Ah,
Snow Leopard. It's the same cat you're used to caressing (or beating, as the case may be), but in a much, much colder climate. Or something like that. OS X 10.6 promised Leopard users a "refined" experience, and one that would only cost upgrading users
$29. At that price, most Apple fanatics figured that picking it up on launch day was a no-brainer, but as we've come to
sadly expect from Cupertino's software labs
these days, all wasn't perfectly well with the big snowy cat. Even now, users are still
kvetching about
broken functionality and
mental pains that are literally indescribable. Even if you're not in that camp, we're eager to hear how your Snow Leopard experience has been. Are you satisfied with the upgrade? Will you never, ever install an Apple update again before a million others try it first? Are you already looking forward to
10.7 Windows 7? Tell all in comments below -- you never know who could be tuning in.
posted October 2nd 2009 11:39PM
I'd change it's stupid name!!!
Fix the crashes. Snow Leopard and Safari 4 crashes so much now.
"Will you never, ever install an Apple update again before a million others try it first?"
That's a stupid thing to say, this happens with all new software, flawless launches are a thing of fables.
make it available for free...like Ubuntu. :)
Could be cheaper. :D
Got the Snowy Cat on an early ship. Broke my code weavers. I had been using the Onyx util from the Apple site and it broke. Had to rename the desktop profile to be able to do anything on my locked doc. Finder is faster, shutdown is much faster. There are some games that I had that no longer function. Anything in the CodeWeaver Games is accessible, I had a Cleopatra game that no longer understands that there are painted constructs in it's 3D environment. It's a demo so I don't care but it's an example of possible investment that is lost. Fusion still works fine, thought it broke my cisco vpn but it's ok. Time machine enhancements apparently gave me a lot more storage space, 90g for two computers. Not sure what that's about but I like it. Seems TM tells you about the steps it's going through now, comparing, indexing etc. I'm guessing that I'll have to upgrade my CodeWeavers when it comes out. There are probably other incompatibilities. I had a weird Air Port issue where I had to reconnect and accept the info In my keychain but after that it works fine.
Snow Leopard renders remote controls (Apple Remote, Harmony Remote) useless. No matter what application you are using, IR commands are ALSO passed through to iTunes. If iTunes is not running, using the remote control will start it. So if you are using Eye TV, you can start watching a TV show, but your iTunes music will also start to play in the background. If you are using Plex, you can start watching a movie, but your iTunes music will also start to play in the background. If you are using FrontRow, you can start watching a video, but your iTunes music will also start to play in the background.
All good except for Safari, which crashes constantly. And this is from a clean install. Basically it crashes so often I don't even use it anymore, sometimes it wants to send a crash report, other times is just shutdowns and dies.
Very frustrating!
I installed Snow Leopard on my wife's Macbook as an upgrade from Tiger and on my own Macbook as an upgrade from Leopard and in both cases the installation went smoothly and we have not experienced any problems at all.
In fact even Photoshop CS3 is working well, it has not crashed and with the exception of Onyx all the programs I use are working well.
accessing windows shares via smb is still flaky at best. i had to install sleepwatcher and write a script to disconnect on standby and reconnect on wake just so the shares would properly mount each time. before that finder would completely blow up when i tried to access the shares after coming out of sleep and could not be fixed by any other method than a reboot.
I am an avid Mac user since 1987. I have promoted macs to my friends, colleagues and relatives and must have pushed tens of thousands of dollars to Apple coffers by their purchases.
Snow leopard was a disaster in my life. After installation, the printer would not work, the wireless network could not be connected and the woes go on.
I had to reinstall my favorite Leopard back. The countless agony filled hours during this ordeal was unbelievable. Wake UP Apple. Send snow leopard back to Jungle. Please.
My only real gripe is that my battery on the MacBook used to last all evening (about 4.5 hours)... Now it lasts a little over 3. Doesn't seem to run any hotter though (or not that I can notice). So I have to keep running upstairs to get my power supply.
Apart from that, seems a bit smoother and just a little nicer. Nothing ground-breaking.
@jowie I think Anandtech showed the same problem in their tests. Not sure if it was a known bug or just a trade off though.