Snow Leopard Full Review
Posted by Stuart on August 27, 2009 at 23:59 pm
So, by now you should know that Apple released Snow Leopard today. Here’s my review.
Enhancements
First off, I’ll start with enhancements. Like it says on Apple’s website, “Refined, not Reinvented”. Snow Leopard’s major purpose was to boost speed, performance, and set a some-what standard structure for future OS’s. Snow Leopard really pulled through with this well, in my opinion. Finder, especially, has had an amazing upgrade. Finder is now faster, smoother, and nicer to use. Quick Look also helped make finder much much better. Quick Look got a big speed increase for pretty much everything, and it’s quite noticeable. Time Machine backups where also noticeably faster, and when going into Time Machine for restoring a file, it seemed a lot more smooth and responsive. Wake & Shut Down times varied; I have to say that my MacBook didn’t always shut down faster than 10.5 Leopard. But the wake up times where faster, which I like. Apple also mentioned how Mail doesn’t use as much processor or RAM when you don’t have it active. Let me tell you that this is very nice, and it also makes Mail more responsive & fast.
Quicktime X
With Snow Leopard, Apple introduced the next version of Quicktime, Quicktime X. In my point of view, Apple pretty much re-designed Quicktime with this release. Everything has a new fell and look; even when you view media files in a web browser. A couple cool features that Apple added where the ability to send it to iTunes, YouTube, or MobileMe. You can also now “trim” your video, just like on the iPhone 3GS. I also like how when you move your mouse off of the video, the top bar will disappear. It makes the video nicer to view.
New Technologies
Snow Leopard has really come through with some great new technologies, including the new, Grand Central Dispatch. Grand Central really lets you take full potential of those quad- or eight-core processors in the Mac Pro by spreading the tasks to all the processors. This means you could have a lower speed 8 core but still run the final speed of a higher dual-core. Mac OS X 10.6 also is fully 64-bit. A 64-bit OS means applications can handle more Memory (RAM) at a time; 16GB. This also means the system is even more secure against attacks. OpenCL also unleashes the power of the graphics processor. It makes the system capable of using bits of the GPU to make it run better; and believe me, it’s nice. The new technologies in Snow Leopard also have set a building block for future Mac Operating Systems.
Universal Access & Exchange Suppport
Universal Access in Snow Leopard has made Accessibility even better. A couple new refinements/features include faster keyboard navigation, more braile support, custom labels, the rotator, and more. Universal Access now has a brand new VoiceOver quick-start tutorial that will help you get set up with everything. Apple has also put Microsoft Exchange support into their applications. You can now use Mail, Address Book, and iCal with Exchange.
Overall
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard has really come through to be a great upgrade. Apple has really worked on the speed side of things, along with some great fixes & additions. If you’re thinking of getting it, I would go ahead and do it. Snow Leopard makes the “Mac Experience”, and your life, a lot better, smoother, and responsive.
Snow Leopard is $29 (single license) or $59 (family pack). The Mac Box Set, which comes with Snow Leopard, iWork, and iLife, is $169 (single) or $229 (family).
I also posted some screenshots HERE & some short video clips HERE.
Tags:Apple, osx, Snow Leopard
