Snow Leopard GM "Unofficial" First Impressions

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  • Reply 21 of 71
    mac voyermac voyer Posts: 1,294member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by glenncal View Post


    I am extremely happy with SL and it is noticeably 'snappier'.



    However, I have one thing which is sort of bothering me. I have a MBP with a multi-touch trackpad. If I call expose by swiping 4 fingers, then swipe the opposite direction to get rid of it (without releasing my fingers), the windows go back to expose mode as soon as I release my hand. If anyone with a multi-touch MBP could test whether it works like this on his end I'd be grateful as it worked well on Leopard.



    When you release your fingers, it stays at what ever state it was in when you fingers were last touching.
  • Reply 22 of 71
    akacakac Posts: 512member
    I find it somewhat amusing that people think Apple would be missing major things like a pref panel or upgrade options a month before release. That's not how development works.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mac Voyer View Post


    After a day of banging on this thing, I am fairly certain that this is not the final build.



    Hate to break it to you...but it is.

    Quote:

    First, there is no clean install option. There really is not much of any install options, though it is nice to have a simply, no fuss, install. I wiped my HD and did the install as clean as possible. On two computers I have done the install a total of three times. Each time, it took about forty minutes. No way will the final version ship without install options.



    Why not? Its an upgrade to Leopard. And yes, its actually meant to work that way.

    Quote:

    QT has no preferences as previously mentioned by another poster. There are also no import/export options nor an option to upgrade to pro. Clearly, these are features that will be added to the final release as well.



    No, they are not. Its now QuickTime X, not QuickTime. There is no Pro anymore. Its gone. You can install QuickTime as a separate install, but the player that's there now is a complete replacement for QT Player 7.

    Quote:

    VoiceOver has a major bug which they will no doubt fix. VO is the built in screen reader. Most people will never even no it is there.



    Snow Leopard has a few major bugs - but they will be, as always, fixed in a point release. None of them are stop-worthy.

    Quote:

    Other than those few things, this is a fantastic release. I am excited about the prospect of it getting even better and more optimized.



    Agreed - it is a fantastic release.
  • Reply 23 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mac Voyer View Post


    When you release your fingers, it stays at what ever state it was in when you fingers were last touching.



    That's not what's happening here. What I'm saying is this: Swipe up with four fingers (activating Desktop Expose, then without ever releasing your fingers, swipe down again. All windows will slide back into view, but then, as soon as you release your fingers Desktop Expose is activated again. It'd be really weird if this behaviour occurs only on my MBP as I even tried a clean install.. It's nothing serious and I'm not even sure if it's not what's supposed to happen but it seems a bit weird.
  • Reply 24 of 71
    tvontvon Posts: 2member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mac Voyer View Post


    First, there is no clean install option.



    From the installer, open up Disk Utility and format the drive.
  • Reply 25 of 71
    mac voyermac voyer Posts: 1,294member
    I agree that there are no show stoppers, nor are there any bugs that would make you want to go back to Leopard. I suspect that all minor annoyances will be addressed in the first point released. There is enough, however, for the loud-mouthed podcaster and poisoned-fingered tech journalist to latch on to. Apple's biggest problem with this release will be managing expectations. MS has allowed the hype of W7 to get completely out of control. The truth is both of these releases are service packs, at least to the end user. Microsoft had more to fix so W7 may seem like a bigger upgrade. I have been using W7 for some time so my opinion is seasoned with personal experience.
  • Reply 26 of 71
    Running it on my MacBook 2.4Ghz/X3100/4GB RAM right now; things are working pretty well. Office 2008 installed without any problems and is running without any hickups.



    I'd say that this is the GM - first update out by October, a new version of iTunes which will be Cocoa native, and maybe iPhone 3.1 with a refresh of iPod Touch.



    I've got a copy of Snow Leopard through 'alternative means', however, when it arrives in NZ, I'll be going the full monty and getting two Snow Leopard box sets (if they have a family box set I'll go for that) plus an iPod Touch 64GB if they releae such a version.



