0 New Features
Back before macOS was named after places, it was named after cats. Snow Leopard was the 7th release of Mac OS X, the $29 successor to OS X Leopard (remember when we paid for operating system updates?), released by Apple in 2009.
Recently, while going through an old documents folder, I stumbled across this odd review I wrote about Mac OS X Snow Leopard. While my friends were out on dates & playing sports, I was sitting at home, writing never published, never shared reviews. Please keep in mind that this is written by a much younger, far nerdier (that's debatable) version of myself, so please read this strange review with an abundance of grace & compassion in your heart.
Note: The review below is presented in its unedited form - stuffed to the gills with nonsense, typos, and grammatical errors.
Background on Snow Leopard
Snow Leopard was the seventh major version of Mac OS X, first unveiled on June 08, 2009, at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, and released publicly on August 28, 2009.
Infamously, Snow Leopard was introduced with the promise of "0 New Features" in an era when Apple proudly flaunted how many hundreds of new features were baked into their latest releases of Mac OS X. And while not entirely devoid of new features, it lacked the noticeable splash of visible adds-on, instead focused on making deep refinements under-the-hood of the OS. Some of these changes included rebuilding the Mac OS X kernel to run in 64-bit, updating the Finder to Cocoa, Grand Central Dispatch for improving the efficiency of Macs with multiple cores, and support for Microsoft Exchange.
Apple would return to this naming convention, first with Mountain Lion in 2012 (the successor to Lion released in 2011), and again with macOS High Sierra in 2017 (successor to Sierra released in 2016) to denote operating systems focused on performance and technical updates rather than showcasing a bevy of new apps and visual flourishes.
“Review”
Gotta love that iPhone 3GS 3MP camera.
AUGUST 28, 2009
Got my copy of 10.6 Snow Leopard early this morning. Already got it installed and enjoying it very much. I may post more impressions, but there's pizza on the way, and for a guy who is rarely swayed from Apple talk, pizza wins again.
AUGUST 29, 2009
It's tricky to review something like Apple's new Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) Operating System largely because, and let this kinda be the thesis of the entry; Snow Leopard remains, IMO, a paid and glorified, though not an underserved title, service pack.
This means that this review of Snow Leopard has to be viewed it in terms of refinements and not pining over the lack of new features (presumably Apple will come out with 10.7 in due time to make us fawn over feature lists once again).
Snow Leopard lives up to it's tagline, with Apple being very explicit in defining that Snow Leopard is by no means a new version of Mac OS X so much as it is a refined version of Leopard (even it's 'Snow Leopard' name speaks to this point; clever marketing!).
From using the operating system throughout most of Friday, I've enjoyed Snow Leopard because it keep the familiarity of Leopard while time-to-time making a subtle feature known to me; something that I wasn't exactly missing, but wouldn't mind having now that I know about it. For example, AirPort now displays the signal strength of nearby wireless signals. Essential? No. Helpful? Kinda. Another example: when browsing the Finder in column view, the folder icon changed to an open orientation as you open the files nested within. Essential? Again no. Helpful? Kinda. It's these little polishes that users will find peppered throughout 10.6 that will make them appreciate Snow Leopard as the refinement that it is.
Speedups for commonly used applications also come appreciated. Mail feels exceptionally zippy, and Safari brings some appreciated speedups as well. Apple says the Finder is faster, but I haven't seen this claim in my limited meddling with 10.6. The shutdown time is phenomenally fast (no noticeable startup change), and the sleep/wake time has also been improved. Again, refinements in speed all round, not that I was complaining before, but nice to see.
I'm super excited to test out the PDF text recognition they developed into Snow Leopard. Psychological papers love their 2-column articles, and 10.6 apparently uses 'algorithms' to select text in a single column rather than straight across columns as it had done in prefix-less Leopard.
Just tested it! Totally works! Awesome!
There's a lot that can be written about the core technologies like Grand Central Dispatch, OpenCL, and 64-bit processing, but to be honest, this isn't my area of expertise. While I haven't noticed anything substantial, Apple says the technology is super great. They built the iPhone, I'm pretty much seduced to believe them now.
My above statement also applies to Apple's inclusion of Exchange support in Snow Leopard. It's not something I'll use in the near future, but Apple says it's good, so I believe them. Nice to see core business networking tech being incorporated into Mac OS X, since tech like Exchange will certainly help adoption rates of the Apple platform in corporate sectors.
I do have a quip with Quicktime X though. Why does it exist? It's interface seems experimental at best, employing a 'HUB-esque' control menu and black transparent toolbar exclusive to Quicktime alone. Like iTunes, iMovie, Mail, and iPhoto before it, Quicktime X continues the legacy of weirdly inconsistent GUI. Does the direction Quicktime X takes hint at 10.7? Perhaps. But until then, maybe Apple should remove the decade old Aqua scrollbar and keep it's GUI at tad more consistent. It's only luck, good use of grayscale, and my infatuation with this silly Cupertino-based company that keeps me as docile as I am about this GUI shenanigans.
So what 10.6 claims to do, it does very well. It transitions Mac OS X to the new decade whilst incorporating powerful new 'under-the-hood' tech and making subtle refinements here and there where it can. I'm excited that I have it, but only as excited as a service pack will allow. It's great, but $35.00 great. It's a fantastic step-up from Tiger (10.4 can upgrade to 10.6 without having to buy Leopard) and a respectable polish on an already phenomenal Leopard. Well worth the money. You'll enjoy the speed-ups, the little refinements, the core technology, and the awesome new wallpapers.
It has taken some adjusting for me to accept that the 'next-big-thing' that 10.6 brings lies mostly under the hood of my Macbook, and that my pavlovian need for new features will need to lie quelled until 10.7. Overall, well worth the upgrade, You'll enjoy it very much.
