9 things you'll love about Snow Leopard
Steve Jobs first announced Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) was in development at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in 2008. It was a chance for Apple to take stock of where it was with OS X. There would be no major innovations, but plenty of refinements: it would install quicker, take up less disk space, and the user experience would be improved through Apple's attention to detail.
Fast forward to WWDC 2009, and the version of Snow Leopard being prepared has everything Apple promised, and more. Refinement rather than revolution, then, is the watchword for Snow Leopard. We've picked out our top nine of those elegant tweaks and finesses – plus a few more for good measure – to show you what Apple's latest big cat has to offer.
1. Improved Finder
So many of the improvements in Snow Leopard are under the skin, but because they affect the parts of the operating system we use most, we'll experience real, long-term benefits when we use them. Take Finder, for instance.
We use the Finder every time we use our Mac, so doesn't it make sense to rewrite its underlying code to optimise it for the latest technologies, such as 64-bit processing? Well, that's exactly what Apple has done with Snow Leopard.
In a direct comparison with Leopard, Snow Leopard's Finder does seem a little more eager to respond; it's only a matter of milliseconds to be sure, but an improvement nonetheless.
Improvements have also been made when it comes to ejecting external drives and optical discs. For instance, if you inadvertently leave a file from one of your disks open, you no longer see the cryptic error message that says: "The disk...is in use by another application". In Snow Leopard, Finder actually tells you what application it is, and advises you to quit it.
2. Smarter QuickTime X
Like Finder, QuickTime in Snow Leopard has been optimised to take full advantage of 64-bit.
In addition, it now uses the capabilities of the Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics processor (found in such Macs as the MacBook, MacBook Pro and Mac mini) to decode videos compressed using the H.264 standard.
This in turn frees up the main processor in your Mac for other tasks. As of Snow Leopard, QuickTime Player also reaches version X. Not only does it launch quicker than before (Apple claims up to 2.8 times faster), but it looks different – very different.
Gone is the brushed aluminium skin, and in comes a slick, minimalist interface with media controls (play, pause, fast forward, and so on) that fade out of view when you don't need them. And that's not all: need to make a training video for your colleagues on a hot new application? No problem: choose File > New Screen Recording and do it!
You can even perform basic video editing using the Trim feature (in the Edit menu), and upload your video directly to iTunes, your MobileMe Gallery or YouTube.
3. Polished Preview
We've said before that Preview is the hidden gem of Mac OS X. Starting out as a humble image viewer, its feature set now goes way beyond showing previews of printed pages. For instance, have you ever tried to copy and paste text from a PDF into a word processor and found that the PDF's formatting gave you more work than if you'd just retyped the whole thing?
Well, no more: Apple has added a little bit of artificial intelligence to recognise that, say, the text in your PDF is arranged in columns. It enables you to select what you need.
What if you want to annotate your PDF before you send it to your colleagues? No problem: click Annotate in Preview's toolbar, and a comprehensive set of annotation tools appears along the bottom of the application window, enabling you to add callout arrows, text boxes and highlights to make your point.
Open multiple PDFs and you can view them all in a single window (like a contact sheet in Photoshop), allowing for a quick comparison. And it doesn't stop there: you can now scan images directly into Preview, adding yet another tool to what's already a Swiss Army Knife of an app.
4. Refined Address Book and iCal
For another example of the 'refinement rather than revolution' policy adopted by Apple for Snow Leopard, look no further than Address Book. The Sharing and LDAP options in Preferences are now combined into a single Accounts pane, which now allows you to set up syncing with Google as well as Yahoo and MobileMe.
For Google Contacts users, this is a welcome recognition by Apple that there are online contact managers other then MobileMe; though, of course, this option has previously been available to iPhone users. We set up syncing with MobileMe and (separately) with Google, and found the syncing experience pretty seamless.
All you need to do is enter your email address and password, and everything is done for you. There was a bit of a glitch when we tried syncing with Google, which left our contacts without an email address listed in Address Book as No Name, but other than that we were impressed.
The big news when it comes to syncing, however, is Snow Leopard's built-in support for Microsoft's Exchange Server 2007.
5. Better screen grabbing
Whether you're emailing a technical support helpdesk or helping out a Mac newbie it's great to be able to take a few shots of your Mac's screen by simply hitting Cmd + Shift + 3. But how often have you looked forlornly for that one grab that makes your point succinctly, only to find it mingling with others labelled Picture...?
