Mac OS X Snow Leopard was released by Apple on August 28, 2009. Famous for being announced as having “no new features”, that’s not entirely the case. This seventh major version of Mac OS X was designed to improve performance and efficiency, reduce memory usage, and increase HDD space. As Snow Leopard is also the first Mac operating system since System 7 to not support PPC architecture, there is understandably a lot of questions about compatibility, requirements, speed, and other changes to be answered.
First up we have a Snow Leopard compatablity list, very useful for anybody that has not yet upgraded. Make sure to search through for all your important applications, but be aware that there are still many not on the list. About the only application/plugin that I use with any regularity that is still not working in Snow Leopard would be the Letterbox plugin for Mail that rearranges the window into three vertical columns to take advantage of widescreen monitors, but an update should be available shortly.
If you’re wanting some quick reviews of Snow Leopard, then Wired has a bunch. Starting with 6 Things You Need To Know About Snow Leopard, How Snow Leopard Will Improve Your Hardware, and a review. They also have a reasonably detailed upgrade guide. And if you’re wondering just what is missing in Snow Leopard, then this link is for you.
However, the cream of the crop of Snow Leopard reviews would have to be this 23 page review by John Siracusa of Ars Technica. Make sure to set aside the couple of hours that you will need to read through it all, and if you’re at all interested in the core technology and changes beneath the skin then don’t skip through the middle. For the even more technically orientated amongst you, we have an Apple Developer Center article detailing What’s New in 10.6 for developers.
I’ve been using Snow Leopard for what is coming up on a couple of weeks now, and find it blazingly fast when compared to 10.5, even on my 32bit MacBook Pro. Overall, it’s well worth the £25 upgrade price.