Mac OS X Snow Leopard Launched 15 Years Ago Today With '0 New Features'

[Eriamjh1138@DAN]

Snow Leopard made XSlimmer obsolete. It removed the PPC binary portion of the Universal Apps.
SL was rock stable and near perfect as could be.

Is there an app for Sonoma to remove Apple Silicon? I could use some space. (heads off to look)

There's a command line utility called lipo, apparently, but I want a batch app. Ain't got no time for CL.

 

[fredn]

I wish they would get back to doing this. Alternate releases between new feature releases and maintenance releases.

 

[krspkbl]

Snow Leopard was my first Mac OS update. My MacBook came with Leopard. I was so excited to upgrade to SL. I remember buying it and waiting outside for the UPS driver to deliver it lol. The thought of using a disc to update the OS now seems so strange.

When Lion came out it was the first to update with a download and it felt so futuristic but now it’s the norm.

Shout out to Mountain Lion as well even though I didn’t use it for too long before my MacBook died. SL/ML felt like good OS updates that just focused on refining things.

Updates now don’t feel as exciting but I do wish Apple would only release a major update every 2-3 years and do smaller releases in between that focus on performance/stability and QoL changes instead of new features.

 

[krspkbl]

Was this the one that came on a usb drive?

I can’t remember if there was a USB option but I got a disc. Maybe Lion was the one with USB?

 

[tarkeybear]

Was this the Snow Leopard the OS where Apple went back and removed the bloat, making it a more efficient OS (smaller, yet more capable)? I wish Apple (and Developers) would embrace that philosophy and try to minimize bloat. I know it is easier to add then take away, but sometimes we all need to lose a few excess pounds! ;-p

 

[Stella]

Snow Leopard was fantastic. Very stable and for once, a consistent UI. The brushed metal crap was gone.

 

[kcwookie]

I purchased it, no regrets

Same here, I even got the T-shirt that went along with it.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Until then, QT was easily extensible by just adding CODECs, after that it became an afterthought that nobody actually used.

Actually, QuickTime X continued to support third party codecs until version 10.3.

I know because I made a decoder which I use every day to watch VP9 videos downloaded from Youtube in QuickTime X 10.2.

 

[H. Flower]

Legendary release.

 

[DocMultimedia]

10.6 was the best OS X ever in my opinion. I still have it on two computers I use around the house.

 

[tipoo]

I desperately want a Snow Leopard release year for all of their OS's right now. Obviously they'll keep releasing new neural nets over the next few years and that's one thing, but for the core OS I really just want a year that focuses on finally fixing all the years old backlog bugs, improving performance and stability as much as humanly possible. And then move on to adding new features and new bugs again.

 

[thadoggfather]

Snow Leopard is only second to Tiger for me.

Tiger pulled me in.

 

[Eithanius]

id pay $199 for a "macOS Pro" forked build thats literally just stability and bugfix/performance updates with no new features

Apple may just hijack your “macOS Pro” moniker for profit out of the upcoming Apple Intelligence subscription instead… 🤣

 

[victorvictoria]

Any time system code gets tightened, it's a win for users, no matter how few features it adds!

 

[JTK Awesome]

MacOS, iPadOS, iOS desperately need another “0 new features” update.

I suspect the next versions of each will be plagued with problems, more so than usual, especially when 🍎i rolls out.

 

[Adora]

Snow Leopard made XSlimmer obsolete. It removed the PPC binary portion of the Universal Apps.
SL was rock stable and near perfect as could be.

Is there an app for Sonoma to remove Apple Silicon? I could use some space. (heads off to look)

There's a command line utility called lipo, apparently, but I want a batch app. Ain't got no time for CL.

Do you mean something like this?

 

[AppliedMicro]

Maybe Lion was the one with USB?

It was - as sort of a fall-back for people that couldn't use the App Store.

Kind of ironic how one of their best releases (10.6) was immediately followed by one of their worst (10.7).

 

[profcutter]

I would love a release like this. Call it Snownoma!

 

[platinumaqua]

back then I was excited for every Mac OS X release

I skipped Mountain Lion because I didn't like how it broke iTunes contacts/Safari bookmark sync with iPhone, but I upgraded to Mavericks day 1 since it was purported to be another Snow Leopard-level release. After that, I started dreading updates as there's always a huge gotcha that I don't like

 

[Edgecrusherr]

Apple could do the same when the first macOS that drops support for x86 chips launches.

We can only hope.

Looking at it from the decorate they are marketing driven these days, that would be the most likely time. Since they could market it as the reason for dropping Intel.

 

[Maigrais]

This was my introduction OS to MacOS X. What a remarkable time it was! I used on a 24-inch iMac Intel late 2006. It ran swimmingly. It was one elegant OS. I still have both the computer and the boxed OS.

 

[russell_314]

I purchased it, no regrets

I remember going to the Apple Store all excited and bought the CD. It was really good!

 

[redheeler]

This is adorable. Great old times.

View attachment 2410311

It wasn't a great old time for PowerPC users, as this unfortunately came at the cost of dropping a lot of PowerPC machines which would've benefitted massively from those extra few years of support. Especially the late-model Power Mac G5s which were still plenty capable at the time, and some were not even 4 years old yet.

Modern Apple has a lot of problems but at least the Intel Macs are getting more than 4 years of current software.

 

[Edgecrusherr]

back then I was excited for every Mac OS X release

I skipped Mountain Lion because I didn't like how it broke iTunes contacts/Safari bookmark sync with iPhone, but I upgraded to Mavericks day 1 since it was purported to be another Snow Leopard-level release. After that, I started dreading updates as there's always a huge gotcha that I don't like

Pretty much the same here. Lion dropped so many features, and was a mess, like an unfinished update, that I suck with Snow Leopard. Lion being the first version of the Mac OS that I’ve ever skipped, going back to version 5 or 6. Mt Lion fixed some stuff and broke other things. Since the, the Mac OS has lost so much quality over the year, that I dread updates. Starting in a Mojave, Apple has created bugs that it takes them many major revisions to even fix, at all. It’s been really bad since Big Sur, with Monterey being slightly better, the Ventura and Sonoma have major unfixed bugs. For me, Catalina, while having some issues, was the last truly ok version of macOS.

 

[AppliedMicro]

but I upgraded to Mavericks day 1 since it was purported to be another Snow Leopard-level release

…as we’re 10.11 El Capitan and 10.13 High Sierra - both of which I preferred over their predecessors.

10.14 Mojave was a farewell to this era, the „Intel“ era of the Macintosh.
10.15 Catalina was a transitional release (breaking many 32-bit apps and drivers), as was 11 Big Sure - both not great.

After that, it just becomes a big blur for me.