Mac OS X : Snow Leopard

August 27, 2009 Mac OS X : Snow Leopard

Apple will be officially releasing their new OS, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, tomorrow in stores and online but should you my fellow Mac using freshmen spend your hard earned $30 on it? Well, it depends? I was able today to take the new Snow Leopard operating system for a little test drive and I must say I was pretty impressed.

At first glance, I had to scratch my head and ask, what the heck is so different about Snow Leopard in comparison with Apple’s current OS, Leopard, and as I learned on the surface at least, not a whole lot has changed. What is vastly diffrent is how Snow Leopard has been redesigned under the hood and the way it handles even the most mundane and rudimentary tasks you will encounter on your Mac. First off, the entire OS is now 64-bit, meaning a multitude of apps can now address large amounts of RAM and other tasks go much faster. Finder has been redesigned & re-written from the ground up in Cocoa, of which Mac users have been lusting for since 10.0. A new version of Quicktime comes with Snow Leopard and will display a UI facelift flaunting a new and stylish blacked out front end and now Address Book, iCal & Mail all fully support Microsoft Exchange for all you freshmen with real jobs. But the question still remains, Should you cop it?

Snow Leopard introduces some new looks to the user interface, tweeks to Expose, Stacks and the dock, but where SL really butters it’s bread is in its speed. Apple vigorously went after speed & performance as key focuses with this OS, and that alone is worth $30. The Finder, which can be downright useless and frustrating in Leopard, has been awesomely improved and will work like a charm when trying to find music, PDF’s and when opening large files.

In fact, to this point, the only thing about Snow Leopard that bothered me was the introduction of Apple’s new Quicktime software, Quicktime X. As a current and very happy Quicktime 7 Pro user, I was very surprised and a bit upset to see what could be argued as being the biggest change from Leopard to Snow Leopard. Quicktime X adds the ability to record your screen or “screencast”, recording whatever it is you have on your active desktop and the ability to “Trim” your videos with a editing tool very closely resembling that of the video app on Apple’s iPhone 3GS. For anyone not using Quicktime Pro, Quicktime X will bring you some very cool and easy to use additions, but for any users of Quicktime Pro, more specifically Quicktime 7 Pro, these additions will only be things you have already been accustomed to using only repackaged with a shiny new ribbon and recycled back to you. The things omitted from Quicktime X, such as a large list of export options, choosing a default full screen setting or sharing a different computer monitor or screen for movie & video sharing, are bound to make you rip out your hair and shoot cats with co2 powered paintball guns… Maybe thats just me. Apple has said the Quicktime Pro users will have the ability to reinstall Quicktime Pro on any Mac that previously ran the software which would have been replaced by a Snow Leopard install. No confirmation yet on if this can be done for sure.

The bottom line is this, Snow Leopard is an amazing breakthrough in the way that it truly taps into and utilizes Mac hardware to its fullest extent, allowing for more speed, stability and protection aside from a new cooler looking UI in various apps across the software. It will undoubtedly anger some people with its new Quicktime offering, but for any current Leopard user, the $30 upgrade to Snow Leopard should be a no brainer. For any Quicktime Pro power user, you may want to wait a few weeks for Snow Leopard’s first update, which will very likely fix some of the early problems and gripes that have been throw at Quicktime X. For any Mac users running Tiger and contemplating the $129 update price I only have one thing to say, “Why the hell are you still using Tiger you doughnut”! Check the flicks at the bottom of this page to see Snow Leopard in action.