    Snow Leopard is a great leap forward - too bad there are people more focused on something stupid like the box or the lack of bling instead of focusing on the enhancements to the OS itself.
  • Reply 27 of 71
    Yesterday, I installed Snow Leopard 10A432 on a separate external hard drive. All went well until this morning. I wasn't able to use my external screen's native resolution (1680x1050) anymore. It went black and started to flicker until I decreased the screen's resolution. It seems an issue with earlier versions of Leopard that has come back again.



    I'm pretty glad I didn't upgrade my current Leopard installation. I'm guessing we'll see a 10.6.1 update pretty soon after 10.6 goes on sale.



    EDIT: Bought a miniDP-DVI connector today. This seems to solve the problem.
  • Reply 28 of 71
    I haven't been keeping up with all the information about Snow Leopard and have a question. I'm using a TiBook G4 867mhz with 1GB RAM using 10.5.8 as a second computer. Since Snow Leopard is more of an update of 10.5, will it work on a G4 computer?
  • Reply 29 of 71
    jazzgurujazzguru Posts: 6,435member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by OldCodger73 View Post


    I haven't been keeping up with all the information about Snow Leopard and have a question. I'm using a TiBook G4 867mhz with 1GB RAM using 10.5.8 as a second computer. Since Snow Leopard is more of an update of 10.5, will it work on a G4 computer?



    Snow Leopard will not work on any Macs with PPC processors. It will only work on Intel processors.
  • Reply 30 of 71
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mac Voyer View Post


    I agree that there are no show stoppers, nor are there any bugs that would make you want to go back to Leopard. I suspect that all minor annoyances will be addressed in the first point released. There is enough, however, for the loud-mouthed podcaster and poisoned-fingered tech journalist to latch on to. Apple's biggest problem with this release will be managing expectations. MS has allowed the hype of W7 to get completely out of control. The truth is both of these releases are service packs, at least to the end user. Microsoft had more to fix so W7 may seem like a bigger upgrade. I have been using W7 for some time so my opinion is seasoned with personal experience.



    This sounds spot on, to me. As you say, MS had a lot more to fix with W7 so the tech press is likely to hail it as a big "advance" over Snow Leopard, which has fewer user facing improvements.



    Still, by focusing on efficiency, dropping non-Intel support, and continuing to blur the distinictions between their handheld and desktop OSes, I think Apple is setting themselves up for a good run.



    Not sure about where W7 positions MS. Certainly doesn't move WinCE any closer to desktop parity, at any rate.
  • Reply 31 of 71
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mac Voyer View Post


    The good new is that printing works flawlessly as near as I can tell. The bad news is that SL does not run on PPC. SL is Intel only.



    On a related note, I gained about 20 GB after install. This is probably due to getting rid of PPC code.



    It should work flawlessly with CUPS 1.4 ready for release and now maintained by Apple who has employed its creator.
  • Reply 32 of 71
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ascii View Post


    Quicktime not autoplaying is a big annoyance for me.



    Expose is sluggish until you do it 2 or 3 times and then it mysteriously speeds up. Typically you will only do it once therefore (for practical purposes) it is always sluggish. They really need to work on fixing this.



    The two most common Dock menu items I use are "Keep in Dock" and "Force Quit." All the others I couldn't even tell you what they are. What they have done is move "Keep in Dock" in to a submenu, another little annoyance. The most common ones should not be in submenus.



    The new Finder is great. If you configure it right you can have a true spatial Finder. Windows remember their positions, and you can't have two windows of the same folder open at once, and when you restart, any windows you had open come back open. It requires some configuring to get this effect, for example you must hide the sidebar to avoid two windows with the same contents. That online commentator guy who has made this his pet issue should be happy now.



    The fact that the Spotlight search in a Finder window now searches that Window is a good new option, but is not on by default.



    Be careful with "Mute" - if you are listening on headphones and have it muted and unplug the headphones, mute is turned off - or at least it doesn't apply to all outputs in the first place.