No more: Snow Leopard labels your grabs with the date and time they were taken, making it much simpler to find the one you want. While we're on the subject of refinements, we'd have liked to have seen an option here to change the default target folder for screenshots. Saving multiple grabs to the Desktop makes for a lot of clutter, unless you move each one in turn as you take them.
Luckily, there are applications such as the free TinkerTool that lets you make this change. The equivalent Terminal command also still works in Snow Leopard. And don't forget, you needn't stop at still images: with QuickTime X you can record all the activities taking place on your screen and edit them into a training video.
6. More refined Stacks options
The changes made to Stacks are a prime example of Apple's strategy of refinement rather than revolution for Snow Leopard. Stacks is the feature – introduced as one of the '200 innovations' in Leopard – that enables you to click on a folder in the Dock and see your files expand, fan-like, so that you can pick out the one you need. Which is great, unless you have a large number of files to choose from.
Even if you choose to have your Stack open as a grid or a list (which you can do by clicking and holding on the Stack icon, then choosing the appropriate option), you might still see a message that there are more files to view in Finder. Open that same Stack in Snow Leopard and you'll see that things are different: by the simple addition of a scrollbar to the open Stack, Apple has made the feature much more useable.
And the refinements don't stop there: if there's a folder nested inside your main Stack, it will also open as a Stack rather than switching to a Finder window. And you'll find a handy back arrow in the top-left corner of your open Stack so that you can easily find your way back where you came from.
7. Exposé is now in the Dock
Exposé allows you to view all the open windows in the current application, or across the whole system, with a single keystroke. All those keystrokes, however, can be time-consuming if you need to switch to a different application before using Exposé on the new app's open windows.
What if you know which application you need to switch to? Wouldn't it be great to switch applications and use Exposé at the same time? Well, now you can. With Exposé now, simply click and hold an app's icon in the Dock and all open windows in that application will separate, enabling you to switch windows. And press Tab while Exposé is active in order to move to the next application in the Dock and activate Exposé on that.Application windows are spring-loaded, so you can drag and drop items between them.
8. Access all areas
More often than not, Macs have been the choice of those who need assistance with their hearing or vision, and Snow Leopard builds on that history with a powerful set of enhanced features. VoiceOver is Mac OS X's built-in screen reader, speaking text and commands for partially sighted users. This now has a better startup tutorial with practical examples.
VoiceOver now allows you to fine-tune the speaking voice's settings, including speed, pitch and intonation. Also for partially sighted users, Snow Leopard introduces a feature called Braille mirroring. This enables multiple USB Braille displays to be connected to one computer simultaneously. This is a highly practical for classroom settings, where different students are likely to have different makes and models of Braille display.
Snow Leopard includes the drivers for more than 40 different models of Braille reader, including Bluetooth displays. More new accessibility features include Quick Nav. This uses arrow key combinations to move the VoiceOver cursor so you can control a Mac using one hand. Move up, down, left, and right by pressing the arrow keys individually, or press the up and down arrows together to press a button or click a web link.
9. New System Preferences tools
Again, there are lots of thoughtful little touches in Snow Leopard's System Preferences, though no huge surprises. One really nice touch is the inclusion of new mapping technologies in the Time Zone option of the Date & Time preference pane. This uses Core Location technology, that makes use of Wi-Fi hotspots to set your time zone automatically – perfect for the forgetful globetrotter.
In Security > General, if you've set up a password to wake your Mac from Sleep mode, you can now set a time delay of between five seconds and four hours before you need to enter your password. The International pane in System Preferences is also gone now, replaced by Language & Text. This is, admittedly, almost the same as Leopard's International, but with the addition of a Text pane.
This is similar to the useful AutoCorrect feature that's in Microsoft Word, enabling you to set up custom shortcuts for your most commonly used words and phrases for use in applications such as Mail, TextEdit and iChat. In order to set this feature up in the relevant application, however, you'll first need to go to Edit > Substitutions > Text Replacement.
Oh yes, and just for good measure, you can now shuffle through a selection of your favourite screensaver pictures by choosing the Screen Saver option in the Desktop & Screen Saver pane.
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