Speed improvements doing what? Leopard didnt have any speed issues and I cant tell a difference in Snow Leopard since I guess they fixed what wasnt broken. I do however notice worse HDD performance, the entire system practically stops working if its chugging away and copying a few gb's of files.
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Anyone else think Snow Leopard... sucks?
- Thread starter Stachelsk
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I suppose I am indifferent.
I noticed a slight speed boost with my MacBook Pro. The smaller foot print is nice and I'm a fan of the minor UI change (see right click menus).
However, that's about it. It's worth the $29 and not a cent more.
I noticed a slight speed boost with my MacBook Pro. The smaller foot print is nice and I'm a fan of the minor UI change (see right click menus).
However, that's about it. It's worth the $29 and not a cent more.
I have to disagree with you on that. I was copying 70gig of files yesterday, from an external drive to my iMac internal drive and noticed no performance hit. I was multitasking and everything was running smoothly.
I think it's funny that people are expecting $129 worth of new features for $29. Apple is laying the groundwork for the future with Snow Leopard rather than just adding more features.
Also, I believe that if they did indeed add more exciting features to Snow Leopard, it would piss off their PPC customers A LOT MORE.
For those that say that Mac OS X took a back seat because of the iPhone... Umm... I think the iPhone development team is separate from the Mac OS X development team.
Also, I believe that if they did indeed add more exciting features to Snow Leopard, it would piss off their PPC customers A LOT MORE.
For those that say that Mac OS X took a back seat because of the iPhone... Umm... I think the iPhone development team is separate from the Mac OS X development team.
Well damn. Consider all of my enthusiasm for Snow Leopard officially gone. I have Leopard tweaked and trimmed (thanks to Multilingual) the way I like it, and it works beautifully. $29 is nothing to me, but I don't think I'll be rushing to the store to pick up Snow Leopard. I think I'm more excited about iTunes 9 and the new iPods than I am about a new OS, which has never happened before.
1. You're right, but when you release a new OS, people expect a lot more than a bunch of changes that they can't even see, even for $30. This just seems like a 10.5 update more than a 10.6 release, or along the lines of the update from Windows XP SP1 to SP2.
2. So what if it pissed off the PPC customers? Whenever Apple releases 10.7, PPC users are still going to have upgrade their hardware anyway, so what's the difference in unleashing exciting features now rather than in the future?
Exactly. I wouldn't infer anything from the performance of the latest SL build, unless we know how it was compiled.
I agree - those features alone make it well worth the $30.
But I laugh at the "we've waited two years for this?" I sure hope you weren't just standing there tapping your feet for the last two years
Yes I'm disappointed....big time!
I would even go as far as to say that if you're running a tweaked Leopard than don't bother buying Snow Leopard. Even the $30 seems to much for it.
Snow Leopard is not at all what I expected...and all I expected was speed.
It can't even live up to that.
It feels and looks almost identically to Leopard. It's like Apple barely even changed anything, besides some very small things.
In contrast, Windows 7 is a far more impressive upgrade.
Not just visually, but in performance too. Windows 7 RTM feels a lot "snappier" than Snow Leopard Build 10A432.
---------------------------------
UPDATE
My Snow Leopard has become faster than after the first couple of hours.
I think it's warmed up or something, but now I'm noticing more of the speed improvements.
I would even go as far as to say that if you're running a tweaked Leopard than don't bother buying Snow Leopard. Even the $30 seems to much for it.
Snow Leopard is not at all what I expected...and all I expected was speed.
It can't even live up to that.
It feels and looks almost identically to Leopard. It's like Apple barely even changed anything, besides some very small things.
In contrast, Windows 7 is a far more impressive upgrade.
Not just visually, but in performance too. Windows 7 RTM feels a lot "snappier" than Snow Leopard Build 10A432.
---------------------------------
UPDATE
My Snow Leopard has become faster than after the first couple of hours.
I think it's warmed up or something, but now I'm noticing more of the speed improvements.