    There is a bug in the keyboard shortcut preferences. In the Expose tab, try setting the 3 expose modes to F13, F14, F15. It will show you the little yellow roadsign warning that you are conflicting with another shortcut. Click on it and it takes you to the keyboard shortcuts tab but there is no conflict present. Maybe those keys do something on a notebook, but on my desktop it shouldn't be showing a conflict.



    Other than that I guess it is a technical tour de force, with 64-bit throughout and the new queue-based system for programming multicore.



    You must not multi-task much if you only use Expose once.
  • Reply 33 of 71
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    I just tried it out and I think QuicktimeX is ok but it's the whole imovie thing all over again. People who used Quicktime for quick edits, audio pasting, converting to a multitude of formats are going to have to install Quicktime 7, which now gets relegated to the Utilities folder.



    While I like the empty Quicktime window pane, having two installations is just a nuisance because double-clicking a movie will always open in one or the other so I'll have to make sure all the movie types open in Quicktime 7 and not Quicktime X by default but I'll have to right-click open with every one I want to specifically play in the new player.



    I don't know why they can't just merge projects together instead of pushing all these various branches of the same app onto users. As if they couldn't simply have made a presentation and edit mode for Quicktime.



    Some other observations about Snow Leopard:



    Install size is small but it still puts languages on and you need to install Rosetta and Quicktime 7 via customizing. Total size required without drivers or languages is 3.9GB, which is pretty good.



    Install time, same as usual - about 35 minutes but it will depend on the options and if it's from a disc.



    A few things seem to be broken, it doesn't feel production-ready. Shake and AE crash. It seems like there may be some issues running OpenGL apps. I'll have to test that more. There were a number of visual glitches like menus not appearing, window panes just blank in all parts of the system.



    It does feel snappier but it's hard to judge as it's a clean install after a fresh boot.



    There are a couple of new things in the system. The OpenCL framework is in there as expected and there are some new Core Animation things like 3D mesh support. The quartz composer has some additions like a 2D fluid dynamics solver - I guess this comes from the OpenCL stuff as that's one of the CUDA demos.



    There is a quicklook EPS plugin, this is available 3rd party for Leopard - useful for designers.



    There seems to be a filesystem compression framework. I don't know if this is for compression like you get in NTFS. That could give you a good bit more space but might require formatting to enable it.



    There is an IOSurface framework. To me, this points heavily to touch support in the full Snow Leopard. I reckon this is where Quicktime X mainly comes from too as you can drag windows around by clicking anywhere on the video - in Leopard, this made an image grab. The trim handles are easier for fingers too as well as the less functional Quicktime previews, Tiger had a much more useful preview but difficult for touch.



    I'm sticking to the idea that if they make a tablet, it will run the full Snow Leopard and it will have an x86 CPU. It could be AMD as they have cheaper processors.



    There is a NetFS framework, this could be for P2P bandwidth sharing legally or some remote service.



    The expose thing for each app is a bit odd if you don't know it's coming as it creates a very pronounced vignette over the whole screen but still, it's a good addition.



    The Finder FTP still doesn't work i.e no write support. But hey, at least the icons go up to 512x512 - y'know the important stuff gets done first as always.



    It seems like it's ready enough for a September launch but people generally won't see the major improvements until 3rd party devs bring their software up to date and start taking advantage of the new features. The consumer benefits will be saved space, a bit snappier and a new Quicktime.



    I wouldn't jump on the upgrade if you rely on specific apps - make sure they work ok before upgrading.
  • Reply 34 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    I just tried it out and I think QuicktimeX is ok but it's the whole imovie thing all over again. People who used Quicktime for quick edits, audio pasting, converting to a multitude of formats are going to have to install Quicktime 7, which now gets relegated to the Utilities folder.



    While I like the empty Quicktime window pane, having two installations is just a nuisance because double-clicking a movie will always open in one or the other so I'll have to make sure all the movie types open in Quicktime 7 and not Quicktime X by default but I'll have to right-click open with every one I want to specifically play in the new player.



