Snow Leopard - massive anti-climax and proof Apple are faultering

[elppa]

I'm no expert, but osx just hides all their stuff while windows gives you the option to make it visible.

.ds_store anyone?

.thumbs.db (albeit you can turn creation off)?

Mac OS X has shared components, they live in /System/Library/Frameworks/. This is hardly a hidden location.

Really - not that I noticed *any* speed increases and if you search this forum you will find many that are telling the opposite in some areas. You drank the cool-aid - I am running SL on 3 of my machines and I CANNOT tell if I am running SL or L on the latest MBP, my MBP2,2 has slowed down on boot, lost battery life and Mail.app crashes repeatedly for me - tested both upgrade and clean installs.

Oh dear, sounds like a bit of a nightmare!

I’m running MacBook Pro 5,1, so far:
- I noticed faster launch times for many built in applications, including Mail and Preview.
- Shutdowns are almost instantaneous, whereas with Leopard they could take some time.
- Spotlight seems faster, especially when doing maths
- Stacks open quicker (before in large folders their was a momentary pause).
- Disk ejection is more reliable and far faster.

I can certainly tell I’m on Snow Leopard.
The bluetooth support for my phone has improved and I was able to get tethering working with my Sony phone, which was something I couldn’t achieve under Leopard. In many ways I think some of the so called “refinements” in Snow Leopard are more significant than the “features” that cost more in Leopard (e.g. I’m a big fan of the new Exposé, which makes a bigger difference to using a Mac than the 3D Dock and Transparent menu bar).

I’m finding lots of nice surprising refinements and features the more time I spend with the system. None of it is earth shattering. I haven’t had a single Safari or Mail crash. Have not tested battery life (been on AC since install) so I’ll look out for that one.

But in all seriousness, Apple really needs to look afresh at the OS scene and give us something fresh and innovative that they are otherwise accustomed to giving us.

If you used Mac OS X 10.0 (24th March 2001) and then used Mac OS X 10.6 (28th August 2009) I think it is fair to say Apple has made a bit of progress in 8 years (keep in mind that they have also done ports to two architectures in that time). Maybe they aren’t going fast enough, but there has certainly been some new ideas and innovation in the eight years of Mac OS X.

Edit: For those new to the Mac: Mac OS X Developer Preview 2 and Mac OS X 10.0

I’d like to see a different approach for working with files as I don’t think the folder/Desktop metaphor is necessarily the most effective with all the data we have and all the various pieces of metadata (spotlight is powerful, but the efforts to expose have been fairly laboured). I like the ideas behind things like Leap and Grape, but Leap runs into performance issues which makes them hard to use on a day to day basis.

I partly agree that rather than adding “features” such as the 3D Dock and transparent menu bar Apple should focus time and effort onto more worthy pursuits.

If you can’t make positive comments on Apple’s products on MacRumors without being accused of the heinous crime drinking the “cool-aid”, then where can you make them?

 

[jointsmoking]

The fanboyism in this thread is actually kinda scary.


Makes me think...these are the kinds of people who are apple's customer base? I am kind of embarrassed to associate with forum members who will blindly defend their silly OS till the end of the day.

What's to "defend"? It works great. Please by all means, if facts scare you, associate with others. sigh.

 

[TheSpaz]

What are all the complaints for? Snow Leopard has been running great for me and I'm usually a very picky user. I love it! Can't beat the price tag either.

 

[BigAus]

So I write a stupid post above using a computer running Vista. Then an abort message appears and IE shuts down.

So after all the talk about updates I go to see if any new ones are available. Then comes the usual error message.

Guess that's Windows for you. Nothing has changed, but at least it looks different.

 

[HLdan]

Ha, I can't wait till 10.6.5 and all these whiners will be praising Snow Leopard. It's amazing how people think the world OWES them everything when they practically pay nothing.

 

[sonspot]

this thread is fanny, reminds me of the fanboys on the bmw forums, you say anything thats not on a fanboy approved list and you'll get flamed or called a trol, then tell you to go buy a honda lol,. this is sweet..

 

[parapup]

- Spotlight seems faster, especially when doing maths
[/QUOUTE]

Hmm - that reminds me of one defect in SpotLight that SL brought - If I install an application and search for its name - it does not appear in the search results for long time and when it does it is at the bottom - after all other results - depending on the application name, if it is common and appears in many documents, it becomes unusable.

I can certainly tell I’m on Snow Leopard.
The bluetooth support for my phone has improved and I was able to get tethering working with my Sony phone, which was something I couldn’t achieve under Leopard.