*sigh* some people really have lost the ability to think :X
Of course holding the primary mouse button won't open the context menu since they have changed the way the icons on the dock work. Expose has been added and they changed the way minimising the windows work. That functionality replaced the hold-the-primary-button-to-get-the-context-menu apart from the fact that it was inconsistent (in SL they fixed it). If you want a context menu anywhere in OS X use ctrl-click or click the secondary mouse button. Much easier to remember
And no of course it won't get sorted since it was "broken" in the first place and it will break the added features.
Glad to see that Apple has finally done something with the context menu after neglecting it for years (they shoved all of the available services into the context menu where it belongs and is easier to reach). They also made it more consistent (ctrl-click = context menu).
Irony
The people who are complaining about the hype are the ones who are buying it. It must be *YOU* that expected Snow Leopard to be the best thing since sliced bread. I never took it as anything other than an optimization. And for $29, that's not bad. How much is it to upgrade to Windows 7, which is barely the same level of improvement over Vista?
Something that's different than threads on a lot of other topics: the amount of willful misinformation. People are claiming that Grand Central isn't in the builds yet? People are making a lot of noise about 64-bit kernels when they don't know whether their particular uses related to the improvements of 64-bit kernels or just applications.
Yes, so far, apparently, as of 10A432, there are not kexts for all 64-bit capable Intel macs. What's your point?
Did someone in this thread actually say something like Microsoft doesn't make hardware but it can release drivers? Are you old enough to remember the Vista launch? That was the number one complaint! No drivers.
If you're expecting your Pentium II Hackintosh to run and take advantage of all the latest software, you need to move to Linux. Apple obsoletes hardware fast and always has. If you don't like it, move along.
There's no reason to believe that 64-bit kernels can't be released in a point upgrade. After all, Intel capability was added, I believe, with 10.4.4.
The people who are complaining about the hype are the ones who are buying it. It must be *YOU* that expected Snow Leopard to be the best thing since sliced bread. I never took it as anything other than an optimization. And for $29, that's not bad. How much is it to upgrade to Windows 7, which is barely the same level of improvement over Vista?
Something that's different than threads on a lot of other topics: the amount of willful misinformation. People are claiming that Grand Central isn't in the builds yet? People are making a lot of noise about 64-bit kernels when they don't know whether their particular uses related to the improvements of 64-bit kernels or just applications.
Yes, so far, apparently, as of 10A432, there are not kexts for all 64-bit capable Intel macs. What's your point?
Did someone in this thread actually say something like Microsoft doesn't make hardware but it can release drivers? Are you old enough to remember the Vista launch? That was the number one complaint! No drivers.
If you're expecting your Pentium II Hackintosh to run and take advantage of all the latest software, you need to move to Linux. Apple obsoletes hardware fast and always has. If you don't like it, move along.
There's no reason to believe that 64-bit kernels can't be released in a point upgrade. After all, Intel capability was added, I believe, with 10.4.4.
Personally, I think the $29 for some decent behind the scenes improvements, and the built in support for Exchange '07 is well worth it for me.
As for the UI? It's one of the many reasons I opted out of XP/Vista to OS X. The UI doesn't need to be redone every time there's an update. Having said that the ONLY thing I'd wish was included was the addition of the iTunes scroll bars throughout vs. the Aqua Pill. I happen to the think the blue/gray flat bars are a nice enhancement, and really not hard to add [IMHO].
As for the UI? It's one of the many reasons I opted out of XP/Vista to OS X. The UI doesn't need to be redone every time there's an update. Having said that
the ONLY thing I'd wish was included was the addition of the iTunes scroll bars throughout vs. the Aqua Pill. I happen to the think the blue/gray flat bars are a nice enhancement, and really not hard to add [IMHO].I believe Snow Leopard (running 10A432) is a great continuation on Mac OS X. It holds everything promised at a sensible price.
Now, rembember that it will take some time for 10.6 to harmonise with third party apps. Grand central dispatch, for example, needs certain developer attention and compatibility issues needs to be resolved etc.
Now, rembember that it will take some time for 10.6 to harmonise with third party apps. Grand central dispatch, for example, needs certain developer attention and compatibility issues needs to be resolved etc.
Windows 7 is incredible. To be honest, I think it utterly destroys
Leopard in terms of performance, and often in terms of usability.
