Apple to Ship Mac OS X Snow Leopard on 28 August

SYDNEY, Australia—25 August 2009—Apple today announced that Mac OS Xv10.6 Snow Leopard will go on sale Friday 28 August at Apple’sretail stores and Apple Authorised Resellers, and that Apple’s online storeis now accepting pre-orders. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovationand success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies and out of the boxsupport for Microsoft Exchange. Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade forMac OS X Leopard users for recommended retail price (RRP) A$39 inc GST.

“Snow Leopard builds on our most successful operating system ever andwe’re happy to get it to users earlier than expected,” said BertrandSerlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “Forjust A$39 inc GST, Leopard users get a smooth upgrade to the world’s most advancedoperating system and the only system with built in Exchange support.”

To create Snow Leopard, Apple engineers refined 90 percent of the more than 1,000projects that make up Mac OS X. Users will notice refinements including a moreresponsive Finder; Mail that loads messages up to twice as fast;* TimeMachine with an up to 80 percent faster initial backup;* a Dock with Exposéintegration; QuickTime X with a redesigned player that allows users to easilyview, record, trim and share video; and a 64-bit version of Safari 4 that is up to50 percent** faster and resistant to crashes caused by plug-ins. Snow Leopard ishalf the size of the previous version and frees up to 7GB of drive space onceinstalled.

For the first time, system applications including Finder, Mail, iCal, iChat andSafari are 64-bit and Snow Leopard’s support for 64-bit processors makes useof large amounts of RAM, increases performance and improves security whileremaining compatible with 32-bit applications. Grand Central Dispatch (GCD)provides a revolutionary new way for software developers to write applicationsthat take advantage of multicore processors. OpenCL, a C-based open standard,allows developers to tap the incredible power of the graphics processing unit fortasks that go beyond graphics.

Snow Leopard is the only desktop operating system with built in support forMicrosoft Exchange Server 2007, and it allows you to use Mac OS X Mail, AddressBook and iCal to send and receive email, create and respond to meetinginvitations, and search and manage contacts with global address lists. Exchangeinformation works seamlessly within Snow Leopard so users can also take advantageof OS X only features such as fast Spotlight searches and Quick Look previews.

Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard, the next major release of the world’s easiestto use server operating system will also go on sale Friday 28 August. SnowLeopard Server includes innovative new features such as Podcast Producer 2 andMobile Access Server and is priced more affordably than ever at A$699 inc GST withunlimited client licenses. More information and full system requirements for SnowLeopard Server can be found at www.apple.com.au/server/macosx/.

Pricing & Availability
Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade to Mac OS Xversion 10.5 Leopard on 28 August at Apple’s retail stores and through AppleAuthorised Resellers, and online pre-orders can be made through Apple’sonline store (www.apple.com.au) starting today. The Snow Leopardsingle user license will be available for a recommended retail price of A$39 inc GST andthe Snow Leopard Family Pack, a single household, five-user license, will beavailable for a recommended price of A$69 inc GST. For Tiger users with an Intel-basedMac, the Mac Box Set includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife ’09 and iWork’09 and will be available for a recommended price of A$229 inc GST and a FamilyPack is available for a suggested price of A$299 inc GST.

The Mac OS X Snow Leopard Up-to-Date upgrade package is available to all customerswho purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple AuthorisedReseller between 8 June 2009 and the end of the program on 26 December 2009, fora product plus shipping and handling fee of A$14.95 inc GST. Users must request theirUp-to-Date upgrade within 90 days of purchase or by 26 December 2009, whichevercomes first. For more information please visit www.apple.com.au/macosx/uptodate. Snow Leopardrequires a minimum of 1GB of RAM and is designed to run on any Mac computer withan Intel processor. Full system requirements can be found at www.apple.com.au/macosx/specs.html.

*Testing conducted by Apple in August 2009 comparing prerelease Mac OS X v10.6Snow Leopard with shipping Mac OS X v10.5.8 Leopard on a shipping 2.0 GHz MacBooksystem and a shipping 2.66 GHz iMac system, both configured with 2GB of RAM.Performance will vary based on system configuration, network, file sizes, datasets and other factors.

**Testing conducted by Apple in August 2009 comparing 64-bit Safari 4 to 32-bitSafari 4 on prerelease Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard on a shipping 2.0 GHz MacBooksystem and a shipping 2.66 GHz iMac system, both configured with 2GB of RAM.JavaScript benchmarks based on the SunSpider Performance test. Performance willvary based on system configuration, network connection, and other factors.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II andre-invented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Applecontinues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OSX operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is alsospearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and videoplayers and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with itsrevolutionary iPhone.

Press Contacts:
John Marx
Apple
[email protected]
(02) 8987 8399

Fiona Martin
Apple
[email protected]
(02) 8987 8230