Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Snow Leopard is the latest operating system update to be released from Apple. I have not installed it yet and I'm not a developer, so I haven't played with any Beta versions either. I have been following some of the conversation about it, however, and thought I'd provide a few links for those who are wondering what all the fuss is about. Interestingly, Apple is claiming that this version of the OS has "no new features" - an intriguing marketing approach.
Basically, from what I understand, Apple is focusing on improving its platform for software developers with this revision.
And it sounds like they've done some truly fine engineering work.
Probably the most comprehensive overview out there (if you know of something better, please post a link in the comments) is by John Siracusa at Ars Technica.
So, in case it isn't clear, I do highly recommend the Mac platform but based on what I've read so far, I'd suggest holding off on upgrading to Snow Leopard for a little bit longer while they iron out some of the kinks.
PS: Supposedly, this graphic toggles between the original picture of the snow leopard used in the marketing materials and the Photoshopped, happier-looking version that actually ended up on the box. Cute.
Snow Leopard's inconspicuous aspects—performance squeezed from underused CPU multicores/GPUs and basic UI tweaks—are found to be the kind of refinement generally reserved for virtuosity. These speed optimizations are deep, reminding me of when a master martial artist puts the entirety of his weight behind a strike (while a neophyte would flails his limbs like a henchman in a Bruce Lee movie). The little UI tweaks are no different than when a great sculptor's chisel works to remove everything non-essential during the final steps on a statue. Challenging 30 years of ever more bloated software tradition, the changes here are about becoming a more effective middleware between the media and the hardware, reducing friction while becoming more useful by, well, being lighter, less visible.A piece over at Lifehacker offers the four best improvements for civilians (regular users, not developers). They are: speed, increased cleverness with the dock, the ability to work directly with Exchange, some new fanciness with Quicktime.
Probably the most comprehensive overview out there (if you know of something better, please post a link in the comments) is by John Siracusa at Ars Technica.
New features sell, and the more copies of the new operating system in use, the more motivated developers are to update their applications to not just run on the new OS, but also take advantage of its new abilities.While I am intrigued by the (current and eventual) performance enhancements resulting from all of the under-the-hood machinations, Siracusa's prediction about bugs may be right. I've seen enough people muttering on Twitter (Can one mutter on Twitter? I think one can.) about having trouble after upgrading that I think I'm going to wait a bit. Engadget has a discussion on what's working and what's broken in Snow Leopard. I'm confident that any glitches will be straightened out by the time I get around to upgrading.
A major operating system upgrade with "no new features" must play by a different set of rules. Every party involved expects some counterbalance to the lack of new features. In Snow Leopard, developers stand to reap the biggest benefits thanks to an impressive set of new technologies, many of which cover areas previously unaddressed in Mac OS X. Apple clearly feels that the future of the platform depends on much better utilization of computing resources, and is doing everything it can to make it easy for developers to move in this direction.
Though it's obvious that Snow Leopard includes fewer external features than its predecessor, I'd wager that it has just as many, if not more internal changes than Leopard. This, I fear, means that the initial release of Snow Leopard will likely suffer the typical 10.x.0 bugs.
So, in case it isn't clear, I do highly recommend the Mac platform but based on what I've read so far, I'd suggest holding off on upgrading to Snow Leopard for a little bit longer while they iron out some of the kinks.
PS: Supposedly, this graphic toggles between the original picture of the snow leopard used in the marketing materials and the Photoshopped, happier-looking version that actually ended up on the box. Cute.
Thank you so much for writing about Snow Leopard -- I have been wondering about it myself and always appreciate your guidance on things technical.
Posted by: Katherine | Thursday, September 03, 2009 at 10:24 AM