Top Ten Reasons to Upgrade to Snow Leopard TODAY
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).
$40.00 Bucks In Canada
i love how the critics call SL a service pack when windows 7 is basically a $200 service pack to vista.
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.
Oh Lord – found out that SL with 64-Bit Kernel does not support tethering. that’s bad 🙁
Can’t wait to get my copy! Just hope most of my must-have apps are compatible with SL.
hehe Doc you so funny! ;p
All kidding aside, the ability to display the date in the menu bar is fantastic! It’s pretty much worth the $30.
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
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!! 😀 that you gotta be happy with!! 😀
Shaun_R
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 🙂
It’s worth it to me because I went from 5 GB free to 20 GB free!!! WOOHOOOOO!!!!
not sure how #4 is good. I love cyberduck and am sad that a stable version won’t work.
Cyberduck does work see: http://update.cyberduck.ch/Cyberduck-3.3b1.zip
The Cyberduck 3.3b1 beta works on SL, and it’s been stable so far.
hmm… i can’t even unarchive the Cyberduck build in SL.
🙁
– The Doc
Bah! Cyberduck! Anyone know of any other (decent) FTPs that’ll work with SL?
Actually the version number increase is only 0.0095% Going from ten point five to ten point six. Do the math. 🙂
Transmit FTP client works fine under SL.
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.
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.
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”?
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….
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 !
“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
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
“Bah! Cyberduck! Anyone know of any other (decent) FTPs that’ll work with SL?”
Cyberduck works with SL
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.
Well you should probably buy a calculator before you buy SL, since 10.6 is NOT 20% more than 10.5….
@STL: Max icon size in Leopard is 256×256, not 128×128.
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.
Too bad Macenstein’s Mac Chicks didn’t make the cut for new Desktop backgrounds.
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…. 😉
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.