That reminds me I need to check if my Sony Bluetooth headphones work with SL - 10.5.8 broke them on my MBP5,3.

I’m finding lots of nice surprising refinements and features the more time I spend with the system. None of it is earth shattering. I haven’t had a single Safari or Mail crash. Have not tested battery life (been on AC since install) so I’ll look out for that one.

Right - I am not denying that there are little improvements but I kind of think I should not have to go through OS upgrades to get those, _and_ get new bugs along with it! But ok - I think if one keeps the expectations low then not much to complain - they will sort out the bugs with 10.6.3 or so.

If you used Mac OS X 10.0 (24th March 2001) and then used Mac OS X 10.6 (28th August 2009) I think it is fair to say Apple has made a bit of progress in 8 years (keep in mind that they have also done ports to two architectures in that time). Maybe they aren’t going fast enough, but there has certainly been some new ideas and innovation in the eight years of Mac OS X.

Sure, there was and I am sure we will see more - but this rant was about Snow Leopard being a dullard in the area and I am done with it - just going to think I am still running Leopard - it's not like if I dropped $29 from my wallet I would notice

If you can’t make positive comments on Apple’s products on MacRumors without being accused of the heinous crime drinking the “cool-aid”, then where can you make them?

I take that back - you sound more reasonable than the cool-aid drinking folks who would have just signed me off as a Anti-Apple guy.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

this thread is fanny, reminds me of the fanboys on the bmw forums, you say anything thats not on a fanboy approved list and you'll get flamed or called a trol, then tell you to go buy a honda lol,. this is sweet..

This is one of the fanniest threads I've seen in quite a while, to be sure.

 

[jmpage2]

Even funnier is that 3/4 of these people that are whining about how minimal of an upgrade SL is over Leopard probably didn't even buy the OS, they probably just pulled it down from torrents and still have the nerve to make such idiotic statements.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

If you used Mac OS X 10.0 (24th March 2001) and then used Mac OS X 10.6 (28th August 2009) I think it is fair to say Apple has made a bit of progress in 8 years (keep in mind that they have also done ports to two architectures in that time).

Ah, the bad old days of 10.0. Now there was a truly junky OS not worthy of $1 or "released" status -- IIRC it couldn't even burn CDs even though OS 9 could. Apple had to give users 10.1 for free just to save face. OS X has indeed come a long way.

10.6 isn't an upgrade to get excited about right now, and I think that is where all the fuss is coming in. But just imagine the howls from these same people if Apple only made 10.6 available to UTD and new machines only, i.e., you couldn't buy SL at retail.

 

[sidewinder]

The sky is failing! The sky is falling!!

S-

 

[benlee]

This is one of the fanniest threads I've seen in quite a while, to be sure.

To be honest I don't think its that fanny. I haven't read all the posts, but most (the one's not talking about how fanny the thread is or is not) are either pointing out the manner in which the OP expressed his thoughts, or are pointing out that SL was not touted as being a NEW LOOKING OS.

In my opinion, and call me a fanboy if you feel the need, I think Apple focused on things that were important in SL. I like the 10.5/10.6 interface. Granted there are things I wish Apple would have done (i.e. made all of the programs interfaces match and use the Right Click on Dock interface for the menu bar), I think they did OK, but may have rushed it out, but its only $29, and they will tweak bugs once the public beta of 10.6.0 is over.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

To be honest I don't think its that fanny.

I was poking fun at the previous poster. I believe he meant to say "funny" but had fans on the mind.

 

[benlee]

I was poking fun at the previous poster. I believe he meant to say "funny" but had fans on the mind.

Oh. hahaha. Well I just quoted the most recent "This thread is full of fanboys" post. Was not directed at you individually, per se.

 

[elppa]

Ah, the bad old days of 10.0. Now there was a truly junky OS not worthy of $1 or "released" status -- IIRC it couldn't even burn CDs even though OS 9 could. Apple had to give users 10.1 for free just to save face. OS X has indeed come a long way.

aka “Mac OS X Public Beta 2, but Steve said we should have shipped it last Summer, so we’ll call it 1.0”.

It made the MobileMe launch look like a grand slam success.

Correct, no CD burning. 15 Dock Bounces to launch the only free web browser on the platform (a long in the tooth IE 5 “Beta”) which hardly worked. No video drivers for the Rage Pro (they never arrived at all – amazingly all the transparency and drop shadows and genie effects worked, even though on every other platform these sorts of effects need GPU acceleration).

But no extension manager… no Chooser… no memory allocation…!

