Things You Need to Know About Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Apple’s next operating system, Mac OS X 10.6, aka “Snow Leopard,” hits stores Friday. If you’re already a Mac user, you’re probably going to get the upgrade sooner or later, thanks to its low $30 price tag.
But it’s not a major upgrade. Apple has stressed that this OS mainly delivers a performance boost for Macs equipped with 64-bit Intel processors. Thus, many of the changes aren’t going to be immediately obvious.
Apple did not provide Wired.com with an official review copy, but we did have a chance to test drive the “Gold Master” version of Snow Leopard, which should be functionally identical to what’s in stores Friday. Based on our tests, here’s a list of things you should know about the OS before installing it on your machine.




It’s a Performance Boost, Not a Roaring Upgrade
The changes in Snow Leopard are, for the most part, invisible. This OS is built to take full advantage of faster 64-bit Intel Macs. That means all apps included with Snow Leopard have been rewritten for 64-bit processors. Apps coded by third-party developers who opt to rewrite their software with 64-bit support will also be snappier.

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If your activities are not very processor-intensive, then you won’t notice a huge difference. If you’re editing movies or photos regularly, you’ll immediately be able to feel the improvement. We tested movie exporting in iMovie and photo editing in iPhoto, and both apps ran much more smoothly than on Leopard.
There are a number of other performance improvements that aren’t obvious. For example, when you wake up a MacBook from sleep, the AirPort connection will only take about a second to reconnect to your Wi-Fi network, compared with a few seconds on Leopard. Also, the Finder, which you use to navigate your files, is a lot less laggy than before: Thumbnails display almost immediately, and scanning through folders is smooth.  Subtle and sweet.


Not All Third-Party Software Is Guaranteed to Work
As is often the case with OS upgrades, there are going to be some third-party developers who procrastinated on testing their software to ensure compatibility with Snow Leopard. Most applications working on Mac OS X 10.5, aka Leopard, will most likely work in Snow Leopard. Leopard was a 64-bit system that also supported 32-bit software, and Snow Leopard is still compatible with 32-bit applications.
If a developer hasn’t rewritten his or her application for Snow Leopard, that most likely means it’s just not 64-bit capable. It’ll still work, but just not as fast as it could be if it were optimized for 64-bit computing.
However, if you’re running third-party software that you absolutely need, it’s always smart to check the developer’s website to see if the app has been tested on Snow Leopard. Adobe, for example, has already stated that Creative Suite 3 has not been tested on Snow Leopard and may have compatibility issues. We were able to test Adobe Photoshop CS 3 on Snow Leopard and thus far have had no problems. We also tested QuickSilver, App Zapper, Adium, Tweetie and Evernote, and all seemed to work fine. But do some research and pretest on a nonproduction system if you’re concerned.
Apple has promised that after installing Snow Leopard, the OS will note which applications are incompatible with it. On the test machine we saw, none of the apps became incompatible after upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard.
In short, if you’re running relatively new software, you probably won’t have to worry. With more dated apps (three years or older) you should consider double-checking.

Minor Tweaks to Interface, Usability

Don’t expect this to be a brand new experience: Most of the UI changes are small. For example, Exposé, the window-management tool, has been implemented into the Dock. Clicking a Dock icon and holding it down will show only the windows of the selected app, which could be useful if you’re a digital clutterbug like I am. (See screenshot at right.)
Another small but good change: When snapping screenshots, the images are assigned a file name containing a time stamp of when they were taken.

The most significant refinement to built-in software occurs in QuickTime, now dubbed QuickTime Player X. The player interface gets a makeover — a gray-and-black gradient (see screenshot at right). Other than that, there are new tools including movie recording from your webcam, audio recording from your microphone, and screencasting.

Hardware Requirements: No Support for PowerPC Macs
If you own an older Mac powered by a PowerPC chip (rather than Intel), then you’re out of luck: Snow Leopard won’t run on your machine. The requirements are as follows: You must own an Intel Mac equipped with at least 1GB of memory, and the install requires at least 5GB of free hard drive space for the install. And of course, you’ll need a DVD drive to be able to read the disc and run the installation. (MacBook Air owners: We hope you have an external optical drive.)
Not sure what kind of processor you own? Click on the Apple icon in the upper-left corner and select “About This Mac.” If the word “PowerPC” comes up in the “Processor” field, then you can not run this upgrade. If it says “Intel,” you’re fine.

You Get up to 7 GB More Hard-Drive Space
Snow Leopard is less bloated with system files than its predecessor, so after upgrading to it, you’ll get some free space. Apple promises the install “frees up to 7 GB of drive space.” The upgrade freed up only 3.5 GB of space for our test machine, but hey — we’re not complaining. More space is always better.

The Upgrade Only Costs $30
Apple is advertising Snow Leopard as a $30 upgrade “for Leopard users.” If you’re upgrading from Tiger, Apple advises you to purchase the full Mac Box Set for $170. However, there don’t appear to be technical reasons preventing a Tiger-to-Snow Leopard upgrade.
Wired.com was able to confirm that the Snow Leopard upgrade can be installed on a machine running Tiger. Of course, the transition isn’t guaranteed to be as smooth as it would be from Leopard to Snow Leopard, and that’s because some older, Tiger-only third-party applications need to be upgraded to newer versions that work with Leopard or Snow Leopard.
Separately, Lifehacker has confirmed that it was able to erase a hard drive and install Snow Leopard. That means if you backup your files on Tiger, you should be technically able to buy Snow Leopard for $30, install it on a clean drive and then migrate your files over. Again, you’ll likely have to download newer versions of third-party software that are Leopard — or Snow Leopard — compatible. That extra work is probably worth it, because this OS is a pretty big performance upgrade if you’re switching from Tiger.
Of course, using the $30 upgrade to go from Tiger to Snow Leopard may violate Apple’s terms of service. We were unable to confirm this with Apple, which did not respond to our queries about Snow Leopard pricing.

