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
$29. At that price, most Apple fanatics figured that picking it up on launch day was a no-brainer, but as we've come to
sadly expect from Cupertino's software labs
these days, all wasn't perfectly well with the big snowy cat. Even now, users are still
kvetching about
broken functionality and
mental pains that are literally indescribable. Even if you're not in that camp, we're eager to hear how your Snow Leopard experience has been. Are you satisfied with the upgrade? Will you never, ever install an Apple update again before a million others try it first? Are you already looking forward to
10.7 Windows 7? Tell all in comments below -- you never know who could be tuning in.
posted October 2nd 2009 11:39PM
cms, True that Gimp doesn't hold a candle to photoshop, but Photoshop wouldn't even run on my 10.6 I reinstalled all of cs4, following adobe's detailed removal instructions. Nothing. I reverted back to 10.5.8 and then reupped to 10.6, same thing. Vig B;ue Photoshop title screen and then crash. Didn't even get the default crash submission form from adobe. Just crash capoot Snow Leopard said, "why be productive when you can stare at how pretty I am"
It's all over the web how nasty 10.6 has been to CS4 users. Until the smoke clears I'll be on 10.5.
At least Gimp works on every release Ubuntu puts out.
OK, so after reading all the news and forums, I come to conlcusion that mac isnt that better then a windows. Also if u calculate the price of MAC, lets say OK u get a HQ Hardware and gorgeous look, but the software itself is about 150$, then they have frequent updates for 29$, they are almost as frequent as windows update lately. so If u conssider to spending that much for a hardware for a windows based pc and u pay one time fee for windows OS, plus u get functionallity with anything, i dont think that Mac is so much better then a windows PC. I dont want to flame, but it looks like Mac is loosing its track of things, and is more interested in itunes / ipod / iphone / ianything sphere.
Mr. iNitewulf, what you've just typed is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in your rambling, incoherent comment were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this thread is now dumber for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Sorry, I've been waiting to use that on someone for a while now.
I reccomend paying attention to grammar if you want people to pay attention to you.
So, basically you came to a conclusion that Macs suck without ever actually trying to use one. Great way to evaluate something there.
Part of the appeal of a Mac is OS X, part of it is iLife, part of it is the excellent hardware quality, and part of it is the quality of the support Apple provides to Mac owners. It all adds up to a complete experience that for me, outdoes any advantages Windows (might) have.
I second that.
@iNitewulf Your thoughts are limited and fractional and that is the number one killer for ideals, beliefs and faith.
I'd prescribe some krishnamurti to listen or read.
@Tom
I second that also
Anybody knows whether 10.6.1 is out as retail discs yet?
Nope. Apple tends to wait a little bit before issuing updated retail discs. That is one thing I wish Apple would do, is allow users to make slipstream discs. This was a benefit Microsoft had for Windows 2000/XP, but sadly they got rid of it in Vista.
Adding better windows management features, like Windows 7 snap or atl least a efficient maximizing routine to really "maximize" to the total space available in the monitor.
Exchange Setup in Mail is totally different. As in whack. I'm not an expert with Apple Mail, but score 1 Microsoft Entourage.
About 1/50 of you actually answered the question Engadget posed. The rest of you just bitch at eachother based on your personal opinions. Way to screw over anyone looking for decent information.
And yes, I realize the irony of this post.
Engadget is full of it as usual by asking the question with all sorts of foolish statements about Apple. Apple software, and apple users. But then I guess you can't expect much from people whose job is to cut and paste articles from other web sites.Grow up.
I've had pretty much no issues with SL Very few people have really despite what some would like to believe.
Safari 64-bit needs an official plug-in API so that extensions such as Adblock and Safari140 would work. Currently need to run Safari in 32-bit mode to use the plug-ins. (Or maybe there is such an API but these plug-ins are just written wrong? Anyone?)
