Apple OS X Snow Leopard

Unless you live under a rock, disconnected from the rest of the world, or you're a devout PC lover, blind to any and all alternatives to the Windows world, Apple officially released OS X Snow Leopard today. FedEx delivered my copy of the family edition right on time today. I got the family pack because both my wife and I have MacBooks; mine is a black Core 2 Duo model, equipped with 4GB of ram while my wife has an Air, with 2 GB of RAM (if only I could upgrade that for her). Here's my report about the upgrade process and my experience with Snow Leopard so far. I should mention that I'm typing this up while using Snow Leopard, so obviously, I survived.

My wife's currently away on a business trip, so my MacBook was the guinea pig for today. As soon as I was off the clock at the office, I began upgrade preparations by first checking if any of my applications were on the "won't work at all or won't work until updated" list. My most critical applications are MS Office 2008, BBEdit, Cyberduck, Pixelmator, and Integrity (a link checker), all of which I use everyday in the office (I don't use the office PC, heh). Of those applications, it looked like only Cyberduck wouldn't work after the upgrade; however, the developers had already gotten a beta out the door for Snow Leopard that I would install after the upgrade.

Once I checked my applications for compatibility, I decided to do a little application housecleaning by deleting some 3rd party apps I hadn't used in ages and had only toyed with. Once I completed that, I was nearly ready. The final task was to perform a disk permissions check and repair; I wanted to make sure things went as smoothly as possible. Leopard's always been slow about verifying the disk (supposed to be faster in Snow Leopard), so I sat around and Tweeted until it was done and ready to roll. Lastly, I ran a Time Machine backup just to be safe.

With the disk permissions verification and backup out of the way, it was time. I slipped the DVD into the drive and waited for the fun to start. The installation menu was pretty much a no-brainer; I wasn't interested in any special techie install, so I simply clicked the default install button and kicked the process off. I almost immediately got a timer telling me I had to wait 1 hour and 1 minute for the installation to complete (I took that with a grain of salt of course). From that point, there was really nothing to do but wait and watch.

The entire upgrade process actually did take about 1 hour to complete, just as the install timer estimated, and my Mac rebooted twice during the process; once early on and once at the end. Late in the process, I noticed that the 2nd monitor attached to my Mac switched from my chosen wallpaper to Apple's default OSX nebula; my Mac's display remained on my normal wallpaper (more on that later). When everything was done, I was left on my desktop, with the Setup Assistant running. Once I continued from that, a video started to play, showing a trip through space with various versions of "Welcome", or something like that whizzing by. I let the video finish and then closed out the Assistant and ejected the DVD...it was done, I had a new kitty onboard my Mac and it couldn't have been more painless.

Right off the bat, while opening up finder to check my files, I noticed that everything indeed felt faster...there was a little more "zing". Checking my disk space, I noticed that I had more as promised; however, I couldn't tell you how much exactly since I didn't note it beforehand, but I know it's somewhere around a 9GB gain. As for my files, all were intact. I next checked the document and downloads stacks to see the enhancements. Apple's added some new features to the grid view and, wow, I likey! Nice big icons and very easy to navigate through with arrows and scrollbars, plus a silky smooth looking style...seems almost instant when opening.

After that initial file check, I ran a Software Update scan to see if there were any updates to Snow Leopard in the pipeline, but it came back with nothing new.

One of the cooler enhancements is the Exposé-in-dock feature. To get this feature enabled, I had to first go into System Preferences->Dock and check the box beside "Minimize Windows into Application Icon" setting (see image). From there, double-clicking a window's title bar or the yellow globe (the middle one for the color-challenged) minimizes the app window and sends it to the Dock icon rather than sending it to the Dock's right-hand side as it did in Leopard. You can still access any of the minimized windows by using the Exposé key to reveal open windows; however, now, if you have a window stored in an app's Dock icon, you'll see a faint horizontal dividing line in the Exposé pop-up. Windows above the divider are currently open on the desktop while the windows below the divider are ones currently stored in a Dock app icon (they display a smaller icon/window than those above; see the image at below). 

With this new Exposé feature enabled, you can also access any of the windows stored in a particular Dock icon by clicking and holding on the icon; an Exposé window pops up and shows the stored window, but with this method, you don't see any open windows on the desktop. One other neat thing about this new Exposé feature and the Dock in general; Apple's reformatted the dialog boxes (Quit, Keep in Dock, etc)  to a rather nice looking, balloon style. Overall, I'd say this new Exposé feature will be invaluable since I have a tendency to have a crapload of windows open at any one time and use Exposé all the time. It's a rather elegant and beautiful feature, to be quite honest.

One of the other new features is a rejiggered Services menu. Now this is a feature I rarely used as it looked like it was more trouble than it was worth, but now, in Snow Leopard, you'll find the Services menu cleaned up and more application specific. For example, with Safari loaded and up front, the Services menu only reveals a screen capture option, an image import option, and a Services Preferences option. The Preferences option takes you into a configuration screen for Services where it looks like you can adjust various visibility/function settings (I haven't fooled with it too much yet).

Mail received some new features such as Exchange support; I've never used Exchange, so I can't tell you much about it. Other than that, when I first opened Mail, it had to convert my mail to the upgraded format...whatever that may have been. In any case, mail functions a lot faster now, my mail's all there, and that's all I care about. Related to mail, I did notice that Mobile Me chimed in and wanted to sync up my notes right away, so I'm guessing perhaps something changed there as well, but I don't recall reading anything about that.

Remember during the Snow Leopard install process I mentioned that my second monitor changed its wallpaper? Perhaps I'll sound like a noob or something when I say this, but I don't recall ever having the option to setup a separate wallpaper for the second monitor; it always used the same wallpaper as my MacBook's display. Anyway, after Snow Leopard was installed, I found that I was able to have different wallpapers on each display. Whether the option was there in Leopard all along and I missed it or not, it's nice to have now.

That pretty much covers what I've managed to play with in Snow Leopard so far. Overall, I'm impressed with the noticeable speed gains and Exposé changes...those changes alone are worth it in my opinion. The overall presentation of menus, fonts, and displays seems to be a little sharper than it was in Leopard (this is a nebulous, hard to nail down feeling). I should mention that my Cyberduck FTP program, which was not compatible with Snow Leopard, ran just fine after I installed the developer's Beta update (it would not launch at all before that, by Apple's design). My next bit of exploration will likely involve experimenting with Quicktime's new screen recording feature; I'll make some video tutorials or something.

After seeing what Snow Leopard's done to improve my MacBook, I'm really curious to see what effect it will have on my wife's MacBook Air. My wife runs all manner of applications at the same time, including Parallels running Windows and Lotus Notes, so if it can help speed up her system, she'll flip. 

If you're sitting on the fence about Snow Leopard, I say go get it. It's a cheap-as-dirt upgrade that really adds to the already beautiful OS X experience. If you're a Windows user who's been thinking about getting a Mac, Snow Leopard just made your choice all that much easier. Seems like things are only getting better...