Apple 10.6 (Snow Leopard) - Full Review by PC Magazine

[sheep]

the brainiest, brawniest, and most beautiful consumer-oriented OS available anywhere

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2352066,00.asp

And that is from PC Magazine

 

[Corny]

Wait ..

OS X hasn't yet been a major target for malware, but Snow Leopard is ready for the worst. A new feature pops up a warning when a file contains a known malware signature and urges you to move it to the trash. Apple maintains its own database of malware signatures—it doesn't use third-party resources—and OS X will update its list of signatures through the same updating mechanism it uses for everything else.

what happened to "we don't need no stinking virus scanner ever, 'cause we are invicible"? No it's official - you got one

To me the most interesting feature seems to be the GDC load-sharing among the CPU cores. Other than that the review ravishes a lot about new features of application that may ship with the OS but are not part of the OS.
Oh and graphical features that were available for other OS' for years

 

[navinator]

Wait ..


what happened to "we don't need no stinking virus scanner ever, 'cause we are invicible"? No it's official - you got one

It's not an actual virus scanner, the OS is programmed to recognise two - yes, just two - different trojans; no viruses, malware or other nasties.

 

[trawler69]

Seems reasonable to me to include a scanner even if there are no current major threats. It would be foolish not to as threats will undoubtedly be developed, it is all part of the future proofing. I am looking forward to installing it.

 

[Corny]

^ honestly I think it IS a good move. But I just remember the other discussion or many of them where whenever someone suggested using something just remotely similar to a virus scanner (or even the clam av tool that apple is now using) the macheads would scream blasphemy and scold you like you suggested them to use a terminal

 

[navinator]

Honestly the hardcore Apple "fanboys" really can get to me; I proudly own two Macs, numerous iPods, iPhones, etc, basically I like Apple, but it's foolish, especially in the "Web 2.0" age, to think that something is going to be immune to threats. The main thing that drew me towards Macs and OS X is the security, but even then I'm just biding my time really - one day, and I think it's going to be one day soon, there are going to be some very nasty viruses for this system.

My copy of Snow Leopard should be arriving any time now, pre-ordered it Tuesday evening. To be honest I'm not totally excited, I'm perfectly happy with Leopard, but in a few months when the third party apps start taking advantage of Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL then it may start getting a bit interesting.

Gonna be picking up Windows 7 too, a Mac may be my primary machine but Microsoft has really put together a very solid effort that they should be proud of, I can see myself using it quite a bit.

 

[braex27]

Australia has had Snow Leopard released. It's good, not great - no makeovers to the OS but it did free up significant HD space for me...

 

[just_mills]

Neat name, too..

 

[hotatlboi]

^ honestly I think it IS a good move. But I just remember the other discussion or many of them where whenever someone suggested using something just remotely similar to a virus scanner (or even the clam av tool that apple is now using) the macheads would scream blasphemy and scold you like you suggested them to use a terminal

LOL, I use a terminal all the time on my mac.

But I think it was just more saying that it's not really needed. Since it only has 2 signatures, I would still say that's the case. I wouldn't have wasted my time installing a third party app for this, since I don't see much benefit to it. I won't complain if it's built into the OS though. Can't hurt.

 

[gdude30]

The only thing i don't like this is for some reason apple is claiming that you can't upgrade to Snow Leopard from Tiger. You have to buy the $160 mac box to do so.

That seems kind of odd. But fortunately for me I already have leopard (love it) and my Sir upgraded to Leopard a while back so he's set.

I guess I am not computer savy or mac savy enough to really know what Snow Leopard really does. For the most part it sounds like the major improvement is speed. Although that sounds minor speed and power can make a crucial difference. A good example would be the iPhone 3GS. That think is amazing and is so much faster than my iPhone 3G.

Quicktime X sounds really good though and the ability to do screen recording excites me. I also like the new thing about how in Safari instead of that damned "umbrella of death" doesn't pop up and instead it just stops whatever the page was trying to load.

I guess all in all for 30 bucks for a faster and more powerful enhancement it is a good thing. And I have a feeling this is just the welcoming carpet for a more powerful OSX sometime in the future.

I will probably get the $50 dollar family pack though. There was a list a saw a while back of apps and software that is not compatible with Snow Leopard at the moment.

I think an older version of VMware, The Missing Sync, and something else.

