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Apple: Yeah, Snow Leopard Is Worth It

August 30th, 2009

Been working in Snow Leopard all of yesterday and today; thoughts follow.

The Good

  • The Finder feels noticeably more responsive, in particular when clicking on nearly everything (menus, windows, drives). Particularly welcome is fast response when opening up folders containing lots of files.
  • Stacks looks better with a white text on black design, and the list view benefits most.
  • Clicking and holding on an open application in the dock gives you access to its currently open windows, as well as a small menu for more options. You can also right-click to access open windows via a menu.
  • Pretty much all the programs I rely on are working fine (Adobe CS4, Office 2008, Quicken, TextEdit, iTunes, iPhoto, Mail).
  • The screen recording in QuickTime X is pretty cool.
  • Boot up on the MacBook seems a lot faster, in particular reconnecting to the Internet.

The Bad

  • iStat Menus and Menu Meters aren’t working. Oddly enough, Menu Meters works on the old MacBook; probably something to do with the newer processor on the Mac Mini (Core 2 Duo).
  • Don’t care for the new look of QuickTime X. Videos no longer look like they’re in a window anymore, and you can drag around the control bar (not sure why). The editing filmstrip will take some getting used to as well.
  • Two random crashes to report: QuickTime X and Flash CS4.
  • Plex doesn’t fully take control of the Apple Remote; it simultaneously controlled iTunes.

Conclusion

While this OS X update doesn’t introduce as many new features as Leopard, it was never advertised as such and is priced accordingly. $29 is a fair price. I feel the speed and future stability will allow me to earn that $29 in productivity and then some.

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  • I'm loving it, too -- it's much zippier than I anticipated.

    I got the upgrade for £7.95 thanks to the Up To Date program :)
  • Mike
    Both iStat Menus and MenuMeters will be available soon. Waiting anxiously!

    Maybe it's just the placebo effect, but it feels like things are faster after a clean install. I made time for one of those, and so far I think it's been worth it.
  • yeah kinda surprising how much I now realize I was using those
    utilities. Got used to glancing up at the menu bar to see how fast the
    network was going, what temperature the CPUs were, etc.
  • iStat Menus update is here! http://islayer.com/apps/istatmenus/
  • Mike
    Ooh, slightly more fancy, too.
  • Thankfully I only installed it on my mini so far. It broke a bunch of apps which are slowly releasing patches and getting updated. My mp3 squeezecenter server software broke rendering my stereo impotent :-(

    I dread having to go back and reinstall 64 bit ruby, rails, mysql, imagemagick and the like. I may hold off on upgrading the macbook for a few weeks while I see if there are any other kinks with the desktop.
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