OSX 10.6 - Snow Leopard

[Covar]

So who else is going to pickup/has a copy of Snow Leopard today? I'm probably going to stop at Bestbuy on my way home today and pick up a copy (apple store is a little to far out of my way, but I'll go there if I have to).

I have a first gen intel iMac so I doubt I'll get as much of the benefit of others with more recent copies, but for $29 I don't really care.

 

[Cuyval Dar]

Apparently, Snow Leopard is a full-blown OS X.
You can do a clean install on any Mac, without vanilla Leopard.
Good news for the Hackintoshers who want to keep it legal.

---------- Post added at 02:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:57 PM ----------

So who else is going to pickup/has a copy of Snow Leopard today? I'm probably going to stop at Bestbuy on my way home today and pick up a copy (apple store is a little to far out of my way, but I'll go there if I have to).

I have a first gen intel iMac so I doubt I'll get as much of the benefit of others with more recent copies, but for $29 I don't really care.

Gizmodo has rubbed off on me.
As long as you have a multi-core CPU and an Nvidia GPU, you will see some improvements.
Not to mention, you will be better protected from the approaching storm of virii Apple is attracting.


Note, I don't hate OS X. In fact, I appreciate that a company with the name recognition of Apple has embraced BSD. I just detest the culture and mindset Mac ownership has spawned.

 

[Covar]

Oh I know I'll see improvements. part of me is just jelous I don't have one of those newfangled Core 2 Duo's with their ability to support more than 2GB of ram.

I will not buy a new mac. I will not buy a new mac. I will not buy a new mac.

 

[Espy]

I am installing it on my MBP right now. Going to run it on there, make sure everything works good then install it on my MP.
So far it looks amazing. The under the hood changes are REALLY impressive. This is a really strong re-tooling of the OS. Andy Inahtko said it's very fast, so fast it's cutting in on his "reach for a Dr. Pepper while I wait for my programs to open" time.
It doesn't have anti-virus software, it does have built in mal-ware protection: http://www.macworld.com/article/142457/2009/08/snowleopard_malware.html VERY nice.

 

[Cuyval Dar]

I am installing it on my MBP right now. Going to run it on there, make sure everything works good then install it on my MP.
So far it looks amazing. The under the hood changes are REALLY impressive. This is a really strong re-tooling of the OS. Andy Inahtko said it's very fast, so fast it's cutting in on his \"reach for a Dr. Pepper while I wait for my programs to open\" time.
It doesn't have anti-virus software, it does have built in mal-ware protection: http://www.macworld.com/article/142457/2009/08/snowleopard_malware.html VERY nice.

Do you have a uni-body MBP? Have you had the problems with RAM and SATA that other have?

 

[ZenMonkey]

I'm looking forward to updating but I think I'm going to wait until the first one or two patches come out. I only just got Leopard recently so I'm not jonesing.

 

[Espy]

Do you have a uni-body MBP? Have you had the problems with RAM and SATA that other have?

A 17in unibody MPR here and no, not one problem. Works like a dream.

---------- Post added at 06:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:31 PM ----------

Also: SL is up and running on both compy's. Runs great, a few minor compatibility issues with some (thankfully) very unimportant stuff. So far it's very nice... and VERY fast.

 

[Covar]

I installed this last night. Speed increase feels very much like I added $30 worth of ram to the machine. very much worth it, I'm pleased. Only issue I had was needing to choose between installing rosetta stone or uninstalling Microsoft Office 2004. Goodbye Office.

 

[fade]

I think I'll wait a bit on this one. I hope we don't see a repeat of Leopard, which was Apple's greatest mistakes lately. The .0 release literally made some of my scientific software unusable. Even now, Matlab is still clunky despite the massive number of scientists using Macs and Matlab. I think I'll wait for at least the .1 release this time.

 

[Espy]

You should wait then Fade. Good call. There are some odd little programs that don't work yet.

Query though: Aren't the developers of the programs responsible for updating their software? Not Apple? I'm not sure why it's Apple's "biggest mistake" to not have gotten someone else's programs compatible... I had zero issues with Leopard and my video/graphics software, Adobe, Apple and the other developers had already gotten stuff ready for us, which is why I call OSX.5 one of the best updates Apple has done.

 

[fade]

Those were kind of two different points. Outside of the applications, I found the core OS to be buggy and not the usual polished piece that Apple usually puts out. Tiger and Panther were stellar right off the bat. Leopard caused at least three hard Mac Pro crashes a week before the .1 release (which came quickly--kudos to Apple for that). I wasn't alone. The Mac Pro crash was well-known and well hated. Spaces didn't work right, and virtual desktops were old tech. That's just two. Remember: "biggest" mistake is relative to the non-issues with upgrades on the previous two, and probably could've been avoided with a little less rushing.

But as for the apps themselves (Matlab specifically), Mathworks is faulting Apple, saying the bugginess is in apple's implementation of the APIs, not their build. Take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Espy]

Got it. You know, the only issues I have had with my Mac Pro at all was with the old 7300 graphics cards. I went through 2 of them. Ugh. The nice thing about the video card problems was having the apple cert. tech come to my home to fix it every time I had a problem, at no extra charge I might add.

 

[Covar]

Wish I had a mac pro. That said I don't think my iMac has ever given me major issues. except for the graphic bugs that had be popping up lately in Leopard. Hopefully those were fixed with SL.

 

[Espy]

Yeah, I love my mac pro, now that I'm not doing video work much anymore it's my primary Logic Studio machine, which it works great for, it's got so much power behind it. However, the iMacs? ARE SLICK. Seriously, I love both my Mac's but those are beautiful machines.

 

[ZenMonkey]

Query though: Aren't the developers of the programs responsible for updating their software?

I know this isn't the case with Blizzard. The WoW Mac help forums have a lot of messages from blues describing how they'd like to try to fix or improve something, but the fault lies with Apple and there's nothing they can do until Apple does or doesn't get back to them. (Obviously I'm paraphrasing, but not too much.)

Given how long Blizzard has supported games on the Mac and all the work they do making WoW work on it, I'm inclined to believe their side of the story. There is sometimes palpable frustration from the Mac team on this subject.

 

[Espy]

Oh, I believe that can happen, I'm just speaking generally, with this transition in particular there was quite a bit of fuss at Adobe for waiting until post-launch to bother to tell people if CS3 would work or not and it brought the subject of who needs to do what up.

 

[ZenMonkey]

with this transition in particular there was quite a bit of fuss at Adobe for waiting until post-launch to bother to tell people if CS3 would work or not and it brought the subject of who needs to do what up.

I thought it was pretty clear that Adobe just wants everyone to pony up the $700 for the CS4 upgrade. In this particular debate I come down on the "Adobe is a douche" side of things.

 

[Covar]

So Ars Technica has finally finished their massive OS review that they do with the OSX releases. 23 pages that shouldn't leave a single stone unturned (I'm only on page 3). If you read their Tiger or Leopard reviews you know what to expect.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars

I still say this is the best upgrade you could do for your mac outside of filling it's ram slots (cost me about the same too).

 

[Espy]

Wow... that is quite a review.

 

[Seraphyn]

Holy shit @ that review. Even though I don't have an actual Mac, nor run Hackintosh anymore that is one hell of an interesting read (so far)

 

[Chibibar]

woo... my wife wants!! (she has an iMac I bought her last x-mas)