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Photos: Snow Leopard at WWDC

Editor's note: This review has been updated from its original to include source information.

Among the news and announcements at the WWDC Keynote this morning, Apple previewed the next iteration of Mac OS X Leopard. Snow Leopard, as Mac OS X 10.6 is known, appears to pack a lot of new features and is slated for release in September, though no hard dates were announced during the Keynote.

The goal of Snow Leopard, according to Apple, was not to reinvent Mac OS X, but to refine, simplify, and speed up the overall experience. They were careful to point out Snow Leopard is not a complete OS replacement, but an expanded update to the current system. During the first public preview of the latest version of Mac OS X 10.6 this morning, we got to check out some of the changes Apple proposes will make the system faster and easier to use.

During the Keynote, Apple's Bertrand Serlet outlined a few of the major new features in Snow Leopard. For coverage of Safari 4 and QuickTime 10 features, read this blog post from Seth Rosenblatt.

In addition to QuickTime and Safari improvements, Serlet hit upon several planned enhancements to the latest Mac OS X. Apple claims they have managed to decrease the install time of the operating system by 45 percent. If this turns out to be the case, the OS will take up six fewer GB than before, which might mean a significant storage boost for current Leopard users. It's difficult to determine if this will be true for everyone--people run different configurations on several different Mac models, making it difficult to nail down exact numbers. Any decrease in system bloat is certainly a good thing if Apple can pull it off.

According to Apple, changes to Leopard are mostly small refinements that make it easier to use. We already liked the convenience of Expose to quickly find what we're working on when there are a lot of windows open on the desktop. But with Snow Leopard, an interface enhancement would let you click and hold on a Dock icon to bring up all the windows associated with the application. Apple also demonstrated the ability to drag an item from one program, use Dock access to Expose, and move files where you want them--like grabbing an image to send in an e-mail, for example. Usability refinements like these are small, but might make using a Mac a more seamless experience.

Long-awaited support for Microsoft Exchange makes it easy to create meetings, use global contacts, and more.

(Credit: Apple, Inc.)

We were happy to see that Stacks is slated see an upgrade, including the ability to open and explore folders within the stacks window--the current version opened the Finder when a folder was clicked. The possibility of an added scrollbar to Stacks will be a very welcome addition. With the current version of Leopard, there is a limit to how many programs will fit in the Stacks window, forcing you to go to the finder if you don't see your program. During this part of the presentation, Serlet also showed how Snow Leopard will be able to preview images, videos, and PowerPoint presentations, even if you don't have PowerPoint installed on your Mac.

Support for Microsoft Exchange is a feature many users have been waiting for (for far too long), and with Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Exchange support may finally become available. During the demonstration, Apple showed how you will be able to add an account to Mail, choose Exchange, and your Mac will autodetect Exchange information from your address book, or you can enter the information manually. From there, Apple says you will be able to use Exchange's global list of addresses and drag and drop contacts into iCal to easily schedule meetings. They also demonstrated smart technology surrounding meeting locations enabling your Mac to discover time conflicts and change the meeting time and location to work for everyone. These features look great, but we wonder whether Apple plans will line up with reality when Snow Leopard is actually released.

With Snow Leopard, Apple claims they have made all of the Mac's core applications take advantage of the 64-bit architecture. This could mean faster applications, faster loading times, and smoother overall performance. Snow Leopard also should add support for most hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL), which would let any application tap into the GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications. Apple says they have improved threading across multiple processors using what they call a grand central dispatch to control threads. These tweaks might help improve overall performance, but we'll have to wait for Snow Leopard's release before we can judge the efficiency and speed of these refinements.

With Snow Leopard being more of a service pack than a complete system upgrade, it seems Apple has priced it accordingly, letting current Leopard users pay $29 to upgrade. The family pack, which allows you to install the new OS on five computers in your home, will cost $49. Though Apple didn't announce a specific date for release, we already had some idea it would launch in September. Maybe the improvements will be enough for people to pay out of pocket for this patch-like upgrade.

Correction: QuickTime 10 is likely to be released with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in the fall, and won't be updated Monday.

At WWDC Monday morning, Apple's Bertrand Serlet came out with guns blazing, not just in support of Snow Leopard, but of Safari and QuickTime, too. Announcing that Safari 4 would leave beta later Monday and that QuickTime would receive a massive overhaul, Serlet introduced new features while taking swipes at both Microsoft and Mozilla.

Safari 4 can be downloaded from CNET Download.com for Windows and Mac.

Safari 4 shipping today.

