Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Received my copy of SL this morning, so I popped it into the disk drive, it loaded, pressed install and away it went. Install took around 50 minutes on my white Macbook. A bit quicker than some reviews I've read, but that might be down to the preparation I did last night.

I didn't really notice any speed difference on boot up or shut down, but It's noticeably quicker than Leopard when opening apps, especially the mail app, lightening fast. I particularly like the new Expose feature within the dock, I've always used expose and i'll find this new feature very useful. Quick Time X has had a major overall it looks and feels very light, is this Apple showing us a glimpse into the future?.

I've only one problem with computability with other apps, NeoOffice would not open, but a download patch from NeoOffice website cured this. I would recommend downloading AppFresh and running it before installing SL. It surprised me how many apps have recently had an upgrades, obviously due to the imminent launch of SL.

Overall your not going to see a lot of difference between Leopard and Snow Leopard, apart from the speed.

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Thanks for that Looper!

What prep did you do before the install (apart from AppFresh)? I'm awaiting my copy and just sorting out space on my USB HDD for a full backup

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

1: I got rid of all the apps a dont use any more.
2: I put my harddisc on a forced diet and removed a majority of the files (30Gig) onto another hard drive (back up, just in case).
3:Ran verify and repair permissions + ran verify and repair disk permissions with the disk utility app.

The more you use it the more you'll like it.
Just tried Photo Booth, That a cool enhancement.

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

I have photo booth on my Leopard install (came as part of the package in June 09 - thought it was part of iLife 09).

I havent got THAT much on the MacBook just yet, but I will do a Verify And Repair Permissions before I upgrade :)

Thanks for the info!

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Just waiting for my disk to arrive.

Question - I have filevault enabled, but not a great deal of personal files, does the upgrade affect Filevault?

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Mail seems a lot snapper, smoother, I like the new way of displaying menus when you right click on the dock and the New Quicktime is cool

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Thanks looper35uk for the steps you took before upgrading :tu:

Finally got it after giving up on my local PC World having it in stock...

It does in general seem much snappier when doing most tasks. QT loads so much faster and like how you can play videos in their thumbnails.

Out of curiosity, what enhancement has there been to PhotoBooth?

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

I've been playing around with it for the past week. Here are my first impressions.

I've installed it twice (first time an upgrade over leopard, with a lot of software installed, second time was a reformat/install as the mac needed cleaning up). Both times, it installed in about 30-40 minutes.

Not really a lot of new features to play with, but what there is is well implemented and a big improvement.

Quicktime 10 loads up a lot quicker, and it's interface is nice (although it's interface is strangely reminiscent of Niceplayer but is basically the iphone quicktime interface. Sadly (because I have a lot of wmvs), flip4mac doesn't seem to work reliably. Perian works nicely for other formats though.

Finder has been rewritten and feels a lot faster than it did before. I haven't got around to installing any of the software I need on it (haven't had time), so can't vouch for for how the software works.

One thing that suprises me. Bootcamp for Windows has acquired quite a nifty new feature. It includes a driver that enables Windows to read the Mac formatted hard drive. I haven't done extensive testing of it, but it doesn't seem to respect the security of the drive. It seems to allow the windows user access to all the files on the Mac HDD. As I said, I haven't done extensive testing on this, but it's something I'm going to have to look at when I am getting the Macs at work ready form the 2010/2011 academic year (so I still have a year). For security reasons, we can't allow the students access to all the files on the hard drive (even read only).

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Flip4mac SL version is a free beta for download from their site.
Most third party apps may need updates as they were using PPC libraries that were still in OSX, which went in the trash with Snow leapord.

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

True, and I had forgotten I installed the flip4mac beta..

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Stu, could you let me know if/when you resolve your F4M issues? I have a purchased copy of it as I need to do some limited exporting to WMV from iMovie and I don't want it to get b0rked when I eventually upgrade to Snow Leopard ... :erm:

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Well, the beta does work, but I was using the free version so cannot test the exporting. I would be surprised if it doesn't work.

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Well my mum put it on her laptop and complained it crashed this morning. I tried to save a BLANK document in MS word and got the spinning beachball of death.

Will fiddle more with it later.

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Could be that MS need to send an office update out though for Snow Leopard compatibility :) - I'd check the MS website :)

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

I also had a goodly degree of frigging to get wmv's working happily, but it's all gravy now. New expose is superb - love it.

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Also had massive problems with the time machine backup on an external HD. (Maxtor basics)

But I tried using it with my linkstation disk with was complaining of "broken pipes" (if anyone know UNIX jargon I would be greatful)
Testing it on a windows machine now, I'm inclined to say its the drive rather than the mac.

