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ecoons

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 11, 2008
37
0
What IS the big deal with Snow Leopard? Here are some "features" I am seeing when I scroll through Apple's webpage. Also, let me preface this by saying I own a X3100 MacBook, and am not "thrilled" at some of the grand central features which are geared towards the newer computers...

-1.4x JPEG icon refresh
-Faster installation
-Faster time machine initial backup (you only do these once, so...who cares?)
-Chinese character input (won't work on iMac or whitebooks)
-Automatic Time Zone setup
-More reliable disk eject
-Gamma 2.2
-Automatic printer driver updates
-4 new fonts
-Date in menu bar
-Reorderable mail sidebar

Just a few of the lackluster "features" in 10.6. Quicktime X seems great, as do some of the few small features. But why a whole new product? Just for grand central?

I think when they say "refinement" that's really all it is. But then again, it is only a $30 upgrade... Your thoughts?
 
I think when they say "refinement" that's really all it is.

Bingo. Not that refinement is bad; I will take a solid update any day.

But still, new Apple products make all our little hearts go aflutter. That's why everyone is so excited.
 
What IS the big deal with Snow Leopard? Here are some "features" I am seeing when I scroll through Apple's webpage. Also, let me preface this by saying I own a X3100 MacBook, and am not "thrilled" at some of the grand central features which are geared towards the newer computers...

GCD works just fine on my older MacBook than that. I've already used it to good effect in some code I've been working on.
 
It's very nice that Snow Leopard is cleaned up and it's ready to fully utilize the next-gen Intel processors but one has to wonder:

Where is the modern OS going?

10.7 will probably usher in a new GUI design and more multitouch gestures but fundamentally Mac OS X has remained the same and probably will when OS XI comes out. Is the future the tablet? Right now all I can see is very minor changes though every point release and nothing special.

I want to see something revolutionary come from Apple or anyone that rethinks the way we interact with the OS other than using a mouse and keyboard. Snow Leopard doesn't give me that spark.
 
10.7 will probably usher in a new GUI design and more multitouch gestures but fundamentally Mac OS X has remained the same and probably will when OS XI comes out.

I'm hoping for the new GUI to change the old-school Black-on-White text menus and use the new Dock menus' GUI. If that makes sense?
 
I'm hoping for the new GUI to change the old-school Black-on-White text menus and use the new Dock menus' GUI. If that makes sense?

I'd like that also but it doesn't seem enough to me anymore. The fundamental way we interact with our desktops hasn't changed since the original Mac. It just seems to me like much of this is getting stale. I really couldn't care less that the OS is checking my .dmg for malware. I'm not getting excited over that. The idea of the mouse and keyboard is an ancient design and yet nobody has found a way yet to replace it.

I would hope that maybe the tablet will usher in the new era but it seems that it won't run Snow Leopard and Apple will lock down the device to the App Store.
 
what he's saying is that time machine's first backup usually takes a really long time. that's where snow leopard will speed up the process. the time of daily backups will not see major improvements.
 
What IS the big deal with Snow Leopard? - Read the reviews.

Your software will be more and more geared to the new hardware.

In 1979, John Couch, the soon-to-be head of the Lisa project, was in charge of all software at Apple Computer. He commissioned this poster: Software Sells Systems.
rd-techq307-entries-2007-9-10-office-wars-3-how-microsoft-got-its-office-monopoly-files-shapeimage-1-3.jpg


If you're not thrilled, don't upgrade. C'est la vie. You want film and others use digital? Your choice.

Apple is underselling, but it'll sure as hell have boastable benchmarks by February-July - when MBP's get refreshed, and the iPhone goes potentially multi-core and starts using OpenCL too...

You're right, the ones you mentioned are lacklustre - they aren't ground shakers, but then I see you didn't include Exchange support on the list, or what OpenCL does, or what Grand Central Dispatch does....

You say it best with
I think when they say "refinement" that's really all it is. But then again, it is only a $30 upgrade... Your thoughts?

This is a prep step for a big shift - GPU usage for computers is a big thing. The one off extra gain affects Moore's Law on some things.

E.g. some computation will be seeing 20x improvements. Check out the OpenCL talks by iGotchi here - very easy to follow and explain everything, demonstrating what SNow Leopard means to science users.
http://www.macresearch.org/files/opencl/Episode_1.mov
 
its just an expensive service pack like windows 7 is for vista in my opinion.

Well... not quite as expensive obviously.

I'm just not keen on upgrading... i dunno why, ive just got a bad feeling about it.
 
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