Top Ten Reasons to Upgrade to Snow Leopard TODAY

August 29, 2009 by Dr. Macenstein
Filed under: OS X, Opinion, Updates 

Snow Leopard Update

I’ve seen more than a few interweb critics panning Apple’s Snow Leopard as merely a service pack update, but since installing Snow Leopard yesterday morning, I’ve decided they couldn’t be more wrong. Sure, the only REAL change is the 64-bit stuff that likely won’t matter until sometime around when OS 10.7 comes out, but I’ve noticed more than a few “must-have” goodies that each on their own would more than justify the upgrade cost. Here’s 10 reasons why you should upgrade to Snow Leopard today.

1: State of the Art: The version number (10.6) is now 20% higher than version 10.5.
2: Performance: The “Jelly” visualizer in iTunes feels like it might run slightly faster
3: Another word for “awesome”. Snow Leopard includes an all-new thesaurus – the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus second edition. That’s right.
4: Time-saver: CyberDuck no longer launches, thus saving you tons of wasted ftp-ing time.
5: All-new look: There are now a couple new Snow Leopard-themed wallpapers
6: Rack ‘em and Stack ‘em: “Stacks”, the Dock view nobody ever used, has been updated (although you still won’t use it)
7: Faster shut down: Because…. um who has an extra 8 seconds to spare in this crazy world of ours?!
8: Big Time Graphics: Finder icons can now be as large as 512 by 512 pixels, four times as big as Leopard was able to dish out!
9: Automatic time zone setup: Apple says “If you’re traveling around the world, the last thing you want to worry about is whether your computer is set to the correct time zone. ” I think they meant to say was “the last thing you’ve probably ever worried about is whether your computer is set to the correct time zone”. But hey, it’s there.
10: It only costs $30: And if you have more than 1 Mac, you can rationalize the cost by bringing it down to $15, $10 (or even lower!) with multiple installs. (Oh, don’t act so high and mighty – we all know you never buy the family pack).

Every time you submit our site, an Angel gets its wings.
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • MySpace
  • NewsVine
  • Slashdot
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • Fark
  • Spurl

Tags:

Comments

33 Comments on Top Ten Reasons to Upgrade to Snow Leopard TODAY

  1. Alex on Sat, 29th Aug 2009 10:42 pm

    2. $40.00 Bucks In Canada

  2. darrell on Sat, 29th Aug 2009 10:50 pm

    3. i love how the critics call SL a service pack when windows 7 is basically a $200 service pack to vista.

  3. Glenn Sidney on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 12:41 am

    4. I just finished getting Snow Leopard up and running on my machine, and holy cow am I loving it. I’m not sure exactly how, but I can boot twice as fast as I used to. On my 3+ year old laptop (Intel Core Duo), with apps open, I rebooted back to a useable desktop in under 40 seconds.

    Everything else is noticeably snappier, too. Definitely the best 30 bucks I’ve spent in a long time.

  4. gaietano on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 1:34 am

    5. Oh Lord - found out that SL with 64-Bit Kernel does not support tethering. that’s bad :-(

  5. Kenny on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 5:34 am

    6. Can’t wait to get my copy! Just hope most of my must-have apps are compatible with SL.

  6. KenseiDave on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 6:01 am

    7. hehe Doc you so funny! ;p

  7. Mathew on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 6:14 am

    8. All kidding aside, the ability to display the date in the menu bar is fantastic! It’s pretty much worth the $30.

  8. Pjotr NL on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 6:16 am

    9. 10.6 Snow Leopard????

    I didn’t know there was an update to Leopard.
    What does it do and how does it work.
    and more importantly why didn’t Steve tell me last week when I had dinner with him to discuss my plans for a 30″ Tablet

  9. Shaun_R on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 6:28 am

    10. Lol haha got a chuckle outta this.

    In seriousness, I have found on my Rev 7,1 iMac that Snow leopard is about 2-3 times faster in almost everything. I can bootup in 20sec or less (45sec in Leopard), and all apps (besides iTunes & Firefox) that I use take 1 or 2 bounces in the Dock, as opposed to the 5-6 it used to take. Firefox now takes 4 bounces (8-10), iTunes 5 bounces (as opposed to a whopping FORTY bounces on Leopard!!!!)

    Apps also feel snappier, more responsive and provide a better experience. Hell, even bloody iTunes which is as slow as a snail is now responsive & usable on SL!! On the SAME HARDWARE too! :O

    Best $39 AUD I’ve EVER spent, IMO. It makes my 2007 mid-range iMac feel like a top-of-the-line current gen iMac!! :D that you gotta be happy with!! :D

    Shaun_R

  10. Lawrence Dudley on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 7:46 am

    11. Pretty funny, but it motivated me to do a clean install and wipe everything and that on it’s own has made my mac much, much happier :-)

  11. Mike Major on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 7:47 am

    12. It’s worth it to me because I went from 5 GB free to 20 GB free!!! WOOHOOOOO!!!!

  12. tech4eleven on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 10:58 am

    13. not sure how #4 is good. I love cyberduck and am sad that a stable version won’t work.

  13. Michel Elings on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 1:05 pm

    14. Cyberduck does work see: http://update.cyberduck.ch/Cyberduck-3.3b1.zip

  14. Mark Hughes on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 1:06 pm

    15. The Cyberduck 3.3b1 beta works on SL, and it’s been stable so far.

  15. Dr. Macenstein on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 2:18 pm

    16. hmm… i can’t even unarchive the Cyberduck build in SL.
    :(
    - The Doc

  16. Marcus Michaels on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 2:50 pm

    17. Bah! Cyberduck! Anyone know of any other (decent) FTPs that’ll work with SL?

  17. Bjarkovic on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 5:21 pm

    18. Actually the version number increase is only 0.0095% Going from ten point five to ten point six. Do the math. :-)

  18. Ed Araquel on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 7:08 pm

    19. Transmit FTP client works fine under SL.

  19. Tyler on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 10:25 pm

    20. I am running Snow Leopard and it has dramatically increased my startup, shut down and wake up/ sleep times dramatically. In addition to the tiny little improvements and tweaks and speed boosts across the operating system. Oh and did i mention, when you make a selection rectangle on the desktop, when you let go, it FADES OUT. most amazing thing ever.

