Are you excited about Snow Leopard?


I could care less about Snow Leopard at this point.

I really dislike the name. I think it’s going to confuse casual users. I think Apple has lowered our expectations on it on purpose, which I think is a good idea, but I’ve been left with a sort of “who cares” feeling when it comes to the OS itself.

Right now, I can’t really see myself dumping $120 on an OS that’s primary features are “performance updates” unless it someone makes my Macbook Pro feel brand new with an amazing new speed that was previously unachievable…and I doubt that’s going to happen.

I hope we see something new and compelling about the OS update in the near future. I expect it will have at least SOME new features by the time its released (I’m guessing around WWDC 09), but right now, I’m completely indifferent to it.

How about you?



Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

18 Comments

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  1. I have to say, I kind of agree but it’s the combination of the updated hardware and the next cat that is keeping me interested. Roll on the new iMac.

  2. I am not excited, but I am open to having my mind changed. If Snow Leopard can make my MBP work better I’ll be happy. Although, it works quite well now using Leopard (no adjective).

    The name Snow Leopard is ho-hum. I prefer to refer to operating systems by terms like OS X 10.5.6 or Windows 7 (version 6.1), which are more descriptive.

  3. If it my Mac Pro runs faster with full 64bit kernel support, then it will be worth whatever they want for it. To me anyway.

  4. I’m a software architect and I completely understand why Apple has purposely lowered expectations with this release. Sometimes you just have to take a step back and do some spring cleaning. There will be some features here and there, but the main improvement will be cleaning up the codebase and preparing the OS for the next round of major new features.

    I’ll buy it when it comes out for the Exchange support alone, but better iCal support and the related enhancements in Snow Leopard Server are also compelling reasons for me to upgrade.

  5. I am excited to see how it performs on my Mac Pro. We Mac Pro users may actually see a huge performance boost on our machines that are a year old just because we will now be running all 8 cores efficiently. Imagine your machine running faster a year after you bought it just because of an OS update.

  6. The phrase is “I couldn’t care less”. Think about the logic and you’ll understand why.

    And I’m not excited at all about Snow Leopard. If it’s just a bunch of bug fixes and cleaned-up code, it should be a free upgrade. Plus the name is boring.

  7. I am very excited and am not a geek. Apple does amazing things and instead of continuing to add on the the OS the Microsoft does until it becomes…. well Vista and completely unusable they take out the fat. This is a very important update and will provide a platform for Apple to once again build upon. This is very cool and the casual user will find many useful benefits.

  8. Not too excited. Hopefully it is a FREE upgrade to current owners of Leopard, otherwise I will never install it on my Mac. $49 is the most it should cost. Leopard 10.5.6 works perfect for me. when Leo first first came out many were unhappy that it was so buggy, but it is fine now and I am not upgrading to a system with few new features that I need/want.

    Also, WHY ANOTHER LEOPARD? I still have not really figured that out.

  9. I am very excited about this OS. For one thing, I am a graphic nut and I am a big time iLife users (iPhoto and iMovie in particular). I need as much adrenaline as I can grab and snow Leopard sounds just too enticing to be ignored. I expect it to make my MacBook Pro fly, especially since the last upgrade to iLife .

  10. Very excited… the underpinnings of the OS are a huge upgrade for any OS. Being the film/TV animation field, this potentially will boost our productivity significantly.

  11. On paper it is exciting, but it depends entirely on developers taking advantage of it ASAP, which I don’t think will happen too inmediately. Apple needs to lead by example here, with, say, showing Snow Leopard-aware Pro, Express and iLife software at launch day, perhaps even doing some discounts (unless they give the OS for free or nearly so).

    Also, a fully 64bit kernel-based OS will need new drivers for pro video cards, RAID cards, etc. I wonder if Snow Leopard will became the default OS or will be optional for a while, so that pro users with existing equipment can work with it until new drivers are written.

  12. The “casual user” will not even refer to it as “Snow Leopard”. Instead, they would refer it to as “Mac OS Ex 10.6” (or whatever number Apple decides to tag it).

    Also Apple has not yet announced it is indeed going to cost $120.

    As far as being excited? Apple hasn’t failed me yet since Mac OS X 10.0 Preview.

  13. I expect some improvement (mostly performance). If it supports ZFS, the time machine backups should be significant smaller. I am tired of running out of space all 3 month (1GB). I think that all new version of iLife (and so on) will make excessive use of the new internal functionality. If you want all the new gadgets, you will need Snow Leopard. It would be a surprise if Apple would not put some nice (yes, unimportant but still nice to have) features in it. I will order it as soon as possible. I do not mind to spend $200 for all my macs once a year.

  14. I actually think it’s a smart move on Apple’s part. I feel Snow Leopard is more compelling than the other Mac OS X versions since it focuses on something important – performance. I never really cared about Dashboard or iChat backdrops (although I would like to see an improvement in window management; I think Microsoft has a slightly better dock in Windows 7 than Mac OS does, due to the mouse-over window list). And the name makes sense, since it is not a “major” version (i.e. no new features),but rather an improved Leopard…

  15. I’m jazzed about Snow Leopard. I’m expecting better performance, smaller footprint, a cocoa finder and who knows what else. I like the name a lot. Sounds clever to me.