Apple pushed out updates to the (then free) iApps available at that time (iTunes, iDVD, iMovie - there was no iPhoto back then, or iLife suite) on the day of the release as I recall. They also pushed out a carbon update to AppleWorks, to give a sort-of-working Office Suite.

The best apps to use at that time where from Stone and Omni, as those developers had all worked on NeXT systems.

And do you know what – installing 10.0 was exciting!

It was fresh, new and very different to anything out there (OS UIs were almost universally grey and dull (Windows, Unix like OSs, Mac, didn’t matter). The potential was clearly there for Apple to shake things up. By 10.1 many of the speed issues were getting smoothed out and the rate of progress up to Tiger was impressive.

 

[sonspot]

To be honest I don't think its that fanny. I haven't read all the posts, but most (the one's not talking about how fanny the thread is or is not) are either pointing out the manner in which the OP expressed his thoughts, or are pointing out that SL was not touted as being a NEW LOOKING OS.

In my opinion, and call me a fanboy if you feel the need, I think Apple focused on things that were important in SL. I like the 10.5/10.6 interface. Granted there are things I wish Apple would have done (i.e. made all of the programs interfaces match and use the Right Click on Dock interface for the menu bar), I think they did OK, but may have rushed it out, but its only $29, and they will tweak bugs once the public beta of 10.6.0 is over.

it doesnt matter what you like or if apple did what they said they would, there's no reason to flame the OP because he spook up in a way you did not like.. am new to mac (you can try and flame me, chance is the thread will get closed, so dont bother), in my opinion this should have been a service update.

IMO if a software company is going to charge for a update it should some visual improvement, yes there are some behind the scene improvements but will most of us notice or take advantage of it now, maybe down the line,.. am not saying its now worth it, to me it seems more like something MS would pull years ago to get some easy cash..

i can say over the last ten year or so i've been fine with windows, it did what i wanted it to, so telling someone to switch to MS might be a good thing. i have no loyalty to any company or products, i work hard for my money,..

thanks

 

[benlee]

IMO if a software company is going to charge for a update it should some visual improvement, yes there are some behind the scene improvements but will most of us notice or take advantage of it now, maybe down the line,.. am not saying its now worth it, to me it seems more like something MS would pull years ago to get some easy cash..

i can say over the last ten year or so i've been fine with windows, it did what i wanted it to, so telling someone to switch to MS might be a good thing. i have no loyalty to any company or products, i work hard for my money,..

Why would Apple spend over a year rewriting a bulk of an OS and then give it away for free? It may not seem like a lot of work, but a lot of work and $ went into making SL. Apple knew that it wasn't worth $120 for the users now, thats why it was $30. Software companies release paying software all the time with little or no visual changes. Get over it. Don't pay the $30 and stay with Snow Leopard. Thats the point of why people are responding to you and the original OP.

Is Snow Leopard a perfect upgrade? NO. But Apple never claimed it to be.

I don't know what "i work hard for my money" means or has to do with anything.

 

[runebinder]

Well they're right then - have YOU seen video quality from another mobile phone of the last few years, to rival the 3GS?. Thought not. Other manufacturers use the AWFUL .3GP standard, which is blocky and tinny as anything, and completely unwatchable on anything EXCEPT a phone.

I wasn't talking about the quality, just Apple claiming it's an amazing new feature, surely you can't defend them on that. And yes I have seen some of the other phone's vids, the N95 springs to mind which is pretty decent.

 

[runebinder]

Actually it is a huge security benefit - requiring signed drivers, that is. That is a good deterrent against kernel based rootkits. If even a Joe user was to be prompted with a all red scary looking screen which tells him that the authenticity of the driver cannot be verified (true for the self signed driver) he will think twice before saying yes to install it.

Yes, because that's so hard to get around, not like you can't sign drivers yourself if you know what you're doing. End of the day it creates a unfair playing field for the small businesses that can't afford to pay MS to test their driver. As long as you get the driver from the manufacturer it's usually safe enough, fair enough to come up with a warning, but to block it from working completely is a disgrace.

most computers (laptops included) sold online by Dell or HP or Lenovo are offered with a choice of 64-bit edition of Windows at NO cost. Many lowest end ones even default to 64-bit

So I think MS is doing as much as they practically can to push both device manufacturers and OEMs and it is showing results as demonstrated in the link above. Apple of course does nothing with the OEMs - in fact not all of its own in-built drivers are 64-bit ready.

Really, go into a store and compare how many 32 bit and 64 bit Windows machines are being sold, 32 bit wins hands down.