Conclusion
This upgrade won’t deliver any radical interface changes to blow you away (not that we would want it to), but the $30 price is more than fair for the number of performance improvements Snow Leopard delivers.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Hardware Requirements

General requirements

• Mac computer with an Intel processor
• 1GB of memory
• 5GB of available disk space
• DVD drive for installation
• Some features require a compatible Internet service provider; fees may apply.
• Some features require Apple’s MobileMe service; fees and terms apply.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard versus Windows 7

Windows 7 builds upon Windows Vista and smooths out Vista’s rough spots, though it also brings a number of new end-user features to the table (such as the re-worked taskbar). Meanwhile, Apple’s focus with Snow Leopard mostly involves new under-the-hood technologies with subtle refinements and fixes. But there is plenty to say about how Apple’s next big cat and Microsoft’s lucky number stack up against each other.

Managing Your Files

Snow Leopard’s Finder and Windows 7’s Explorer have strikingly similar interfaces: Both have quick search fields in the upper-right corner, path bars (OS X’s is optional and can be switched on in the View menu), and sidebars giving you easy access to various common locations on your computer.

Windows 7 introduces a new feature to the mix: Libraries. A library is best defined as a way to view the contents of several folders all in one place. For example, the Pictures library pulls together the contents of the My Pictures and Public Pictures folders by default. You can add or change the folders tied to any particular library, of course. Nothing in Snow Leopard directly compares with Windows' libraries. The closest OS X feature is saved searches (known as Smart Folders), but a saved search pulls together files based on search criteria, not location. You can’t, for example, create a smart folder containing all photos from only two folders. On the other hand, Windows 7 libraries can’t be combined with saved search results.
Both Snow Leopard and Windows 7 allow a large icon view. Windows 7 supports icons up to 256-by-256 pixels. Snow Leopard one-ups Windows 7, though—the Finder can display icons up to a seemingly absurd 512-by-512 pixels (512-pixel icons were around in 10.5, but the Finder could not take advantage of them outside of Quick Look and Cover Flow view).

Quick Access

Some OS X apps can use the Dock’s pop-up menus to display application-specific information and provide easy access to frequently used commands. For example, if you right-click iTunes’ Dock icon in Snow Leopard, you’ll get a menu that lets you see what’s playing, play or pause your music, assign a rating to the current song, and control other simple iTunes commands.

With Windows 7’s re-tooled taskbar, Microsoft introduces a similar feature called jump lists. Jump lists can not only provide access to common commands (Windows Media Player‘s jump list has a Play command, for example), they also let you “pin” items to a specific list. For example, you can pin commonly-used folders to the Windows Explorer jump list and important documents to the WordPad jump list. Snow Leopard doesn’t have any features that directly compare to the jump list's pinning feature; instead, Mac users can use stacks in the Dock to provide quick access to folders and files (drag any folder to the Dock to create a stack). Stacks get a refresh in Snow Leopard: You can now view unlimited items in a stack using Grid view (thanks to the addition of scrollbars), as well as drill down into folders without having to open any Finder windows. You can also drag and drop any file into the Dock for quick access.

Previews

In addition to Leopard's preview features (Quick Look, Cover Flow), Snow Leopard adds inline preview to the Finder’s icon view. When viewing a folder using 64-by-64 pixel icons or larger, mousing over your files will display preview and playback controls. If you mouse over an audio or video file, you’ll get a play button. If you mouse over a Word doc, a PowerPoint presentation, or PDF (among other common file formats), you’ll get forward and back arrows for paging through a document. Windows 7 has an optional preview pane for use in any Explorer window. Select a file, and the preview will appear in the preview pane. Windows 7’s preview feature seems pretty basic compared to Snow Leopard’s (text loses all formatting, for example), but it’s better than nothing. Also, as was the case with Vista, folder icons in Windows 7 give you a peek at the folder's contents.

Window Management

Expose, a part of Mac OS X since 2003, learns some new tricks in Snow Leopard. Most notably, you can now click and hold the Dock icon for any open application to view all open windows for that application. This now includes minimized windows; In previous versions of OS X, Expose ignored any windows you sent to the Dock. In Snow Leopard, these windows are now represented by a thumbnail in Expose.
Also, Snow Leopard now arranges windows in a grid when viewed in Expose. previously windows scaled down in a seemingly haphazard manner. I actually prefer the old method of handling Expose—I find the windows all end up about the same size with the new Expose arrangement, which makes it harder for me to find what I’m looking for, but this is very much a personal preference issue.

Windows 7 brings a new window management tool to the table as well. Called Aero Peek, this new feature makes it easier to see which window you want. To use Aero Peek, click the taskbar icon for the application the window you’re looking for belongs to, then mouse over the thumbnails. All other windows go transparent, leaving only the window you mouse over visible.

The most useful aspect of Aero Peek, though, is the desktop peek feature. If you want to take a quick look at the desktop without actually hiding all your windows, simply shove your mouse into the lower-right corner of the taskbar; all windows will turn transparent. Click this spot once to hide all open windows and see the desktop, and click again to get back to work. This is roughly equivalent to the Show Desktop feature in OS X's Exposé, which moves all windows off the screen with a keystroke (or flick of the mouse, if you have a hot-corner for Exposé set).

The Verdict

Both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are solid updates to the respective operating systems, but I can't say either one by itself will make someone want to jump ship and cross to the other side. If you're perfectly happy with Windows, Snow Leopard probably won't make you lust for a Mac. Likewise, if you're a Mac user and weren't considering switching to Windows before, Windows 7 isn't likely to change your mind.