    I don't know why they can't just merge projects together instead of pushing all these various branches of the same app onto users. As if they couldn't simply have made a presentation and edit mode for Quicktime.



    Some other observations about Snow Leopard:



    Install size is small but it still puts languages on and you need to install Rosetta and Quicktime 7 via customizing. Total size required without drivers or languages is 3.9GB, which is pretty good.



    Install time, same as usual - about 35 minutes but it will depend on the options and if it's from a disc.



    A few things seem to be broken, it doesn't feel production-ready. Shake and AE crash. It seems like there may be some issues running OpenGL apps. I'll have to test that more. There were a number of visual glitches like menus not appearing, window panes just blank in all parts of the system.



    It does feel snappier but it's hard to judge as it's a clean install after a fresh boot.



    There are a couple of new things in the system. The OpenCL framework is in there as expected and there are some new Core Animation things like 3D mesh support. The quartz composer has some additions like a 2D fluid dynamics solver - I guess this comes from the OpenCL stuff as that's one of the CUDA demos.



    There is a quicklook EPS plugin, this is available 3rd party for Leopard - useful for designers.



    There seems to be a filesystem compression framework. I don't know if this is for compression like you get in NTFS. That could give you a good bit more space but might require formatting to enable it.



    There is an IOSurface framework. To me, this points heavily to touch support in the full Snow Leopard. I reckon this is where Quicktime X mainly comes from too as you can drag windows around by clicking anywhere on the video - in Leopard, this made an image grab. The trim handles are easier for fingers too as well as the less functional Quicktime previews, Tiger had a much more useful preview but difficult for touch.



    I'm sticking to the idea that if they make a tablet, it will run the full Snow Leopard and it will have an x86 CPU. It could be AMD as they have cheaper processors.



    There is a NetFS framework, this could be for P2P bandwidth sharing legally or some remote service.



    The expose thing for each app is a bit odd if you don't know it's coming as it creates a very pronounced vignette over the whole screen but still, it's a good addition.



    The Finder FTP still doesn't work i.e no write support. But hey, at least the icons go up to 512x512 - y'know the important stuff gets done first as always.



    It seems like it's ready enough for a September launch but people generally won't see the major improvements until 3rd party devs bring their software up to date and start taking advantage of the new features. The consumer benefits will be saved space, a bit snappier and a new Quicktime.



    I wouldn't jump on the upgrade if you rely on specific apps - make sure they work ok before upgrading.



    You want SFTP/SSH integration into Finder? Go run KDE and Konqueror.



    At best, a Third Party SFtp/SSH application should export a Service to be accessible in Finder once such apps are ported Cocoa.
  • Reply 35 of 71
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


    You want SFTP/SSH integration into Finder? Go run KDE and Konqueror.



    At best, a Third Party SFtp/SSH application should export a Service to be accessible in Finder once such apps are ported Cocoa.



    FTP links from browsers will still open in the Finder by default though. There is another 3rd party app RCDefaults that lets you change this but few people will know that option exists.



    Cyberduck is free and open source, Apple could have integrated it somehow if they couldn't write their own.
  • Reply 36 of 71
    mac voyermac voyer Posts: 1,294member
    I just looked at a mail message that had an Excel attachment. I needed to see the contents of that spreadsheet, but did not want to open Excel. I just pressed the spacebar and the spreadsheet in all its glory was there without the need to open Excel. After I got the information I needed, I opened it with Excel just to see the difference. It took a painfully long time to wake of the lumbering beast that is Excel. Innovations like QuickLook is the reason I am glad I chose a Mac over a PC. Those are the types of things that make life better. Leopard, and now SL, are filled with such things. W7 is a poor shadow of the real thing. MS just does not think about the end user and how they will actually use the product. Any end-user consideration in W7 is just a bad copy of something that was already in Leopard. This is the sort of thing that is hard to explain or put into a commercial, but it makes all the difference.
  • Reply 37 of 71
    taurontauron Posts: 911member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mac Voyer View Post


    Let's get this first bit out of the way up front. I am not a developer and have no NDA to break. I acquired my copy through "unofficial" channels. Having established that, I will be providing no spoilers and I will be purchasing the OS as soon as it hits the store shelves.