Oh here is the list of software that is not compatible right now.

http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=5038

 

[indieguy]

I did a clean install on my Late 2008 Unibody MacBook and I'm loving it. I definitely notice the speed boost of running apps in 64 bit mode.... like when I click on Safari, iChat, Mail, or Address Book/etc they open fully within a second... I kid you not. It's like it's on steroids... Also, Dock Expose works really well and is probably what Expose should had been in back when it was introduced in Jaguar 10.3. I like Quicktime X, but my only gripe is that it doesn't have preferences anymore so I have to manually go in and clear out my recent items list..... because of all that *ahem* non porn stuff I like to look at .

Also, I had an older version of Aperture for photography projects and you have to update to Aperture 2 for Snow Leopard because it won't run the original version. Other than that I'm really pleased with the update.

 

[gdude30]

I did a clean install on my Late 2008 Unibody MacBook and I'm loving it. I definitely notice the speed boost of running apps in 64 bit mode.... like when I click on Safari, iChat, Mail, or Address Book/etc they open fully within a second... I kid you not. It's like it's on steroids... Also, Dock Expose works really well and is probably what Expose should had been in back when it was introduced in Jaguar 10.3. I like Quicktime X, but my only gripe is that it doesn't have preferences anymore so I have to manually go in and clear out my recent items list..... because of all that *ahem* non porn stuff I like to look at .

Also, I had an older version of Aperture for photography projects and you have to update to Aperture 2 for Snow Leopard because it won't run the original version. Other than that I'm really pleased with the update.

Wow that sounds great. It takes so damn freaking log for pages, firefox, and other mac apps to load. But than again I have so much shit on my computer I need to clean it out.

Does the computer start up faster too. I also heard of a new feature called "wake on demand." That sounds kinda interesting.

 

[indieguy]

Wow that sounds great. It takes so damn freaking log for pages, firefox, and other mac apps to load. But than again I have so much shit on my computer I need to clean it out.

Does the computer start up faster too. I also heard of a new feature called "wake on demand." That sounds kinda interesting.

Honestly I haven't really paid attention to the start up times so I couldn't say for sure, but probably so. I haven't heard of the future your referring to, but I do remember reading somewhere that on certain background process like network activities/etc under Snow Leopard they are able to run in sleep mode where as you would have to keep your computer from going to sleep on older versions to keep them running.

 

[gdude30]

Honestly I haven't really paid attention to the start up times so I couldn't say for sure, but probably so. I haven't heard of the future your referring to, but I do remember reading somewhere that on certain background process like network activities/etc under Snow Leopard they are able to run in sleep mode where as you would have to keep your computer from going to sleep on older versions to keep them running.

Well I'm not saying there is "OFFICIALLY" going to be a new OSX soon but there is a good chance that there will be one that probably won't be a "Leopard" and a new animal theme thing.

It does sound really cool I haven't even really ever used sleep mode either. Don't know how apple does it. This is nothing but a little speed and power improvement yet it makes such a huge difference and maybe not essential but it helps. I will have to go get a copy next week.

 

[navinator]

No, you don't. The $29 U.S. "updater" is a full installer, but of course it requires an Intel Mac.

The $169 Snow Leopard boxed set includes the latest iWork and iLife, which, apparently, Apple crippled so that they won't run under Leopard. So if you buy them separately without having Snow Leopard, Apple screws you.

The versions of iLife and iWork included are the 2009 editions that have been available since the end of last year (iLife) and January this year (iWork). Apple's just trying to market the box set towards users coming from Tiger because they think that since they're using an 'outdated' OS that they won't have the latest version of their application suites (or, to be more precise, that's the impression I've gotten ). I have both iLife '09 and iWork '09 on my Leopard machine (iLife '09 itself comes preinstalled on all new Macs), so they definitely work under Leopard, so it wouldn't make sense for Apple to 'cripple' it just for the boxset. If you go on Apple's OS X page and the Snow Leopard page on the Apple Online Store, all they ever say in regards to Tiger users is "if you are running OS X Tiger then simply buy the Mac box set"; that seems to be causing the most confusion because it seems as if Apple is implying that you MUST buy the boxset or it won't let you install if you're coming from Tiger. But, as you said - and I know many people myself that have done it - buying the $29 disc will let you install it regardless of whether you have Tiger or Leopard. In retrospect, I don't know if the phrasing on Apple's site is aimed at 'scamming' Tiger users, thus getting higher profit, or if they simply haven't noticed the confusion it can cause...sometimes Apple really doesn't make sense to me, as much as I love them

 

[navinator]

Sorry for the double post, finally got my copy in the mail today (took nearly a week to get from Apple's depot to me...), so I thought I'd give a bit of a review.

