The wait is over, Apple’s OSX 10.6, code name: Snow Leopard has arrived and is available for your immediate install.
However, be warned, you’ll definitely want to make sure that the applications you use every day are compatible with the new OSX.
In this post, you’ll find a few of my own observations about Snow Leopard, as well as a handful of useful links to other reviews and compatibility guides.
Here we go:
The first thing I noticed about Snow Leopard is how absolutely easy the upgrade install is. 3 or 4 clicks of the mouse were all that was required. 44 minutes later, I was upgraded to OSX 10.6 and 18GB of free space had magically reappeared on my Hard Drive. Wow, that’s economical.
The reason for this extra disk space is that with OSX 10.6, all support for the previous Power PC Macintosh computers has been removed. We’re now operating in an Intel-only 64-bit world (when your applications will support it.)
The result is a very snappy and solid-feeling interaction with menus, windows, and apps. For the most part, it’s still Leopard. It’s not the sort of upgrade that 10.3 was to 10.4, or 104. to 10.5. Most of the changes are under the hood, and you won’t interact with them directly, but you can still feel their presence. Contextual menus and other OS notifications have gotten a redesign, as the blocky white menus we’ve all known since 10.1 are retired.
One thing I noticed immediately after taking the above screenshot is that OSX 10.6 now gives your screenshot files a useful name. It used to be Picture1.png, picture2.png, etc. That wasn’t very useful if, as I do, you take a lot of screenshots.
Now the format is:
aaahhhh. Much better!
Another upgrade that I noticed right away is a very significant one: Quicktime. The venerable Quicktime app has been reworked in a major way, to the point that Apple has decided to finally do away with a decade-old application icon! Here’s what Quicktime looks like now.
Also, the distinction between Quicktime Player and Quicktime Pro is reduced a bit. My Quicktime Pro application has been moved to my Utilities folder by the Snow Leopard Installer, and still houses some functions that the new Quicktime Player does not provide; namely, the ability to export your movie files to other formats.
With Quicktime Player, you can’t export to other formats, but you CAN save to a few other web-friendly file types. This new ability covers most users, and is a welcome one, because until now, you would have to use iMovie for this function.
Additionally, Quicktime Player now makes it easy for you to quickly edit your movie files, without having to fly them into iMovie first. Editing in Quicktime used to be a nightmare, but now it’s easy as pie. Let’s say that you’ve shot a quick movie on your handy iPhone or Flip camera. You want to import it, make a quick change, trim out the rubbish at the beginning, and get it up to YouTube in a hurry. No Problem.
Check it out:
Once you open your movie, you’ll notice that the old borders are gone, and the play controls have been replaced by a very simple and intuitive tool bar.
Pressing the EDIT button gives you the option to send the movie to iTunes, your MobileMe Gallery, or your YouTube account as is, or you can select TRIM to edit your content down. When you click on Trim, you see this:
Quicktime Player borrows the excellent trim function from iMovie. What an improvement!
One Major improvement in Quicktime is the ability to take a screen recording (often called a screencast). I’ve been doing this for years, but have always needed expensive software to do it. Apple gives it to you for free in this new version, and it’s super-simple to use:
Next:
And then:
I don’t think it could get any easier.
Enough about Quicktime:
iCal also sees some major improvements in Snow Leopard. First, the extremely annoying process of having to click on a new event multiple times to be able to edit it has been squashed. Also, you can create a new event and type away without having to worry about the edit function suddenly turning itself off, requiring you to pound on the mouse button to access the edit feature again. Gahhh. How un-Mac-like was that???
Also, for those who do not have or want a MobileMe account, iCal now allows you to sync AND control calendars on services Google and Yahoo, as well as offering decent Exchange 2007 support. You could always subscribe to your Google Calendars before, but the connection was always one-way. Now you can create and edit them from iCal, and push them up to Google’s servers where others can access them. Very cool.
From here, I’m going to link to a few other articles that I found helpful, rather than take the time to rehash what these other authors have already covered.
See also, the Snow Leopard Compatibility Wiki HERE to make sure you can upgrade.
Here’s a MacWord article covering some of the more subtle changes in Snow Leopard.
CNET calls Snow Leopard Apple’s “most compatible release” yet (take that Microsoft!)
Finally, HERE is Jason Snell’s very comprehensive Snow Leopard review, which includes things to think about before you upgrade. Don’t miss.
