developers to squeeze every last drop of power from multicore systems. With GCD, threads are handled by the operating system, not by individual applications. GCD-enabled programs can automatically distribute their work across all available cores, resulting in the best possible performance whether they’re running on a dual-core Mac mini, an 8-core Mac Pro, or anything in between. Once developers start using GCD for their applications, you’ll start noticing significant improvements in performance.

A finely tuned engine
Grand Central Dispatch is extremely efficient at what it does. It dynamically scales the workload of an application to account for the number of processors in the computer. And it makes applications more efficient by using only the number of threads required for the work being done. For example, without GCD, if an application needs 20 threads when at maximum capacity, it might set up 20 threads and consume the associated resources even when it has nothing to do. GCD, by contrast, frees resources when it’s not using them, helping to keep the whole system more responsive. Imagine the efficiency and performance gains if every application on your Mac were using GCD.

Built into the core
Grand Central Dispatch is deeply integrated into Mac OS X Snow Leopard, making it easier for all kinds of applications to take better advantage of multicore processors. In addition, your Mac as a whole becomes more efficient at handling numerous tasks at the same time, resulting in performance gains across the board.

Powerful developer tools
Developers will program for Grand Central Dispatch using the Xcode tools included with every Mac. They can use the Xcode debugger and Instruments performance analysis tool to get insights into GCD at runtime. These tools make it possible to quickly inspect any GCD work queue, even down to a specific block of executing code, giving developers a complete understanding of their application as GCD efficiently assigns tasks to each available core.

OpenCL

The skyrocketing power of GPUs
Over the last few years the performance of graphics processing units (GPUs) has grown exponentially as measured in gigaflops. Today’s fastest GPUs are capable of over one teraflop, as much as the room-size ASCI RED supercomputer of just 12 years ago.

A graphic shift in performance
Now a new technology in Mac OS X Snow Leopard called OpenCL takes the power of graphics processors and makes it available for general-purpose computing. No longer will graphics processors be limited to graphics-intensive applications such as games and 3D modeling. Instead, once developers begin to use OpenCL in their applications, you’ll experience greatly improved speed in a wide spectrum of applications.

For example, sophisticated financial modeling techniques can be incorporated into desktop accounting software and personal finance software. Media applications can perform complex, intensive operations with larger video and graphics files. Games can have more realistic physics simulations. And scientists and researchers can tackle far more challenging problems using their everyday Mac computers.

QuickTime X

Another leap forward
QuickTime X is the next-generation media technology that powers the audio and video experience in Mac OS X Snow Leopard. From  its inception in 1991, QuickTime has stood at the forefront of video technologies — first with software-based video, then with Internet video. Now QuickTime X takes another leap forward by building on the amazing media technologies in Mac OS X — such as Core Audio, Core Video, and Core Animation — to deliver enhanced playback, greater efficiency, and higher quality.

A new QuickTime Player
QuickTime X debuts a brand-new version of QuickTime Player, the standalone application used by millions to watch QuickTime-based video. Using the power of the Core Animation technology in Mac OS X, QuickTime Player offers a clean, uncluttered interface with controls that fade out when they’re not needed. And large thumbnail images make navigating chaptered movies simpler than before.

Built for smooth playback
QuickTime X is optimized for the latest modern media formats — such as H.264 and AAC — through a new media architecture that delivers stutter-free playback of high-definition content on nearly all Snow Leopard-based Mac systems. QuickTime X maximizes the efficiency of modern media playback by using the graphics processor to scale and display video. QuickTime X further increases efficiency by supporting GPU-accelerated video decoding of H.264 files.

Video streaming from any server
QuickTime X takes Internet video streaming to new levels with support for HTTP live streaming. Unlike other streaming technologies, HTTP live streaming uses the HTTP protocol — the same network technology that powers the web. That means QuickTime X streams audio and video from almost any web server instead of special streaming servers, and it works reliably with common firewall and wireless router settings. HTTP live streaming is designed for mobility and can dynamically adjust movie playback quality to match the available speed of wired or wireless networks, perfect whether the video is watched on a computer or on a mobile device like iPhone or iPod touch.

High performance, high quality
Because it’s built into the heart of Snow Leopard, QuickTime X uses Mac OS X technologies such as Cocoa, Grand Central Dispatch, and 64-bit computing to deliver greatest-possible performance and enables QuickTime Player to launch up to 2.4x faster.² QuickTime X also takes advantage of ColorSync to provide high-quality color reproduction during playback and when sharing media to your iPhone, iPod, or Apple TV.

General Requirements:

• Mac computer with an Intel processor
• 1GB of memory
• 5GB of available disk space
• DVD drive for installation
• Some features require a compatible Internet service provider; fees may apply.
• Some features require Apple’s Mobile Me service; fees and terms apply.

Feature-specific Requirements:

Time Machine requires an additional hard drive or Time Capsule (sold separately).

Photo Booth requires an iSight camera (built in or external), USB video class (UVC) camera, or FireWire DV camcorder. Backdrop effects when using a DV camcorder require fixed focus, exposure, and white balance.

Boot Camp requires Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista (sold separately).

Screen sharing in iChat and the Finder requires a 128-Kbps Internet connection (300 Kbps recommended).

DVD Player requires a 1.6GHz processor or faster for improved deinterlacing.

iChat

• Audio chats require a microphone and a 56-Kbps Internet connection.
• Video chats require an iSight camera (built in or external), USB video class (UVC) camera, or FireWire DV camcorder; and a 128-Kbps upstream and downstream Internet connection.
• Backdrop effects when using a DV camcorder require fixed focus, exposure, and white balance.
• Some iChat features offer better performance and quality with higher system capabilities.

Exchange Support requires Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 Update Rollup 4. Auto-setup requires enabling the Autodiscovery feature of Microsoft Exchange Server.

QuickTime X movie capture requires iSight camera (built-in or external), USB video class (UVC) camera, or FireWire DV camcorder.

QuickTime H.264 hardware acceleration requires a Mac with an NVIDIA 9400M graphics processor.

Developer tools require 1GB of memory and an additional 3GB of available disk space.

OpenCL requires one of the following graphics cards or graphics processors:

• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce 8600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130, GeForce GTX 285, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GS, Quadro FX 4800, Quadro FX5600
• ATI Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870

64-bit support requires a Mac with a 64-bit processor.

Grand Central Dispatch requires a Mac with a multicore processor.