Snow Leopard review: the 20 best new features

24. Nice going, Apple. Comparisons with Windows 7 are unfair - look what Windows 6 (Vista) was like! <grin>

And underpinning OS X is the industrial strength of my favourite Unix from the 1980s, BSD. Smart move.

23. I haven't seen this documented anyplace -- yet. But, I just discovered the "new and improved" PREVIEW application. I was astounded and pleased to see functions added: the ability to scan into and from Preview, without going into my scanner software (both my Brother MFC and my HP all in one worked great); the ability to import pictures directly from my connected iPhone's Camera Roll; (wow!); and spell check. Unless I missed something in previous versions, these are new . . . and very welcomed. A few other little surprises there . . . check it out.

22. Snow Leopard a 'service pack'? Let me point out that the OS of Leopard supported 32GB of RAM, now the OS supports 16,000 GB of RAM. Boy, that is some service pack!!!

By comparison, Windows 7 will 'only' support 192GB of RAM. So you better start early to call Microsoft for their major service pack for Windows 7. My guess it will be called Windows 8 sometime around 2015.

21. One of my fav's, is the ability to select some text, and from a contextual menu right-click, select 'send to iTunes'. Nice and easy to convert text to audio.

20. Snow Leopard Boot with SSD drive 20 Seconds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-1DRoB1zfU

Check out how slow windows 7 is compared to Snow leopard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFRWkW1pZ6s

Mac OS X Leopard vs Snow Leopard Speed Test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nm5bvh_ric

Don't think windows 7 can boot up this quick

19. Installed Snow leopard onto my 2 year old Imac 24inch Alu and now i am getting 25 second boot times and 5 second shutdown.

The whole system is alot quicker, this speed is without apps being specifically written for Snow leopard's Grand Central and Open Cl so these will be alot quicker when they are.

http://www.apple.com/uk/macosx/technology/

Very impressed done a speed test of my machine with a windows 7 unit that i also have as a test machine of higher spec than my Imac and sorry to say but Windows 7 is slow compared Snow Leopard doing the same tasks.

Snow leopard is not a service pack do you think a 90% code change and features such as, Open CL, Grand central, Exchange Support is a service pack?

Windows 7 maybe as Steve Ballmer said "Windows 7 will be Vista, but a lot better." lol sounds like service pack to me

18. @zipeg: Regarding keyboard shortcuts, it's about having the option. Personally, I tend to turn more on rather than off - having full keyboard access to things like the menu bar and Dock is great, and, from anyone coming from Windows or Linux, probably nigh-on essential.

17. And please ignore my spelling I've just woken up after a beer festival yesterday...

16. This stuff is really funny, Mine's better no Mine's better!

Mac OS runs faster on a closed platform with a known hardware spec...

Window runs on almost any piece of hardware you can throw it at...

Linux runs faster than either of them if it had been set up properly...

None of that matters, really it doesn't.

Pick an OS and use it, stop going on about how much better it is that the one others are using because 99% of people don't care at what they are using just works for them.

15. Look. It's faster, It's better than windows. Just get over it. But please keep windows, it's malware, spyware, viruses, etc. And that unbelievable pricing plan. Not to mention, that they can't develop a successful marketing plan, but have to copy Apple's retail stores. And maybe they will convince you to accept a PC, if they buy it for you. I would have one if you gave it to me for free. They even thought up an App store and maybe if they bribed a few iphone developers, they might get a few working apps for their successful Zune product.

14. Still arguing? Amazing. BTW, credit goes mostly to BSD, Apple just put icing on the cake - not that icing looks bad. Having gazillion keyboard shortcuts for unless things actually means you do not use your Mac for any productive work - because if you do - first thing you do is turn all (at least most) of them off.

13. Well said Avi. I also have used Windows ME, XP and Vista on my three previous desktop systems and they were all a bunch of ****! After buying my Macbook Pro last year, I will never, ever, ever buy anything Microsoft again, not even an Xbox can tempt me.

12. I can't believe anyone with a Windows OS can possibly criticise Apple. I put up with an loathed both MS DOS and various versions of it till Vista was announced and then I switched and I wish I'd done it years earlier.

I detest everything about windows and I love Apple stuff, all of it and I have loads. It looks attractive where PCs are some of the most revolting industrial design in history, it works flawlessly, the products are far better made and so on. It's a no brainer except for geeks who prefer fiddling with a computer to simply getting the result they need.

We make hi fi that just needs a digital source to work. Apple provides one and iTunes and that's what most of our customers buy. Of the remaining 10% there are IT types who can make Windows work and there are just ordinary, normal people and when you hear the problems they have and how much it costs to fix with the local IT mob, you realise what a load of Poo it is.

Not only that but two IT companies we recommend to help customers wouldn't dream of using Windows, they have Apple computers but laugh that windows is a license to print money for anyone that can fix it. says it all in my book.

The whole argument is as daft as the ones between legacy hi fi types and those that use computer for music. Digital will never be as good as my turntable and Apple will never compare with windows. Bonkers!

11. Oh, come on - we're all just having a discussion here, and I'm just having a bit of fun responding to people who've basically steamed on in and gone THE MAC IS POO. Feel free to call me big-nose or four-eyes, if that helps, and if anyone is genuinely ********** with any of the comments I've made, I apologise unreservedly (and it's not like people haven't given more than they got). However, it always irks when people see an Apple article, get all angry and then steam on in, making the usual inaccurate and cliched statements, without, in most cases, having read the article in question anyway.

Windows users steaming in attacking Apple users or articles about Apple products is no doubt brought about by jealousy! You have rubbish operating systems... just deal with it or go Mac!