This leopard is piece of crap. it almost the same as the old version, nothing special, and i dont really need it. even though there are some new function, but it is useless, i dont even need it. god, i wished i did not buy it, i rather buy window 7. if apple have the new version, i rather wait for few more new version, even if i wait 2 years, cuz each of new version is suck and useless. U guys out there should wait for adding up few more version then buy
So far I like Snow Leopard. I really do. Like the look, like the feel of it. But it's crashing out on me. I know they all do that but so far this does it more than Tiger did (which admittedly did it less by the time I left it then it had when it was new). And all of these things that worked so well in Tiger are driving me crazy now. Printing. Syncing. Bugginess streaming to an airport, bugginess with time machine. I get things to work most of the time, but it will stop and I have to go back and set it up again. It's just kind of buggy. I wish I'd waited a couple of months because I know they'll get it worked out. But I have to say I'm still preferring the Vista box I have sitting on the same desk when I have to get work done. It bugs me too (all the time) but its' foibles never really keep me from getting things done, and all the more serious problems it has had in the past (and there were some whoppers) are long since fixed. Lately my G5 is always getting in my way, and it's always the OS. I haven't had a hint of trouble from any hardware from day one and I can't say that about my PC.
So now I'm struggling with brand new Mac OS and next month I'll be bitching about the brand new buggy MS OS. I have to use both all day for work because I test products for both platforms.
Anyway right now I give SL about a C. Ask me again in 4 months I'm confident it will be an A-.
I loved getting back the disk space, but Apple oversold the whole 64 bit feature. My computer is still running in 32 bit mode and I have tried all of the tricks to get it to run in 64 bit. I like how Microsoft implimented 64 bit better. It is less confusing.
The reason Apple is taking the approach they are is because though 64-bit has existed for years now, the market still hasn't adapted to the new architecture. In Windows, 95% of your programs will be running in 32-bit mode, so don't expect a real increase in performance as far as 64-bit goes until developers finally begin to make the switch. Besides, Apple most likely knows what's best for their computers, and they'll make the right changes at the right time. They were really saying that Snow Leopard is truly ready to flawlessly adapt to the 64-bit platform.
best way would be to give it away since they allready charge to much for the hardware.
then tell jobs to suck the man stick
This has been the least stable Apple OS I've experienced since 1986. Initial install produced degraded Finder performance and plenty of app crashing (Apple and third party). Clean install yielded much snappier performance but all apps (Apple and 3rd party) crashed on the first save, Mail crashed if I tried to attach a file using the toolbar or drag and drop. 10.6.1 made no difference. Manually reinstalled 10.6.1 and things seemed to be better, but now it's back to crashing apps all the time. Hard drive is in great shape, but OS is borderline unusable. Very, very similar to many Windows experiences I've had over the years. XP Pro at work sucks in many ways, but crashing apps isn't one of its sins. Wish Apple would extract its head from its ass and get this fixed - this is a wide-spread problem, according to a couple of developers I've been working with. Apple knows about it but won't acknowledge it.
there should be a moratorium on mac users using the word "snappy." enough already.
I freed up 17 GB, which was nice
Overall? As much as I don't like to say it Apple, I am disappointed with Snow Leopard. I have found that, if anything, my early 2008 MBP has slowed down (from a glitchy Safari 4 (glitchier than it was before 10.6), to lagginess in finder). Yes, there are some minor surface refinements, but I haven't noticed any refinements that may have been "under the hood."
Sorry Apple. Your products have ALWAYS impressed me, but this is an exception.
:(
Try a clean install... I'd bet money that would speed everything up and fix safari
A scroll bar on stacks alone was worth the admission.
That being said. Maybe make Finder a bit more like Pathfinder? You know? Useful? That'd actually be my biggest complain. I see alot of nice features on Pathfinder, but the thing is laggish and somehow....more....ugly. I just wished Apple would make Finder more useful.
(why is everyone bitching about Exposé?, The fact that it now shows minimized dock windows alone is enough for me to sing praises for the lord. This being said, the aqua blue outline is ugly ugly ugly. But easy enough to mod)
I would delete it. Hahahahaahhahahahahahahahaha
GIVE ME BACK QUICKTIME 7 PRO, or better yet, restore its functionality in Quicktime 10. I need to export to different formats all the time. Please.
Should be in your Utilities folder if you had it installed previously, I believe.
Man, the mac haters are out in force today. Why are you even reading this article, it's obviously not meant for you! If you love windows so much, just go use windows and stop reading articles on Snow Leopard that are obviously not going to change your mind, just so you can piss off some fan boys.