    After running it for about two hours, I have experienced nothing that makes me think this is anything but the final version. It is absolutely ready for prime time. I have no fear about running it on my production machine. Sometimes beta software feels like beta software. This feels like polished, retail software.



    Yes, it is quite snappy. I can't find anything in the interface that seems sluggish. I am running it on a stock, 15" MBP from the previous generation. I only have 2 GB of ram. It feels like I got a ram upgrade. I have been looking at the activity monitor to check my CPU usage. The most I have been able to push it to is about half running and intense Logic Pro file. Watching a 1080 P movie does not even cause it to break a sweat.



    Speaking of movie playback, QT is what it should have been all along. It is light, clean, and useful. The bezel is completely gone. That, alone, is almost worth the price of admission. When you click on the green window button, the window actually resizes to fit the screen as it should have all along. Additionally, you can now do video capture right from QT. It works flawlessly. There will be a new era in how-to videos for the Mac. You can also make video and audio recordings from within QT. It is a lot easier than having to open iMovie or GB. Again, the features work flawlessly.



    The enhancements to the Dock are subtile but meaningful. Stacks now works as it should. You can drill down into folders without leaving it. Previewing all windows in a running program, even minimized windows, is now easier than ever. The feature works a little like it does in W7 only better.



    The install was painless. It was completely unsupervised. Other than the Welcome screen, I would not have known that had installed anything new. Everything looked exactly the same as before, including my wallpaper. The first thing I did was open system profiler and check the OS version number. Do not expect a whiz bang new look. The refinements are subtle, but real.



    I am no developer and will not be able to answer the types of questions that advanced users will no doubt have. Still, if you have any questions within my power to answer, I will be more than glad to. I mostly started this thread because I have been looking for this type of first hand review and discussion. Well, here it is. Have at it.



    Thanks for the review. It seems Apple has succeeded in making the best operating system in human history even better.
  • Reply 38 of 71
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    FTP links from browsers will still open in the Finder by default though. There is another 3rd party app RCDefaults that lets you change this but few people will know that option exists.



    Cyberduck is free and open source, Apple could have integrated it somehow if they couldn't write their own.



    CyberDuck won't even work in Snow Leopard right now unless you download a nightly alpha build. I'm sure things will be worked out by the time SL comes out though.
  • Reply 39 of 71
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    What doesn't work that I know of?



    QuickSilver preferences (not the app itself).

    Dock Library.

    Safari AdBlock.

    Logitech Control Center (however worth point out, Apple has finally 'actually' sped mouse speed).

    Most third party screensavers.



    What will you notice most?



    Significant speed increases in System Preferences. It seems about 3 times faster overall. Only now that it's this fast do you realize how much you were missing. I will now use System Preferences more often, I am certain of this.

    The Finder is for the most part sluggish-free it seems. You'll notice it slight snappier generally. It's not that the Finder is amazingly fast now, but more that it seems like it's fixed now. Scrolling through your applications folder is smooth. That was never smooth before. It use to behave a little like iTunes, when scrolling through the app pane.



    What's the biggest surprise?



    The biggest surprise is how little has changed. No matter how much is changed under the hood, for the general consumer this update will disappoint, ultimately. People want new features they can hold in their hand, and SL has very few of those. I know technically it has new features "everywhere", but the point is, as a user you just don't see them. Things seems to just get in the way a bit less, which is sort of the point. But people want to see big new stuff, and that's not what SL provides. For me I love what they done, but for the "average" user I suspect they will be left wanting. Now it becomes apparent why the charged $29, their would have been uproar otherwise. Great update all in all though. Shutting down and waking from sleep seems faster. Restarting the computer isn't any faster.
  • Reply 40 of 71
    mac64mac64 Posts: 13member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    What doesn't work that I know of?

    Safari AdBlock.



    Run Safari in 32-bit mode and it will work. Same with other 32-bit Safari Plug-ins.
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