(Credit: (Credit: James Martin/CNET))

The senior vice president of OS X software said that QuickTime 10 is now "super efficient" and will support HTTP streaming based on h.264 and AAC, a feature that many competing programs have long offered. The new QuickTime will automatically adjust the playback bit rate, and it will be able to stream through firewalls.

In addition to receiving a major version jump from v7 to v10, the interface has also received a complete refresh. Onscreen controls will disappear when playing back video. The QuickTime "Q" logo will also see a slight redo, changing from its familiar blue to a silver and purple.

Safari 4's Nitro will be the fastest JavaScript engine of any browser on the market, Serlet said. Without describing what kind of benchmarks he was using, he showed a chart indicating that Chrome 2 is 5.3 times faster than Internet Explorer 8, but that Safari 4 is 7.8 times faster. Safari 4 also loads JavaScript three times faster than Safari on the iPhone, Serlet said. HTML 5 audio and video tags will be support in Safari 4, too.

Microsoft was not the only target for Serlet. "The number one cause of crashes," he said, "is browser plug-ins." Mozilla Firefox is the best-known extensible browser, and one new feature in Safari 4 is designed to address the instability that some plug-ins can bring to browsers. Crashes in Safari 4 that are caused by a plug-in will cause only the plug-in to fail. Refresh the page, Serlet said, and the plug-in will reload. "All you need to do is reload that page and that's it. You haven't missed a beat."

I'll be running hands-on tests on Safari and QuickTime later today when they're made available to the public. The update to QuickTime in particular is somewhat surprising, given that Apple had been resistant for years to make any dramatic overhauls to its movie player. If the company can improve its performance, then we may be looking at a heated battle in the video playback market in addition to Web browsers.

Earlier today, Apple updated iTunes to get it ready for the anticipated iPhone firmware upgrade to version 3.0. The company also updated its QuickTime video player.

iTunes 8.2, for Windows and Mac, makes the program ready for the iPhone and iPod Touch operating system upgrade by pushing out changes made to recent prerelease versions of iTunes that had been available to only iPhone developers. It also includes one security fix.

Quicktime 7.6.2, for Windows and Mac, contains several security fixes, including patches for holes that could have been exploited to run arbitrary code by maliciously created PSD, JP2, and some movie files.

(Credit: CNET)

Apple Insider has unearthed proof that YouTube uploading will be built into the upcoming version of QuickTime that ships with OS X 10.6.

According to beta testers, several video-sharing options will be baked into the latest release of Apple's QuickTime media playback and editing software, including the capability to directly upload to YouTube. With the new QuickTime, you will be able to convert and upload any supported video file type to the online video service and all you will need is to be a registered YouTube user. You also will be able to seamlessly upload supported video to the MobileMe Gallery.

In addition to these new sharing options, iTunes also will offer ways to convert and export your video files to work on your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. All of these options will be available to you from the same convenient location and will automatically be imported to iTunes before being synced to your supported devices.

With this latest discovery, Apple will effectively offer built-in support for YouTube across all of its main products. Both the iPhone and Apple TV already offer YouTube support, along with some of Apple's other software including recent releases of iMovie. With the addition of direct uploads through QuickTime, Apple is providing support for desktop and laptop Macs.

A new version of QuickTime is available from Apple that plugs security holes in the software for both Mac and Windows users.

QuickTime 7.3.1 was published Thursday afternoon in order to plug unspecified "security issues," according to Apple's Web site. But the fixes appear to correct the Real Time Streaming Protocol issue identified in late November that could lead to unwanted visitors if you visited a Web site that contained code taking advantage of the flaw.

Four separate patches are available on Apple's site, three for the Mac OS X big cats Panther, Tiger, and Leopard, and one for Windows. You'll also likely be prompted by Apple's Software Update feature to download the fresh version.

Apple also published release notes about a new implementation of Java Friday morning for software developers running Tiger, Mac OS X 10.4, that fixes multiple vulnerabilities. The problems were corrected with Leopard, according to Apple.

In addition to providing full-screen viewing and various iPhone options, the latest version of QuickTime 7.2 includes eight important security fixes. This update affects users of Mac OS X v10.3.9, Mac OS X v10.4.9, as well as users of Windows XP and Windows Vista. The QuickTime update is available from Apple's Software Download for both Mac OS X and Windows users.

QuickTime H.264 movie files
This patch affects users of Mac OS X v10.3.9, Mac OS X v10.4.9 or later, Windows Vista, and XP SP2 and addresses the vulnerability in CVE-2007-2295. When viewing a maliciously crafted H.264 movie, an attack may produce an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. Apple credits Tom Ferris of Security-Protocols.com, and Matt Slot of Ambrosia Software, Inc. for reporting this issue.

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