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My first Mac was Snow Leopard iirc. Was great, I chose the right time to get into Mac I guess. The Lion came and things started to change quickly.
 
Frankly, Leopard felt like Vista after Tiger.
It added a lot of features but we were already close to the point where an OS could be made better by tweaking instead of adding stuff. It felt horribly heavy even on good Macs. It looked more spectacular but frankly not better.
And Snow Leopard felt like Windows 7: the OS its predecessor was supposed to be at launch.
 
I ran with 10.6.8 for years—such a good OS iteration—and I still use it in a VM to access some old PPC software. 😀
Lion, that followed it, was awful and sluggish.
Catalina is now my current favourite "modern" equivalent to SL...but its days are numbered.
 
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Probably the Mac OS I used the longest. Upgraded only because I felt forced to. Mac OS Sierra and High Sierra does not feel like an upgrade. i think I even have a bought and paid for Snow Leopard Server somewhere to run old apps, but I never installed it anywhere.
 
You can also disable automatic updates in iOS and macOS, this is what I have done and always update manually. It’s literally a one-toggle operation in iOS (Settings > General > Software Updates > Automatic Updates > NO).
But it doesn’t stop Apple from nudging user with a red dot 🔴 on settings app if they know the iOS and macOS you are running is not the latest and you are eligible to update. What I want is even more extreme: removal Of software update interface entirely and device won’t check updates at all. I have turned off automatic update for some time and still get a 🔴 on settings app when New version comes out.
 
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Still run 10.6.8 0n an old dual Xeon Cheese Grater on my network alongside my current machines, loads directories from external drives faster and more reliably than any other machine
 
QuickTime X was and is a sad joke. Instead of taking the wonderful QuickTime they had and improving it, they abandoned it and came out with something FAR less useful and usable. Until then, QT was easily extensible by just adding CODECs, after that it became an afterthought that nobody actually used. That bit of Apple idiocy (along with Final Cut Pro X) was when Apple lost their way with video production.

Sadly, they kept repeating the pattern of stupidity with the loss of iPhoto and Aperture, iTunes, classic iMovie, Server, and other missteps.
I still remember the plugin named Perian for playing .mkv files!
 
Got the dvd on day one. I loved it. My cheese grater still has an hdd with snow leopard.
 
I ran 10.6.8 on a Mini until way past expiry as a media player only system. I think this may also have been my last boxed version of Server.

I purchased new MacOS versions day one every time back then and had little fear of updating at least one system the same day.

I havent trusted updating to new OS versions since I think 10.11 - which mass killed software on me. Now I wait years until I absolutely must upgrade. I still have one live system on 10.13 (for Server and as a media player) and one on 10.14 (for 32 bit).
 
SL 😍 Wish Apple could go back in time, remove all the bloat that was added to OS X and release a "lean and mean" version. Same is true for iOS.
Apple should have avoided the feature hell. Basically it would be better to keep the base OS small and focussed and if a user wants a feature "XY" he should download it from the AppStore.

Btw Dashboard was great, used it quit often e.g. calculator, charts - and I know that there is a "Widget Sidebar" now, but somehow I never use it.
 
I loved this and intro video when you got a new Mac or fresh install. I've still got my 2008 with snow leopard which physically still works but just can't use it on the internet as all the web browsers don't support it anymore so can hardly view any websites which is a shame as I like the nostalgia when using it.
 
What a contrast with macOS and iOS in 2024, that feel like Vista again with all those security permission popups, both getting bloated more and more with lots of unnecessary new features that no one wants and uses really.

OG iPod was superior over Zune player not because it had more features, but the opposite, it was simple to use and had only those features that were necessary. Seems like Apple forgot this winning formula. Today I have a hard time selecting something new from macOS and iOS that is actually usable for me and would rather see them remove something.
 
Frankly, Leopard felt like Vista after Tiger.
Am I the only one that has good memories with Leopard? That was my first Mac and I've never used anything older, such as Tiger as my main OS, so I don't know, but for me Leopard was so amazing and the reason I got my first Mac was because of the Leopard's wallpaper and the Dock (not gonna lie) I was blown away by how beautiful it was.

Been on a Mac ever since, but I have nothing but good and fond memories of Leopard. It was all so new to me. I remember I didn't know how to take a screenshot on a Mac, so I had to Google everything and learn by myself and Apple had even tutorial videos etc and at one point I just put my Mac away out of frustration because it couldn't do the same things as Windows, but then I took it out again and I was like: "I'm gonna learn how to use this thing no matter what" and I have zero regrets, but sometimes when I read comments and what people think I feel like I'm from the other universe. For me the worst macOS release ever for example was Big Sur and it came with my M1 MacBook Air and had it been my first Mac I wouldn't have had great experiences or memories. It constantly crashed. Even while sitting on the desktop it got a Kernel panic with nothing open and just a freshly installed OS with nothing on it. People were like: "Take it back", but the issue disappeared after I upgraded to Monterey and have had no issues ever since. But in no way I have bad memories with Leopard and I'll always miss Snow Leopard. I even remember downgrading to Snow Leopard from Lion.
 


Today marks the 15th anniversary of Apple releasing Mac OS X Snow Leopard, which became available to purchase for $29 on August 28, 2009.

Mac-OS-X-Snow-Leopard-Web-Banner-Large.jpeg

After advertising Mac OS X Leopard as having "over 300 new features" in 2007, Apple previewed Snow Leopard at WWDC 2008. Notably, during that year's "State of the Union" session, Apple showed a presentation slide that said the update had "0 new features," as Apple opted to focus on under-the-hood performance and stability improvements.

"We've built on the success of Leopard and created an even better experience for our users from installation to shutdown," said Apple's former software engineering chief Bertrand Serlet. "Apple engineers have made hundreds of improvements so with Snow Leopard your system is going to feel faster, more responsive and even more reliable than before."

With Snow Leopard, Apple said it refined 90% of the foundational "projects" that were built into Mac OS X. Apple pitched the update as offering a more responsive Finder app, an improved Mail app that loads emails up to twice as fast as before, up to 80% faster Time Machine backups, and a 64-bit version of Safari that was up to 50% faster than the previous version. Snow Leopard also took up around half as much disk space as Leopard.

You can watch Serlet speak more about Snow Leopard at WWDC 2009 below.



Article Link: Mac OS X Snow Leopard Launched 15 Years Ago Today With '0 New Features'
It was on my very first Mac, and it remains my favorite. It converted me to Apple.
 
Snow Leopard was my favourite ever release. Miss those days. Performance-focused updates are underrated. We rarely “need” new OS features.
 
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