10. "Something tells me you missed XP SP2"

Not really, given that I use XP almost every day and installed SP2 at some point. However, I don't recall XP SP2 having anything near the same level of major core changes as Leopard > Snow Leopard, such as OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch. As I recall, it welded on a firewall, improved a bunch of stuff like Wi-Fi and security, and fiddled about with IE 6 a bit. It was a good update, but not a great deal different level-wise from the changes seen in, say, the eight (free) Leopard service packs to date. Feel free to correct me if that's not the case.

"Also, I know you *can* upgrade earlier versions of OSX, but it comes at a steeper cost than the £30 Apple are pushing. I've seen quoted prices between £80 (typical OSX upgrade price) and £200, although that might be for Snow Leopard Server."

The Snow Leopard disc is £25. It upgrades any Intel Mac, regardless of the current install. Whether that's the morally correct course is debatable, and it definitely breaches the EULA, but it works. Apple's trying to push the Mac Box Set to people with older systems, but it's not the only means of upgrading. The five-seat box set is £179 (the standard one is £119) and includes both iLife and iWork, but for the standard OS, I don't know anything more expensive.

"Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but unless you're upgrading from the direct previous version, you need a clean slate - something that Microsoft have been called out on with regards to Windows 7 but people conveniently gloss over with rival platforms."

Wired upgraded a machine directly from Tiger to Snow Leopard. They argued the process might not be as smooth from a user perspective, since older apps are more likely to not be Intel-ready (and one might easily assume someone with a Tiger system has fewer new apps), but they seemed to have no other concerns.

"There's no need to attack someone for calling the minimising out for what it was - something that should have been there since day one."

My point is that window minimisation HAS been there from day one. This is just a different type of minimisation (which apes the way in which it's done in Windows), now available as an additional option. Hell, I'd be the first one to agree if this was the first version of Mac OS X that enabled this, but Mac OS X 10.0 enabled you to minimise windows to the right-hand side of the Dock.

"Rival Operating Systems have had program grouping for years - just because Apple took nearly 6 years to work it into Exposé doesn't really make it a brilliant bullet point."

The Mac has had accessible grouping since way before Mac OS X (and the Mac has always been app-centric anyway, rather than running multiple instances of apps). In Snow Leopard, it's just a better way of doing it than has previously been enabled on the system, in the same way the Windows 7 taskbar is a step up from the ones in Vista and XP.

"As an aside, I can see the next iPhone marketing exercise... sorry, next 'release' - 'New iPhone 4GS released - now makes calls properly' NB - yes, our rivals have been doing it for years, but LOOK AT THE SHINY APPLE BRAND LOGO!"

My iPhone made calls properly since day one, so that would be pretty stupid of Apple to market the device as doing something it's always done. Not terribly sure what your point is there.

"Seriously Craig? You're writing articles for a website sponsored by a huge print publisher - do you really need to resort to calling names because people don't agree with your views on something? It just makes you seem childish."

Oh, come on - we're all just having a discussion here, and I'm just having a bit of fun responding to people who've basically steamed on in and gone THE MAC IS POO. Feel free to call me big-nose or four-eyes, if that helps, and if anyone is genuinely ********** with any of the comments I've made, I apologise unreservedly (and it's not like people haven't given more than they got). However, it always irks when people see an Apple article, get all angry and then steam on in, making the usual inaccurate and cliched statements, without, in most cases, having read the article in question anyway.

I know it's a free world and all, but it doesn't seem terribly constructive for someone (and I'm not accusing you of this) to see an iPhone article, get all angry, click on it, get angrier, rattle off an 'IPHONE SMELLS OF WEE!' comment and then get all upset when they're called on it. I'd much rather see well-written comments like yours, frankly.

9. 'And, please, let me know next time Microsoft rips out the guts of its operating system and creates brand-new architecture in a _free service pack_, rather than just fixing a few bugs and making the odd tweak.'

Something tells me you missed XP SP2... Microsoft could have happily bunged XP and rushed Vista out, but they didn't.

Also, I know you *can* upgrade earlier versions of OSX, but it comes at a steeper cost than the £30 Apple are pushing. I've seen quoted prices between £80 (typical OSX upgrade price) and £200, although that might be for Snow Leopard Server.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but unless you're upgrading from the direct previous version, you need a clean slate - something that Microsoft have been called out on with regards to Windows 7 but people conveniently gloss over with rival platforms.

There's no need to attack someone for calling the minimising out for what it was - something that should have been there since day one.

Rival Operating Systems have had program grouping for years - just because Apple took nearly 6 years to work it into Exposé doesn't really make it a brilliant bullet point.

(As an aside, I can see the next iPhone marketing exercise... sorry, next 'release' - 'New iPhone 4GS released - now makes calls properly' NB - yes, our rivals have been doing it for years, but LOOK AT THE SHINY APPLE BRAND LOGO!!!)

Seriously Craig? You're writing articles for a website sponsored by a huge print publisher - do you really need to resort to calling names because people don't agree with your views on something? It just makes you seem childish.

8. @khsbenny: And you've been able to do this on Mac OS X since the very start, too. The point I was making in the article is that there's now an option to minimise TO THE APP ICON, thereby stopping the Dock getting cluttered, and tying in directly with Dock Exposé. It was an example of a neat little tweak that will make many Mac users a little bit happier. But, hey, thanks for playing! (C- - "must try harder")

7. Number 4 got me excited! MINIMISING WINDOWS! Wow. I've only been able to that on windows and linux for like ever.

6. Hmm but wheres blu-ray support, why is VLC still faster than Quicktime? I could go on, I have two macs. The saving in footprint apparently has come mainly form dropping drivers for printers etc as part of the install. Anyway good luck to us all.