I got the Family Pack because I own two Macs; I'm an honest person so I wouldn't buy the single-licence even if it is "just one" extra computer it's getting installed on. Did the upgrade on my MacBook Pro, because it'd take a long time to get all my data back from the backup, I just couldn't be bothered. Did a clean install on my iMac, though.

Amazingly, there's actually several things that you will only see if you do the clean install and not the upgrade:

- The default size of all icons in Finder are now 64 x 64. If you do the upgrade then they'll stay at whatever size they were in Leopard (so for my MBP they were still the old default of 48 x 48 ).
- The Applications folder is now also in the Dock as a stack, along with Documents and Downloads like in Leopard. If you merely upgrade then it is not added to the Dock and you must do it yourself.

For the most part, it looks almost identical to Leopard. The first major difference is that Apple has changed the default color gamma from 1.8 to 2.2, so everything looks a lot more vibrant. Secondly, the right-click Dock menus have been changed to white-on-grey as opposed to black-on-white like in Leopard. The 'Empty Trash' button is also now black as opposed to grey. The date can now be shown in the menu bar; that took Apple a long time to add for some reason. Animations are a lot smoother, if you draw a selection box on the desktop and then release the mouse, the box will quickly fade away as opposed to immediately disappearing like it used to. Applications can now be minimised into their app icons to save space on the Dock. Exposé has been majorly redesigned, and I'm still trying to get used to the massive blue highlights that now surround the window you select. Very small changes in the end, but it makes the experience a lot more refined.

Now, speed. Both of my systems, regardless of whether it was an upgrade or clean install, are very fast now. All the icons in my menu bar load the moment I log in and everything is up and running right away - applications open for the first time after just one 'bounce' on the dock, and I'm yet to have the system choke on me at all (it used to do it quite a bit in iTunes under Leopard). The only thing I noticed is that it takes slightly longer (ie: a few seconds) to boot up, but that honestly doesn't bother me. If it was maybe 30 seconds or more then I may complain, but the difference is negligible here.

Quicktime X has been very interesting to use, mainly because it's actually become so simply - though I really do love the new interface. I ended up getting it to install Quicktime 7 just in case I ever need its features. I also installed Rosetta because I'm sure a couple of my apps are PPC-only. I'm not too sure what to think of the system counting in Base 10 now, either, because some of my apps (like iStat Pro) still count in Base 2; they clearly need to be updated. It's also going to cause some conflicts in regards to using it with Windows or swapping external drives between different systems, but whatever, at least it'll stop the whiners that think their drives are the wrong size The install process is also very quick; it took just 20 minutes to do the clean install on my iMac, from putting the disc in to when my account logged in for the first time.

The biggest thing I noticed is the dramatic improvements in battery life that I am now experiencing. I have the very last 15" MacBook Pro to have the removable battery (it's the early 2009 model), which Apple advertised as getting 5 hours at the most off a single charge. With Leopard, being on the internet while using the battery I would be lucky to get 2 and a half hours out of it. With Snow Leopard, I've been using it for about an hour and a half and still have 70% remaining, with it telling me I still have about two and a half hours remaining. Gaining a full hour and a half from an OS upgrade is, in my opinion, amazing.

Overall, I am very impressed and recommend it for anyone running Leopard. The upgrade process is painless, and you're left with a system that is much more refined and bug-free. Hopefully Apple continues this with 10.6.1 and beyond.

 

[trawler69]

Hey Navinator, thanks for a great review. I am looking forward to upgrading my Macs.

 

[Yves]

Great post, navinator. Thanks!

A cool new feature is the multi-language spell checker. OS X now offers simultaneous spell checking of a document (Text Edit, etc) with words in English, French, Spanish, German and 6 other languages:





This cool 4 min video is a good summary of some of Snow Leopard hidden features:




Apple has posted an official list of incompatible software (updated) here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3258

 

[gay boy 123]

Windows gets most of its viruses from internet explorer and notepad.

 

[DeMazy]

Still unconvinced.

Both Microsoft and Apple have terrible approaches to software. Apple computers are simply too expensive compared to every other competitor.

Ipods are overpriced, slow, and every other week i hear from friends who lost their music collections, or lost the rights to even listen to their own music, on their own computer. Itunes itself is the worst music manager ive seen, a major hog on resources.

Iphones are also overpriced, and limited in their capabilities at Apple's discretion. Hence, many owners choose to jailbreak their phones to be able to take full advantage of them, rather than be told by the company what they can and can't do with their own property.

On the bright side, i heard the upcoming release of Ubuntu boots up in 10 seconds.