I'm not saying it does everything better than Leopard, but it's
way way more impressive than I would have expected. In that
context Snow Leopard needs to be really special to even begin
to compete.
I hope Snow Leopard is good and remain open minded about that.
Whatever happens, the next two months will be interesting
I think Snow Leopard is great.
I would have payed 20$ for the new expose alone. It really helps my workflow.
After playing with the latest build a few days, I also find it more stable than Leopard. Sleep/wake, shutdown, startup and the AirPort have been refined a lot, and it shows.
The 11GB I got as extra space after the installation was also quite welcomming, and a bit suprising, as they tell you it is only about 6gb on the PR page.
(Also, for me the fact that PHP 5.3 comes bundled with SL is a great unforeseen bonus)
I would have payed 20$ for the new expose alone. It really helps my workflow.
After playing with the latest build a few days, I also find it more stable than Leopard. Sleep/wake, shutdown, startup and the AirPort have been refined a lot, and it shows.
The 11GB I got as extra space after the installation was also quite welcomming, and a bit suprising, as they tell you it is only about 6gb on the PR page.
(Also, for me the fact that PHP 5.3 comes bundled with SL is a great unforeseen bonus)
11gb? Are you not counting all the data that was erased? Leopard is only like 12gbs, that would make SL 1gb. As far as I can tell (I forgot to see how much it took up fresh) its around 10gbs for installing SL with ALL options deselected during installation (no languages, no printers, no extra fonts, etc).
sadly my SL install crashes but the thing is it still is better than windows when it crashes. I do not loose the whole machine i can just re-launch and go back to work. This is grace, grace windows has yet to truly learn. I think this is going to turn out to be about the most rock solid os they have put out after release and .1 update of course.
I can't believe so many people are complaing about a $29 update that provides stabilibity, speed and security updates to an OS that is already fantastic.
So the 'new' finder has been re-written and is pretty much the same end user experience as the old one. Is that an issue? If it's been re-written it'll probably be more stable. Good! I currently have un-mount issues with my finder, and my desktop items not showing up when I've mounted disks etc. I personally WANT this to be re-written in Cocoa with cleaned up code.
Same goes for the rest of the OS. I'm happy with Leopard. Pretty much everyone here is saying they're happy with Leopard so why release such a *small* update. Isn't that the point? It's a small backend update before everyone *is* happy with Leopard? They're just improving and cleaning up the codebase of Leopard.
Does anyone remember when Microsoft said neally all the changes from XP to Vista were designed around re-writing their code to provide them a platform for the future? Well now look at Windows 7 ... it is an awesome improvement from that codebase. From what I read this is similar to Snow Leopard. It's providing them with a smaller, better more stable codebase to launch future updates from.
And all the people saying Windows 7 is great and Snow Leopard needs to be way better etc, well yes - Windows 7 is great. Surprisingly enough, since the driver situation for Vista improved Vista has been great as well. Oh, anyone tried Ubuntu 9.04? Its great too! So there's more than one excellent OS available to the world. That's a GOOD thing that there's choice. Having choice and options means better improvements in the future because they need to improve like their competitors.
Also to all the people complaining about the non-final code being not up to scratch. Does anyone remember the Leopard launch? I seem to recall it being pretty horrible to use until 10.5.1 was released. I know I personally jumped on it straight away, only to tell my mates not to upgrade until 10.5.1 or 10.5.2 was released expecially if they're running their business on the Mac. Vista's launch was the same... so was XP, and so probably was Tiger (I wasn't on a Mac for that upgrade so not sure). This seems to be very common for new OS updates to not be quite as good as they are a few months later, when all the early jumpers have found bugs that the testing teams couldn't find.
Why don't people reserve judgement until the product has actually been publically released and an officially supported product rather than whining and moaning about issues with a pre-release product?
So the 'new' finder has been re-written and is pretty much the same end user experience as the old one. Is that an issue? If it's been re-written it'll probably be more stable. Good! I currently have un-mount issues with my finder, and my desktop items not showing up when I've mounted disks etc. I personally WANT this to be re-written in Cocoa with cleaned up code.