 

[macjunk(ie)]

Funny, my XP hasn't crashed in a year and half. Not once. It's only on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week except when I manually reboot it, go figure. Must be your substandard hardware. OS X hasn't crashed on me in almost the same amount of time. I'd say they're about equal if your hardware isn't antique or flaky.

Per SL itself, I agree there was unreasonable expectations and hype on this site. Aside from that, I don't know of anyone who really cared one way or the other.

i guess it depends on what you are using ur XP box for...I program on a XP box and it crashes on me at least 3 times a week!!! not to mention the intermediate hangs which happen for no reason at all!!

and all this is on a high end dell desktop at my workplace...

 

[muttonhead411]

It's pretty sad that the OP posts all legit claims yet people are flaming him and calling him a troll.

No where in his post did he mention the word windows. This forum did overhype SL a little bit.

To the OP: I'd suggest if your "upgrade" after a clean install of leopard didnt work, then just clean install snow leopard and see what happens

+1

It might take longer in the long run, but if you have the time its well worth it. good to also check to make sure you are installing only apps that are compatible for SL.

All the best! I'll be doing a clean install this weekend after my exams! Semester break is here!! (I'm from down under)

 

[Infrared]

Why would Apple spend over a year rewriting a bulk of an OS and then give it away for free?

Ok, let's get this straight. We have no idea how much has been rewritten.
What we can be pretty sure of: it isn't anywhere near 90% of the OS. It
is probably not anywhere near 10% of the OS. Operating systems develop
gradually over many years, incrementally. You can't easily rewrite a large
proportion of the code because the thing is huge and complex. There are
literally millions of lines of code.

People are getting silly ideas in their heads, perhaps because of this:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/06/08macosx.html
To create Snow Leopard, Apple engineers focused on perfecting the world’s
most advanced operating system, refining 90 percent of the more than 1,000
projects in Mac OS X.

That does not mean that 90 percent of the code has been rewritten.
And "Refining" is a very vague word. It could mean absolutely anything.

 

[noodle654]

I don't see why people's expectations for SL were so high, you do know that it was $30 right?? Leopard costs $129. Apple stated when they started working on SL that there would be nothing new, just making Leopard better and faster. Leopard already is one of the best OS, and SL just makes the entire experience better. Sure, it has bugs, it just came out. Do we all remember when 10.3.0, 10.4.0, and 10.5.0 came out? The boards were the same exact way. For $30, SL is a great deal. I have seen a major increase in speed and I saved quite a bit of space.

 

[DMann]

Really - not that I noticed *any* speed increases and if you search this forum you will find many that are telling the opposite in some areas. You drank the cool-aid - I am running SL on 3 of my machines and I CANNOT tell if I am running SL or L on the latest MBP, my MBP2,2 has slowed down on boot, lost battery life and Mail.app crashes repeatedly for me - tested both upgrade and clean installs. I went back to Leopard on that machine and I have no problems. Never mind the fact that many cannot use the OpenCL thing on their machines if they run ATI cards. In my book - all that falls in so-so category.

Why should I care if he just acts like a joker and hypes Printer driver deferred installs, says Finely tuned when it is not visibly so, insults competitors with wrong facts and apparently is not bright enough to get ZFS in But in all seriousness, Apple really needs to look afresh at the OS scene and give us something fresh and innovative that they are otherwise accustomed to giving us.

If your machines are not booting/operating/waking/shutting down noticeably faster, this may be due to factors involving RAM, 3rd party drivers, software, corrupted preferences, or perhaps a specific issue which needs to be addressed in a future update.

No complaints here - regarding SL's UI enhancements; Exposé's integration with the Dock & with Quick Look, new scrollable and hierarchical interface for Stacks, all sporting new 'Illuminous' theme and effects, gorgeous new interface for Quicktime X, 4x higher resolution in iChat, SL's UI enhancements are far from so-so, and easily outclass the competition. Changes under the hood; new multi-threaded/Cocoa Finder, Open CL, Grand Central, 64-bit hybrid, Exchange support, Wake on Command, faster boot, wake, and shut down times, faster Time Machine back-ups, faster Spotlight searches, column selection in Preview, Keyboard Substitutions, et. al., make it all the more compelling as a significant upgrade.

 

[jive turkey]

I can understand people being disappointed because the upgrade is pretty minimal... RIGHT NOW. I think, as more apps are programed to fully function with SL's features, we will all look back and think this may have been the best OS update of them all. We just can't see it now because we aren't making full use of the OS yet.

Buying Snow Leopard is kind of like drafting someone in the NFL. We see some good moments and promise, but we won't know the gem we have until later on. This is really a topic that needs to be revisited in the Spring.