10.6 Snow Leopard

[Laura]

Snow Leopard is the new operating system made on the OS X platform. It's announcement was first seen at the 2008 keynote with the announcement of 10.5 Leopard, it was elucidated during the '09 keynote. The major focus of this OS is seamless integration and refinements.

 

 

 

[hide=Specifications]Mac computer with an Intel processor

 

1GB of memory

 

5GB of free disk space

 

DVD drive for installation

 

 

 

QuickTime H.264 hardware acceleration

 

requires a Mac with a NVIDIA 9400M graphics processor.

 

 

 

64-bit support

 

requires a Mac with a 64-bit processor. All Intel processors save the original Core Duo are 64-bit. For clarification, if you have a Core 2 Duo or a Xeon processor, you're fine.

 

 

 

OpenCL

 

NVIDIA Geforce 8600M GT, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GTS, Geforce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130.

 

ATI Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870[/hide]

 

Refinements

 

OS X Snow Leopard is the final transition from Carbon to Cocoa. The advantages to using Cocoa include a shorter code length, more intuitive and seamless transitions, a greater number of improved features that can be taken advantage of by developers. As of OS X 10.5 Leopard, the majority of applications are written in both Carbon and Cocoa as they are able to work together.

 

 

 

64-bit

 

Every application is now 64-bit, from the finder to the built-in dictionary. A newer addition to the 64-bit family includes GCD (Grand Central Dispatch). "With GCD, threads are handled by the operating system, not by individual applications. GCD-enabled programs can automatically distribute their work across all available cores, resulting in the best possible performance whether theyre running on a dual-core Mac mini, an 8-core Mac Pro, or anything in between. Once developers start using GCD for their applications, youll start noticing significant improvements in performance." It allows the developer to easily code for use of both cores, previously it was difficult for a developer to acknowledge both cores for their application.

 

 

 

The Finder

 

Again, this application has moved to 64-bit and onto Cocoa. Improvements to this include faster load times for documents, previews, and searches.

 

 

 

Exposé and Stacks.

 

"Exposé is refined and more convenient. Its now integrated in the Dock, so you can just click and hold an application icon in the Dock and all the windows for that application will unshuffle so you can quickly change to another one. Exposé also has a whole new look. Windows are displayed in an organized grid, making it even easier to find what youre looking for. And stacks Dock items that give you fast access to a folder of files are now scrollable, so you can easily view all items. You can also navigate through folders in a stack to see all the files inside it."

 

[hide=Exposé within the Dock][/hide]

 

 

 

iChat

 

Thanks to newer compression technologies, iChat is able to provide higher resolutions at a fraction of the bandwidth. Currently, Leopard uses 900kbps to display the chat. Snow Leopard only uses 300kbps and offers a greater resolution at 640 x 480.

 

 

 

Text Selection

 

You now have the option to copy text and pictures right within an application and send it to Mail, displaying it in the format it originated. Even further, you now have the option to enable Accessibility Options to create a spoken track through iTunes.

 

[hide=Text Refinments][/hide]

 

 

 

And ever tried to select PDF documentation only to see it's not a simple as it could be? Gone are the days of selecting bits of texts at each time, Snow Leopard automatically recognizes columns and row, even if it's from a Windows program.

 

[hide=PDF][/hide]

 

 

 

Safari 4

 

Safari 4 has became available to Mac and Windows users on June 8th '09. It has transitioned to 64-bit and implemented a feature known as sandboxing, keeping tabs in their own process. Even further, Apple implemented plugins to their own tasks. "It turns out that the number one cause of crashes in Mac OS X is browser plug-ins. So Apple engineers redesigned Safari to make plug-ins run separately. If a plug-in crashes on a web page, Safari will keep running."

 

[hide=SunSpider][/hide]

 

 

 

QuickTime X

 

You can now trim video clips right within QuickTime, rather than open up iMovie or another video editing clip.

 

 

 

Ever wanted to capture video on your screen without the use of third-parties? QuickTime allows the user to select a portion of the screen and record it. Quality yet to be determined.

 

 

 

System

 

Snow Leopard improves upon general tasks in the OS, allowing a 75% faster shutdown over Leopard and is 55% faster when joining wireless networks.

 

 

 

Boot Camp users will rejoice, as Apple now includes HFS+ support on Windows, allowing users to access files from their OS X partition from Windows.

 

 

 

Using the Multi-Touch trackpad, users can now insert Chinese characters which will appear on the input window. It'll even suggest your next character.

 

 

 

Time Machine backups will be 50% faster.