Same goes for the rest of the OS. I'm happy with Leopard. Pretty much everyone here is saying they're happy with Leopard so why release such a *small* update. Isn't that the point? It's a small backend update before everyone *is* happy with Leopard? They're just improving and cleaning up the codebase of Leopard.
Does anyone remember when Microsoft said neally all the changes from XP to Vista were designed around re-writing their code to provide them a platform for the future? Well now look at Windows 7 ... it is an awesome improvement from that codebase. From what I read this is similar to Snow Leopard. It's providing them with a smaller, better more stable codebase to launch future updates from.
And all the people saying Windows 7 is great and Snow Leopard needs to be way better etc, well yes - Windows 7 is great. Surprisingly enough, since the driver situation for Vista improved Vista has been great as well. Oh, anyone tried Ubuntu 9.04? Its great too! So there's more than one excellent OS available to the world. That's a GOOD thing that there's choice. Having choice and options means better improvements in the future because they need to improve like their competitors.
Also to all the people complaining about the non-final code being not up to scratch. Does anyone remember the Leopard launch? I seem to recall it being pretty horrible to use until 10.5.1 was released. I know I personally jumped on it straight away, only to tell my mates not to upgrade until 10.5.1 or 10.5.2 was released expecially if they're running their business on the Mac. Vista's launch was the same... so was XP, and so probably was Tiger (I wasn't on a Mac for that upgrade so not sure). This seems to be very common for new OS updates to not be quite as good as they are a few months later, when all the early jumpers have found bugs that the testing teams couldn't find.
Why don't people reserve judgement until the product has actually been publically released and an officially supported product rather than whining and moaning about issues with a pre-release product?
Install build 10A432 and you'll be happy; no more crashes for me. Regarding the HDD space gained, I've actually noticed a gain of about 6.5GB on both my iMac and MBA.
Hey guys, just a quick question.
I have a Macbook C2D 2.0 GHz with 2gb RAM. GMA950
anyways I want to know if it's worth it to clean install SL
No other partitions. *is it worth it to install 10A432 as a primary?* or not yet?
I want to know if everything will work aka, iLife 09 iMovie HD, and Final cut Express..
I'm a YouTuber. and I use my mac to record and etc...
so do you guys think SL will make it better for me? or should i just stick with dual boot SL and Leopard?
has anyone have any compatibility issues with this build?
I have a Macbook C2D 2.0 GHz with 2gb RAM. GMA950
anyways I want to know if it's worth it to clean install SL
No other partitions. *is it worth it to install 10A432 as a primary?* or not yet?
I want to know if everything will work aka, iLife 09 iMovie HD, and Final cut Express..
I'm a YouTuber. and I use my mac to record and etc...
so do you guys think SL will make it better for me? or should i just stick with dual boot SL and Leopard?
has anyone have any compatibility issues with this build?
Well, if you use it as your primary OS, you may start reporting bugs to Apple. The quality of the build is pretty good. But it's not the final release yet. It may not even to receive any further updates. So better not choose it your work OS. For personal fun, please go ahead, if you have a lot of time wiping out disks.
You hit the nail on the head. It's a stop-gap solution so Apple can make a little cash, and force developers to get used to the new code.
Yes, it is a half-cocked release. Apple could have just incorporated these changes into the next big cat. It would probably make more sense from a consumer point of view, but they need profit to satisfy SHs and they have to be concerned with making change relatively incremental.
I think Apple played a fair hand by downplaying expectations. The name Snow Leopard indicates that it is a mere iteration of Leopard, and it's price also indicates its limited value.
Snow Leopard, like Vista, is a totally unnecessary upgrade. You can skip it and not miss a thing, but, many people will say, for 30 bucks why the hell not?
As for me, I'm happy enough with it. I like the fact that I gained 11GB of disk space. The contextual menus are a lot more useful. As for the rest of the UI stuff, it's just the usual rearranging of the furniture.
I've been using 10A432 for the last few days, and I've not noticed any speed improvements. If anything, I find the my MBP to be running a little toasty and the system running a little slower.
This is however, after a clean install. The upgrade from Leopard was terrible, the whole system was beachballin' like crazy. My other MBP with Leopard (identical specs) boots faster than SL and it has more things going on during startup.