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Well after leaving it formatting for half an hour I find this in my event log

Curse you ebuyer!!!!

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Found my version of 1Password and Path Finder no longer work - trying to work out how and what upgrade I qualify for, took me a bit of hacking around to get a vodafone mobile internet dongle working too.

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Just found out that my Lexmark printer wont print wirelessly anymore, but it will print through a USB connection. Well thats a bit more exercise for me carrying my MacBook upstairs.

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

One niggle that might affect those who are using the Mac in corporate Windows domain (as I do), Apple have moved the Directory Services app you use to manage the Mac's connection to the domain. It's no longer possible to run it in Finder, as it's in one of the core system folders which aren't easily accessible in Finder. They are accessible, just not easily.

They've moved it into the User Accounts preference (click on the Advanced button under Join Domain). It's actually a logical place, just took me ages to find it as I wasn't expecting Apple to move it.

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Picked up my copy from PC World today. Installation was nice and painless on my MacBook and it's nice and fast.

I did have a problem installing it on my Mac Mini though as the optical drive has become very finicky just lately and it wouldn't mount the DVD. Luckily it seems you can make an image of the DVD in Disk Utility and restore the image to a partition on an external HD and it'll happily install, which saved me a load of faffing around with target disk mode. I wasn't expecting huge improvements in speed as it's an older 1.5GHz Core Solo model (so no 64-bit goodness) but it's still noticeably faster than Leopard.

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

major issues if you use a vodafone usb dongle... the E172 device has no support at all, glad I have a express card too.

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

I'd be screwed if I had one then ... my MacBook Pro doesn't have an expresscard slot!

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Well... it has finally arrived...My Upgrade copy of Snow Leopard!!! Now I just have to get time to install it!

I didn't think it was ever going to arrive!

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

OK... I couldn't wait - I Installed snow leopard... I like the new Apps menu...very much!

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Am I missing something? What new Apps menu?

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

SL 10.6.1 update is ready for downloading. Hope it includes a fix for my wireless printer drivers.

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Previously in Leopard, if you opened your apps folder from the dock, it fanned a list, but if you say, then opened the utilities folder it opened in finder, now it opens in the "fanned" area instead, with a back button to go back to the main apps menu...if its not new I didn't notice it before

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Oh, that. I normally use Spotlight as an app launcher so I never bothered having my apps folder in the dock.

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

I only use spotlight as a calculator :rolleyes:

I always put stuff organised, so then i dont need to search for them :) not that i have OCD, I just like to know where things are...

Anyway, my overall impressions of SnowLeopard are good, I installed 10.6.1 and have had no issues yet. All of my apps seem to work (mainly without updates), though I haven't tried photoshop CS4 yet

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Never really got on with "fanned" thing in the dock. But what i do like is that you can change it from fanned to this.

http://findevious.com/images/stories...2017.03.47.png

Nice I like it :)

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

It's almost like having the old pop-up folders from Mac OS 9 back again. Now if they can just get around to re-implementing AppleGuide…

Re: Snow Leopard: First Impressions
 

Mega :bump:

:D

I know I'm very late to the party, and Lion is only just around the corner, but I finally got myself a pet Snow Leopard this week.

I've been running Tiger since I got my current iMac and it always suited me, but several things have changed lately that pretty much forced me into an upgrade. The most pressing was the changes to the MobileMe calendar service, that would no longer sync with iCal in OSX 10.4 after May 5th. We use iCal and MobileMe calendar to manage bookings for our B&B whether we're home or away so keeping it running was essential.

My (belated) first impressions are very pleasing, especially with the circa 13GB of hard drive space Snow Leopard frees up compared with Tiger. I'm also loving the way Mail can recognise dates and addresses and allows me to send them straight to iCal or Address Book (similar to the way iOS does). It has made our bookings process suddenly 2 or 3 clicks simpler, especially now I can immediately click back to the email that led to the booking in the calendar.

I got a great deal on eBay for the Mac Box Set with family licence, so I'm also going to have to find time to play with iWork and iLife ... I use iPhoto and iMovie quite a lot so I'm looking forward to seeing what developments there have been in the last 4-5 years. I am also seriously pondering ditching NeoOffice (a Mac-only offshoot of OpenOffice) for iWork having seen Numbers doing some very pretty things with my profit/loss spreadsheet.

Overall, I'm as happy as a pig in muck right now, which is bad news for my productivity levels ... :D