Mac OS X Snow Leopard First Look
Our initial impressions of Apple's new baby
At my age, I look forward to upgrading my OS about as much I look forward to a trip to the dentist. Why break something that works? Why risk wasting hours hunting down drivers that potentially don't exist, with the possibility that well-loved hardware becomes obsolete?
Last time I upgraded the OS, I had to put my scanner on Craigslist. At least Microsoft has got one thing right: a compelling upgrade comes up as often as a trip to the dentist should - about every eight years.
Snow Leopard: the World's most advanced OS, fine tuned. Apparently
Apple's 10.6 release - aka Snow Leopard - faces even more than the usual challenge. It's an important engineering release that isn't being sold on features - because there aren't really that many new ones. It also leaves behind Macs as recent as three years old - it will only install on Intel hardware. And Leopard now works so well, many will wonder why they should risk things at all?
Consequently, Snow Leopard has got a price to match: just $29/£25 for a single-user upgrade from 10.5.
I've been using a release candidate cut of the OS, and found plenty to like. Whizz-bang features are thin on the ground, but it's undoubtedly faster and more responsive than its predecessor. And despite radical under-the-hood changes, such as the move to 64-bit and a new scheduler, it provides excellent compatibility.
Consider what follows an illustrated scrapbook of my experience on two Macs. I can't promise you that this is the final version, although some web forum posters have suggested that it is. Nor is it a benchmark, a comprehensive run through of all the features - I didn't test Cisco VPNs, for example - or a technical analysis. All these goodies will come in due course.
COMMENTS
Clever Snow Leopard
Decided to take the plunge and put a new fat and fast hard drive in my Macbook and put Snow Leopard on there. And it works a treat! The best bit so far was on pairing my Nokia n79. Snow Leopard recognised it for a smart phone from Nokia, and offered to set it up as a modem, a quick google for the APN details (on the handset) and it was set up and working. Which is a good job as my internet has decided tonight is the night to take a bath!
back on topic somewhat,,,
Shove the DVD in, couple of clicks... make a cup of tea, wander back 30 mins later just as it's finishing up.
All my stuff works, the computer is slightly faster.. The new gamma looks a bit funny. Looking forward to seeing all this OpenCL/GCD nonsense in future- meantime, I have a slightly quicker and prettier computer.
All very painless. Can't say fairer than that.
@AC Bad Teeth - Health Care
A link for you
Two people in the US die because of lack of dental treatment (which btw, isn't covered by Medicare or Medicaid)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/business/11decay.html?_r=1
Around 50 million Americans cannot afford insurance so have no access to medical care, around 50 million Americans are under insured so if they do need treatment, it will cost them an arm and a leg. Still, all that competition must be really good, seeing as how over 1,500 people queue up at ONE station giving free medical/dental care in LA, must be nice to live in a country which has worse medical care than a 3rd world county, or even Cuba.
Much love...
I do love the Windows lads...
Apple Fanboi: Apple have done this, designed that, tried to compromise this, Windows has this, that and a bit of that and some good bits of this or that.
Linux fanboi: No free software? Oh well, you can try this and I will be good when this O/S get that and we get something that will do this and that and hopefully more compatability with XYZ.
Windows Fanboi: LINUX IS CRAP! APPLE ARE CRAP! MACS ARE CRAP! OOOOH £479 FOR AN O/S UPGRADE? WHERE'S MY WALLET?
"Mail is now 77.5MB."
You know what, I'm still on 10.4 and Mail is only 15MB!
