OS X "Uncia Uncia" Just Didn't Pop Like OS X "Snow Leopard," Huh?

Boy, Apple (AAPL) really sucked all the air out of the news cycle today, eh?

First with the announcement of the iPhone 3G and the new features and applications that will accompany it, and now with a handful of details about OS X “Snow Leopard,” a forthcoming upgrade of the Mac OS X. (Interesting aside: Unlike other large cats, the Snow Leopard (Uncia uncia) cannot roar.)

Jobs touched on Snow Leopard, otherwise known as Mac OS X 10.6, only briefly in his keynote this morning, but a statement released by Apple this afternoon offers a bit more insight into the OS. It will focus on performance enhancements rather than new features. It will be optimized for multi-core processors with a new technology dubbed Grand Central and it will include a new media platform called QuickTime X. Also included will be a new version of Safari that Apple claims will include the “fastest implementation of JavaScript ever, increasing performance by 53%, making Web 2.0 applications feel more responsive.” Finally, when it arrives at market in about a year, OS X 10.6 will offer out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007.

“We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering in the statement released by Apple. “In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience, we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system.”