Anyway, that being said, I have been a big fan of snow leopard so far, I think the speed improvements are well worth the $30. The re-written finder is lightning fast, and everything just seems much snappier. I use the exchange support for school and it works seamlessly, and took about 30 seconds to set up. The one thing that kind of disappointed me was more to do with the new iTunes 9, which overall is a great program, but the only problem is that they didn't make it 64 bit. Of all the OSX programs that should have been re-written for speed it's iTunes. It is noticeable in all the other programs, and it's not as if iTunes were really that slow, but it's kind of obvious that it's not written at the same level that the others are. I click safari, and it's instantly up and running... amazingly fast. iTunes, not so much. Other than that, I'm just excited to see what developers can do with the tools that SL gives them. I've seen some beta software out there, and it's pretty cool. EA used Open CL to run one of their games on a mac pro, completely using the processors instead of the graphics card and it was pretty impressive... it was only an example, but it was pretty amazing. Some H.264 converters using Open CL and grand central have shown 150%-200% performance increases on the same machine, so the future looks good.
One last comment, I think it's kind of interesting that Apple gets criticized a little bit by some people when they come out with something like Snow Leopard, because there's no big flashy changes... but the point is Leopard worked pretty darn well, so just polishing the program makes a lot of sense to me. If Apple pulled something like Microsoft did with Vista though, the results would be incredibly different than they were for Microsoft. Vista simply was not ready for users when it came out. It was quite frankly a disaster. It might not be any more, but to me it's too little too late... Windows 7 is what Vista should have been to begin with, there's really no excuse for that. That being said, Microsoft would almost redeem themselves if 7 was $30 like SL is, but it isn't. It's ridiculously overpriced and is just fixing a huge mistake that the company made. I hope the boys in Redmond enjoy the position they're in, because most companies aren't just given a big pass like that when a product is that terrible. Innovation is a good thing, no matter where it comes from. Even if you don't like the company that it comes from, it pushes everyone else to do better. I really wish Microsoft would come out with something really innovative and decent for a change, and stop copying everyone else's ideas, and then trying to smash all competition. Competition is good.
Anyway, that's all I have to say, sorry to go off topic a bit there.
Good comment, but I'd just like to point out that Windows 7 is available to those with a college email address for $30.
It seems like I'm the only person who hasn't had a single issue with Snow Leopard. I've installed it (not clean installs, just straight upgrades) on two Late '06 Macbooks now...and not one single, solitary issue. The biggest thing I was afraid of was that AfterEffects wouldn't work with the new Quicktime...and it does, without issues.
Am I magic? Or perhaps I'm the lone user who doesn't hack his machine into oblivion and then cry foul when a new install breaks things...
Ive installed the update on 5 machines, never had an issue with the install. My 64-bit machines got a more noticeable boost in speed and performance, but it was still noticeable on the older machines. Not perfect, but nothing with computers ever is, I would say less than expected but a very welcome boost in performance and overall stability and way worth $30.
The most disappointing thing I heard from a group of apple sales people was: "Look at me! I'm a Mac! I've got a bigger dick than those PCs!"
I kid you not.
There's two major things I'd change about Snow Leopard.
Dock Exposé needs a little more in the way of consistency. Clicking and holding on an app tile when the app is running gives you a different (and much less functional) menu than when the app isn't running.
Moving Spaces around is also less aesthetically appealing. In Leopard you could move the Spaces around like building blocks. In Snow Leopard, moving them around give you this weird transparent thing, that from all signs seems to be a feature, not a bug.
Other than that, I love this operating system to death. I never installed any weird stuff in Leopard and all the third-party apps I use got updated a few days before 10.6 came out. 64-bit is something I wish every app had (iTunes, I'm looking at you).
Well I run Leopard on Dell Mini 9 after I have got frustrated by general lag in Windoze no matter what I did and the way Leopard runs on such a tiny machine is stunning. I was runing Ubuntu Netbook Remix for a while and it was cool, but in Leopard there is always some elegant way to do what you need. So I think if someone suggest any version of Windoze over OSX, than maybe has no deeper experience with both worlds. There is however one thing that kinda sucks in Leopard and that is the default addressbook, so if that did not change in Snow Leopard, that would be sad.
