Editorial

Posted on 7 Sep 2009 at 11:03

 

Gallery

Snow Leopard may not look all that different, but it's a lot more nimble.

Snow Leopard. What's not to like? The operating system itself installed in less than an hour with a single re-boot and not a hint of complaint. The only troubles I've had are with third-party applications. For example, Microsoft Office, which now refuses to update manually, and its updater, the version of which I have here is crying out for Rosetta.

Apple was right when it said we wouldn't notice many differences. A few of my applications have gone kaput - Cyberduck chief among them - but I'm downloading replacements to plug the gaps while life elsewhere carries on as usual. My wallpaper looks the same, my favourite fonts are still where they were, and the rather bizarre licence agreement problems I've been having for months demonstrate a tedious predictability.

I can't think of any other operating system release since Dos X was replaced by Dos X+1 that has looked and felt so like its predecessor. And yet still we're buying it in our thousands. There were queues outside Apple Stores worldwide as the platform faithful lined up to buy what, visually speaking, is little more than the emperor's new clothes until the big guns start recoding their applications to take advantage of its underlying barbs.

Yet still I'd recommend the upgrade, and I'd urge you to do it today. Why? Because between us here at MacUser we clawed back in the region of 20GB each in hard drive space. That's because in day-to-day use, the lighter codebase really does feel faster and more nimble. Because in just the same way that adding memory to your machine doesn't make it look any different, Snow Leopard simply makes it better and more suited to modern-day use.

Furthermore, if you need to justify your upgrade, hang on tightly to that memory analogy. There has been some discontented chatter - primarily among non-Mac users, it must be said - about Apple's decision to charge £25 for what's essentially an invisible upgrade. The argument - and it's a fair one, I'll admit - is that you could really class this as a service pack, which changes the underlying code but doesn't deliver all that much over some smart Dock menus and a better QuickTime.

So ask them why, if they wouldn't expect to get their hardware-based performance hikes free of charge, they don't think we should pay for the software equivalent. I'd be interested to hear what they have to say.

In the meantime, treat your Mac. Splash out a little more than it would cost for a city-centre round of drinks and give your hard-working machine the best software upgrade of 2009.

Author: Nik Rawlinson