What Is A Service Pack? Snow Leopard
So Apple’s new operating system, Snow Leopard, is out. In a word… sighs. Is it bad? No. Is it a breakthrough? No. Is it worth $30? Nope.
This is NOT a new operating system… this is a service pack. How to tell? Well, you need to have Leopard installed before you can “upgrade” to Snow Leopard. Want to do a clean (erase and install) install? You need to install Leopard first, then Snow Leopard.
Most changes are “under the hood,” as Apple says, but people don’t pay money for those types of refinements, they pay for eye candy, the interface. In that regard, nothing really has changed. All the changes in Snow Leopard could really have been made via their software update service. You didn’t need to actually sell a hard-copy disc.
I will say the OS appears to run a bit faster, and I do like the minimal refinements that you can actually see. I’m an Apple fan, and I usually buy anything with that apple logo on it, but having had a couple days to think about it, Apple should have given us this update for free. They needed to take some hype away from Windows 7, and they did, but I don’t know if it was in a good way.
Memo to Steve: Take $30 off the next real OS you guys release.
Update: Why did Apple take away features (like the Preferences pane) from QuickTime 10? It seems they really stripped it down, almost to the point that it makes viewing/listening to content a chore. Why take out auto-start? Now I have to open a movie, then click to watch it? C’mon guys! At least give me my Preferences menu back to I can turn auto-start back on…
Mmm. Well. Maybe.
It does give you proper 64 bit operation on quite a few Macs, though, contains “cleaner” code, and saves quite a bit of space.
Yes, they charged for it, but they didn’t charge much. Major Mac OS upgrades (i.e shifting cats rather than simply shifting numbers) are usually WAY cheaper than equivalent jumps in Windows (even for the “bargain basement” models of the latter), and this one is way cheaper than Apple usually charge.
I personally think they got the balance about right. For both my new MBP 13 and slightly older late 2007 MBP 15 Santa Rosa I reckon the price was worth it. For older macs that aren’t 64 bit capable it is more of a tossup, but hey, no one says you have to buy. I’m still running Tiger on the old iMac G5 for the sake of “OS9 Classic” compatibility and we we still run straight Leopard on two older MacBooks that can’t take advantage of 64 bit, but I suspect we’ll probably upgrade them before long once the software upgrades from 3rd parties catch up, but I certainly don’t feel “dudded” having forked out for SL on the two 64 bit capable machines. Quite the reverse, in fact.
Cheers
Rod