I purchased the family pack the day Snow Leopard went on sale and I'm sorry. On a new Mac it seems to work well, but on a MacBook Pro it has been a nightmare. There are definite problems with how it accesses Windows servers via SMB. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't and when it doesn't, it seems to take down all networking with it including Internet access. Have to reboot to restore it to normal. Apple rushed this out, and unfortunately the more time that goes by, the more Apple is acting like Microsoft. Apple we don't need more features but we do want the ones that already exist to work.
couldnt say much cuz never used it
Exchange 2003 support! Why does it work in iPhone but not in Snow Leopard... this makes No Sense At All.
SL has been fine on both my machines *EXCEPT* I can't boot to a 64bit kernel on either!!! One is ALU MB 13.3 (Late 2008) and I find out *AFTER* I buy the damn upgrade they purposely disabled booting to 64bit kernel except on MBP - LAME!!!!
My older 24" ALU iMac is 64bit capable (EFI64) but alas, it never boots to 64bit Kernel either --- this iMac is from 2007 (ATI 2600HD).
I will at least credit Microsoft in the fact that if you install a 64bit OS you get to use a full 64bit kernel and drivers as lame as their stuff is...W7 is the exception - it's OK but still not up to snuff like *nix based OSes.
Only REAL problem...Panic's Unison (newsgroup reader) crashes randomly and often and spits out a crash report about Unison hitting an illegal instruction - sent these to Unison and they are investigating but still annoying none the less :}
Other than that, Onyx works Ok (SL version), Split&Concat just got updated and I've been running iAntiVIrus and MacScan from day one.
Overall I think I like it better than Leopard as I appreciate a small footprint OS and I also like the fact that I don't have to have Rosetta installed which I haven't used in ages...
I wish Manifique worked - first and last time I tried it forced me to do a full reinstall of the OS :(-
VLC 1.02 seems rock solid for me unlike Quick Time X - the new version doesn't work as well as the old QT - it seems spastic with some vids and what is the deal with no "Prefes" - *CMON* - yeah there are ways to tweak by command line but WHY OH WHY have they neutered it!?
Overall score: 8 / 10.
Before, if I wanted to minimize a window to the dock I wouldn't have to aim at the yellow stop light button but could instead double click on the title bar of each application. Now I do have to aim. That takes my precious time away from me and I don't like it. Hmph.
What? Double clicking still works fine for me.
Well since we are going to talk about religion again, here goes...
OS X Snow Leopard: 10.6.1: Running on my Early 2009 MBP 17" 2.9 GHz, 8 GB DDR3 RAM. Well, she's a screamer & I love the way OS X allows me to switch between GPUs for conserving power or gaining performance. The hardware is well-thought, and impressive to me (this is my first Mac.) I will say it is a sexy machine and if you do not stop by the Apple section of Best Buy and take pause, there is something wrong with you. I wont say it is superior to PCs, but...okay I will. I have had Dell laptops, HP, IBM & you know, it must be the unibody thing. It seems timeless. PC hardware is like Mazda cars, three years into it, they look ten years old.
When light-browsing, emailing and chatting or twittering on the couch while my wife tortures me with Grey's Anatomy, I have seen the battery remaining time go from 7 hours up to 9 hours. It shipped with 10.5.5, which was pretty solid. I received SL the day it shipped. Installed it three times that night to test different Clean install/Time Machine restore options to report to fellow coworkers who were going to wait a few weeks (they did not.) I think the GUI tweaks to are a good step forward, I wish there were more choices with the eye-candy.
Flash runs up the CPU pretty high in Safari, I assume it is a 64-bit thing and it has improved since 10.6.1. I run ClicktoFlash now to keep that at bay.
I have to say, the battery life has gone into the crapper. My 7 to 9 hours of light browsing have turned into 3 to 4 hours. I understand the changes in the OS underbelly but the power claims once touted by Apple as part of the brand refinements is no longer valid in my eyes (yes I reset the SMC for those going to suggest it.) AND HEAT, man the thing heats up running SL. I don't think a user should have to run a 3rd party app to adjust the fans for heat issues especially in an aluminum block.
Windows 7 64bit: Running on and AMD 3.2 GHz w/8GB Ram, Dell E521. I bought it the night before Vista shipped on them by default. It runs nicely, I like the new GUI tweaks and refinements in 7 but think it would have been a service pack, honestly. WindowsSuperSite and Ed Bott are wrong. Everyone who fell for the "Ultimate Extras" BS (me) should have been given 7 as an apology. When I run IE8, Safari, or Opera and go to a Flash-heavy site, the CPU doesn't peg out. Backups are much improved. IE8 does suck more. What are they thinking? One tries to browse the internet and menu pop-ins when downloading files or security messages, UAC, for crying out load...I am not 6 years old. Please give me an "Expert" mode which will keep the OS from slowing ME down.