 

 

 

The default gamma is changed to 2.2 rather than 1.8, giving better color accuracy for digital content.

 

 

 

Open CL

 

"Now a new technology in Mac OS X Snow Leopard called OpenCL takes the power of graphics processors and makes it available for general-purpose computing. No longer will graphics processors be limited to graphics-intensive applications such as games and 3D modeling. Instead, once developers begin to use OpenCL in their applications, youll experience greatly improved speed in a wide spectrum of applications." It'll allow developers to better take use of the GPU/IGP to give the user a better experience.

 

 

 

I created this thread to give users some overview about 10.6 Snow Leopard, but these are only a glimpse at the features. All of these features and more available September '09 for just $29 for Leopard users.

[Kaphias]

Hm. Won't be able to get it, I'm running a first-gen MacBook without the newer processor or a 9400M gfx processor. And seeing as I don't have a new computer anywhere in the near future... my next os will likely be 10.7.

[OldJoe]

God damn [bleep]ing back and forth button, clicked on back button and my message got fudged.

 

Anyways, here's what i wanted to say:

 

 

 

Well, hm... No massive improvements. I suppose some things are nice, but in the the end it's like Win7 and Vista, an improved version but nothing real brand new.

 

Well Laura, i'm going to bed. Good night!

 

Btw, wasn't you name on one of the cars in Gone in 60 seconds movies?

[stevepole]

God damn [bleep] back and forth button, clicked on back button and my message got fudged.

 

Anyways, here's what i wanted to say:

 

 

 

Well, hm... No massive improvements. I suppose some things are nice, but in the the end it's like Win7 and Vista, an improved version but nothing real brand new.

 

Well Laura, i'm going to bed. Good night!

 

Btw, wasn't you name on one of the cars in Gone in 60 seconds movies?

 

 

 

That is why it is only going to cost $29 to upgrade from Leopard because it is really just a bunch of "behind the scene" updates.

[dsavi]

Why is more advanced better all of a sudden?

[SomeWelshGuy]

Why is more advanced better all of a sudden?

 

Because it's Apple.

 

 

 

I like it, looks nice, but I still prefer Windows 7 over it having tried both of them.

[dsavi]

I still prefer Ubuntu. Actually, pretty much anything Debian.

[Sam]

I'm getting it, just for the sake of the improvements because I have noticed that my computer could be better in some areas which Apple have worked on.

[Mil]

2009 is the year of upgrades basically :

 

 

 

RuneScape - mainly fixing and improving parts of the game.

 

Windows 7 - Basically Vista as it should have been.

 

Snow Leopard - Building upon the best. There's not much else they could do apart from speeding everything up with 64 bit and so on.

[Laura]

Why is more advanced better all of a sudden?

 

Because it's Apple.

 

 

 

I like it, looks nice, but I still prefer Windows 7 over it having tried both of them.

Which build of Snow Leopard?

[dsavi]

2009 is the year of upgrades basically :

 

 

 

RuneScape - mainly fixing and improving parts of the game.

 

Windows 7 - Basically Vista as it should have been.

 

Snow Leopard - Building upon the best. There's not much else they could do apart from speeding everything up with 64 bit and so on.

 

And getting rid of the fanboyism, and admitting how dependent they are on open source, and switching to a decent microkernel, and unlocking the OS from their hardware, and correcting the slander from their "Get a Mac" ads, and acknowledging Linux, and being honest about their products, and getting rid of the rest of the DRM from the iTunes store...

 

Yes, all of those would improve the OS.

[Laura]

2009 is the year of upgrades basically :

 

 

 

RuneScape - mainly fixing and improving parts of the game.

 

Windows 7 - Basically Vista as it should have been.

 

Snow Leopard - Building upon the best. There's not much else they could do apart from speeding everything up with 64 bit and so on.

 

And getting rid of the fanboyism, and admitting how dependent they are on open source, and switching to a decent microkernel, and unlocking the OS from their hardware, and correcting the slander from their "Get a Mac" ads, and acknowledging Linux, and being honest about their products, and getting rid of the rest of the DRM from the iTunes store...

 

Yes, all of those would improve the OS.

 

Er? Only 2/8 have to do with the OS.

 

 

 

Acknowledging Linux would be like saying, "Hey, look, our competition is better than us. It's also free." An advertisement is an advertisement, it's no different that what Microsoft or anyone else puts out there. iTunes is completely DRM free now.

[dsavi]

Including movies? I've heard otherwise.

[Laura]

Including movies? I've heard otherwise.

Can you even buy movies DRM free? You certainly can't with a DVD or Blu-ray.