    About the FTP, i have always used Transmit and it seems to continue to work flawlessly under SL. I highly recommend.

  20. Bubba on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 10:44 pm

    21. Vista for Mac! Sluggish on my MacPro with 10 gig of ram. Will wait for a few updates before wading in that muddy water again.

  21. Rand MacDonald on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 10:56 pm

    22. Bjarkovic 17, your math-math is kind of correct, but not really.
    “10″ represents the OS X system which is an alpha converted to a numeric.
    The dot separates the OS from the Version, and each iteration is what really CHANGES, so the incremental CHANGE is from 5 to 6, or 20% increase over “5″ to “6″.
    What! you’ve never read “How to lie with statistics”?

  22. Nick on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 11:25 pm

    23. Yeah I got all this extra disk space beyond the printer drivers not being installed - more than the claimed 6Gb - a whole 20Gb - until today when I realised that Apple is now making a computer use base 10 for GB like their advertising material so suddenly as if by magic my hard drive is bigger.

    Wonder if Apple redifined how long a second is too to make my mac seem faster as well….

  23. Mikey on Sun, 30th Aug 2009 11:58 pm

    24. 9: Automatic time zone setup
    >>

    I must say I died a little inside when my iPhone *didn’t* do this on travelling, it seems like a very apple feature to implement.

    Might even get it just for this, take that list !

  24. STL on Mon, 31st Aug 2009 7:12 am

    25. “8: Big Time Graphics: Finder icons can now be as large as 512 by 512 pixels, four times as big . ”
    Actually 16 times as big. Here’s why
    o Leopard 128 x 128 = 16,384 pixels
    o Snow Leopard 512 x 512 = 262,144 pixels
    o 262,144 / 16,384 = 16

  25. Roger on Mon, 31st Aug 2009 7:17 am

    26. This is the best top ten list you can come up with?

    “The version number (10.6) is now 20% higher than version 10.5.”

    what a crap article

  26. Roger on Mon, 31st Aug 2009 7:19 am

    27. “Bah! Cyberduck! Anyone know of any other (decent) FTPs that’ll work with SL?”

    Cyberduck works with SL

  27. ArtOfWarfare on Mon, 31st Aug 2009 7:35 am

    28. I had been rather annoyed when I didn’t see any changes, but now that other people have mentioned it, they’re right, applications do start faster.

    I remember under Leopard there were some applications that took a ridiculous amount of time to start, and even after their dock icon stopped bouncing the UI still wouldn’t become active for a few seconds. Things like Pages and iTunes took forever! Now from the time I click the Pages icon to the time I’m able to start typing is about 2 seconds. Same deal with iTunes and playing music.

    Unfortunately, StarCraft now seems to have graphical issues with the mouse in OS X after you quit the game.

  28. Math teacher on Mon, 31st Aug 2009 3:00 pm

    29. Well you should probably buy a calculator before you buy SL, since 10.6 is NOT 20% more than 10.5….

  29. ClassicUser on Mon, 31st Aug 2009 10:57 pm

    30. @STL: Max icon size in Leopard is 256×256, not 128×128.

  30. Tom on Tue, 1st Sep 2009 10:58 pm

    31. I like the joke about the correct time zone. LOL. If Steve cares so much about us traveling with his toys around the world, he should sell the iPhone unlocked, with a $0.99 map upload per continent and finally cut a deal with AXIS and market a built-in easy and elegant way to set up the IP cameras within the new OS version. This would be worth a lot to all parties involved.

  31. Partners in Grime on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 1:31 pm

    32. Too bad Macenstein’s Mac Chicks didn’t make the cut for new Desktop backgrounds.

  32. Rick Andrade on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 4:12 pm

    33. Well, you are not exactly true, Doc… I did buy the family pack. 5 Copies!!! 1 for my mini connected to my Panasonic 42″ plasma TV, 1 for my 24 inch iMac, one for the macbook I bought my Mom for Christmas last year, 1 for my uncle that I finally got to buy a macbook (and who has never been happier), and one for a buddy of mine. The 5 pack comes to approximately $10.00 a copy… and I thought I would give the Devil “his due” as it were.

    Just trying to support the industry…. ;-)

  33. Teegan on Fri, 4th Sep 2009 9:34 pm

    34. I installed Snow Leopard last week and have been having GUI problems. Notably, with the Dock and Menu bar. Occasionally all the menu bar icons disappear, as well as the dock reflection malfunctioning and causing the dock to become unresponsive. The only way to fix both the dock and the menu bar is to play a video full screen. If you just want to fix the dock, you just have to hide and then show it again. These problems have practically ruined my SL experience. Have programs start 10sec faster means nothing when you have to take 15sec to start a video and play it full screen multiple times a day.

Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!





Contest

Advertisement

Product Reviews

  • IntelliSchool Free is released - Free open source school database system

    • Our Finest Moments

    Where are they now? Interview with Switcher Girl Ellen Feiss

    Review: The iCar by Corgi - Possibly the worst iPod accessory EVER

    Apple blames iPod nano screen defects on obese Americans/tight pants

    Using Safari can slow your system down as much as 76% vs Firefox

    Donate Now

    iPhone Feature Request

  • Categories:

    • Advertisement