Windows 7 32bit: Running on my wife's HP dv7t, 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM. only 1 year old. Again, the eye candy is nice, battery life sucks (it is a "desktop replacement"). I think it would be cool to run OS X on it for a week or so just to see how it stands up on PC hardware. I think I'd want to keep it running OS X if I could get it running with updates and all. As far as laptop use, it was never a machine I'd sit and use on my lap due to the heat issues, it is also huge (17").
My Scores...
Leopard 10.5.x: 9.5 based on battery life and stability.
Snow Leopard: 10.6.1: 9 for speed of app opening, boot times, shut down time and correcting the "wake from sleep" issue. I am sure by the end of the year the updates to come will stabilize SL issues I have. Apple users are much more forgiving these issues perhaps due to the hardware premium?
Windows 7: 8.5 for improving Vista, it would be a better score if they had released it instead of Vista. I've only been using PCs since 1993 and Windows has come a long way. I'd be interesting to see where the Amiga would be right now, kind of like where Elvis would be if he were still alive? But like OS X, some "tweaks" seem to go in the wrong direction. In XP, I can get to my Network card settings in about a click. In Vista & 7, well, lets just say they took that "ease" out. The Network sharing Center is a disaster and "home groups" is pretty dumb too.
As far as supporting my friends with PC issues, I like the fact I can Google an issue and fix it for them and look like a genius. Some people just don't have the time or inclination to learn. I like both OS's and look forward to the continued healthy competition. AND if you read all of this, you are a lonely, lonely person. It is 2:17 in the morning. Get a life.
I didn't read the whole thing; just skipped to the end. However, I would like to point out that some of us live on the west coast where it is still Friday and not all that late. :)
Well first I would make it not panic every time I try to shut it down.
Then I would make it so the bootcamp 3.0 drivers don't try to corrupt my HFS+ partitioned drives.
Third I would have waited until people actually wrote drivers for third party peripherals.
Fourth I would have done SOMETHING with OpenCL.
lastly, I wouldn't have released it with so many bugs. :p
I guess I'm one of the few people who hasn't had a single problem in Snow Leopard. O_o
How would i change Snow Leopard? I'd make it work on my "old" iMac G5!
Well, i guess im gonna have to upgrade any time soon ....
Given it to developers beforehand so they can make patches to their software cause stuff doesn't work. Lots of bugs and errors makes it feel rushed. Have had problems with the OS 'just shutting down' for pretty much no reason. Yeah its completely awesome, it just works!!!
They do that.
http://developer.apple.com/products/mac/program/
Flawless with clean install. Make sure you zap the pram. Network seems strangely slow at times but that could be my LAN and not the OS. I don't understand what people are complaining about.
There are three types of people reading this post.
1. Windows Fanboys
2. Mac users
3. Users of both
If you are the first, you have no business commenting. This post is about how you would change Snow Leopard. If you don't owns Mac, you haven't seriously tested the OS, so stop trying to defend your inferior OS.
Unfourtunetly, I an forced to use windows for work. Otherwise, I would be 100% OS X. I am very pleased with snow leopard and the only issues I have had are with older software that
has not been updated to run on 10.6. I can not complain as any good developer should/ will update their software with any new OS update.
Apple improves an already great OS and charges $30. Microsoft updates/rebrands a failed OS and charges hundreds of dollars. Honestly, how can you even compare
the two?
Two things that I think deserve to be changed / at least should gain the ability to be disabled.
First one is the behavior of the remote control. When I use it to watch a movie with VLC, it will invariably start itunes whenever I hit the play/pause button - thereafter both the music and the movie will play together - and I will need to get up, push thast stop button on itunes and push the play button in VLC - all of it with the mouse when I have a perfectly good remote in my hand. There should be a setting in itunes that disables this functionality.
Second is the white frame around pictures in finder when showing things in icon preview mode. I did not have that with tger, and the only effect is that now previews are smaller - not better, Apple.