I haven't found Finder to be any faster or any rewritten 64-bit app to be any faster. I don't find myself using the new Dock Expose, because I find all all my windows quicker using regular Expose.
Stacks was a joke to begin with, so any subsequent improvement to them is a joke as far as I'm concerned. You still cannot Quick Look files within Stacks or even right click on them. How hard could this have been? But maybe that's a killer feature in 10.7 where Steve Jobs says "And now, we have Quick Look in Stacks with support for contextual menus ... BOOM!" and the fanboys will go crazy and happily drop another $29.
Finder's little slider on the bottom to resize thumbnails and an ability to play videos on the fly is a great feature, but one that is pretty insignificant, and definitely not worth paying for in an upgrade.
Apple has most of its fanboys by their balls, which is why all of us here, and I consider myself somewhat of a fanboy have such massive threads on the new Quicktime icon or the SL packaging. Apple knows it can wet our appetites by the minutest of changes. Which is why Apple can get away by charging $29 for an upgrade that others including myself consider extremely routine (think 10.5.9).
If you look at the incremental upgrades to Leopard, none of them make any real difference to the end user. We're just happily complacent because Apple tells us that the release has bug fixes and is more stable. No new features there.
Snow Leopard could have easily been 10.5.9. The immediate benefits of SL are next to none, which is why it is going to be a hard sell for Apple. The $29 price tag is definitely helping there, but there will be many users who will go home and complain about SL not being different enough on the surface.
The point I'm trying to make is that everything SL brings to the table is extremely superficial. I mean GCD is a killer feature, but it won't be realized until developers start coming out with optimized software which will be at least 6 months away. And if Apple's own apps don't seem any faster in SL, I wonder how much of a noticeable performance gain GCD will bring to the table.
The features in SL are great, but most people will justify their purchase not because of the features, but because $29 is peanuts for most people here. Think about this ...
I'm almost ready to do a clean install of Leopard and go back to my fine-tuned system. And personally, I feel Leopard was definitely not worth the $129 either.
This is however, after a clean install. The upgrade from Leopard was terrible, the whole system was beachballin' like crazy. My other MBP with Leopard (identical specs) boots faster than SL and it has more things going on during startup.
I haven't found Finder to be any faster or any rewritten 64-bit app to be any faster. I don't find myself using the new Dock Expose, because I find all all my windows quicker using regular Expose.
Stacks was a joke to begin with, so any subsequent improvement to them is a joke as far as I'm concerned. You still cannot Quick Look files within Stacks or even right click on them. How hard could this have been? But maybe that's a killer feature in 10.7 where Steve Jobs says "And now, we have Quick Look in Stacks with support for contextual menus ... BOOM!" and the fanboys will go crazy and happily drop another $29.
Finder's little slider on the bottom to resize thumbnails and an ability to play videos on the fly is a great feature, but one that is pretty insignificant, and definitely not worth paying for in an upgrade.
Apple has most of its fanboys by their balls, which is why all of us here, and I consider myself somewhat of a fanboy have such massive threads on the new Quicktime icon or the SL packaging. Apple knows it can wet our appetites by the minutest of changes. Which is why Apple can get away by charging $29 for an upgrade that others including myself consider extremely routine (think 10.5.9).
If you look at the incremental upgrades to Leopard, none of them make any real difference to the end user. We're just happily complacent because Apple tells us that the release has bug fixes and is more stable. No new features there.
Snow Leopard could have easily been 10.5.9. The immediate benefits of SL are next to none, which is why it is going to be a hard sell for Apple. The $29 price tag is definitely helping there, but there will be many users who will go home and complain about SL not being different enough on the surface.
The point I'm trying to make is that everything SL brings to the table is extremely superficial. I mean GCD is a killer feature, but it won't be realized until developers start coming out with optimized software which will be at least 6 months away. And if Apple's own apps don't seem any faster in SL, I wonder how much of a noticeable performance gain GCD will bring to the table.
The features in SL are great, but most people will justify their purchase not because of the features, but because $29 is peanuts for most people here. Think about this ...
I'm almost ready to do a clean install of Leopard and go back to my fine-tuned system. And personally, I feel Leopard was definitely not worth the $129 either.