Snow Leopard: Our Observations
Friday, August 28, 2009 at 4:37PM 
Snow Leopard is now purring along here at TDL. Just on one computer right now, until we make sure there's nothing that would bring anything to a crashing halt. Here's the experience so far:
Apple packaging: Kudos to Apple for slimming down the dvd box to what is probably the absolute minimum.
Shipping logistics: Apple must've done tremendous work behind the scenes to get all these copies out nearly simultaneously today. That might be the under-reported story: The coordination with FedEx is so slick now, I imagine with future/bigger product releases we'll see Apple finding creative ways to release products at specific times.
Disk Space: Before the installation, the MacBook Pro test machine was perilously close to being out of space at 4.5GB. After installation, the system reports 17.89 GB of free space. I don't think I've ever installed any software before and gained space. A quick note though: bear in mind the way Apple reports disk space has changed in Snow Leopard, so really, i"m probably at about 14GB by the old math. Whether it's from elimination of PowerPC code, (but remember, they had to add 64 bit code) or truly a slick optimization of the OS, that extra space is really nice when you're on the verge of running out.
Mail: Just a heads up that as with Leopard, your mail messages will need to be converted into a new format when you first launch it. It's amazing how many different times lists of mainly text messages can be re-formatted. The process is faster than it was with the Leopard upgrade.
Safari: Safari does seem a little faster. If that's just a fresh cache dump or what will be apparent over time. Also, please Apple, put the refresh button over with all the other navigation buttons. I know we've talked about it before, but it's an easy thing to change, or make into a preference.
Quicktime X: Maybe I'm the only who feels this way, or maybe no one's speaking up, but I prefer to have some player around my media. I'd rather have plain grey around a movie I'm watching in QuickTime, rather than the video being up against the background image.
Performance: Startup and shutdown do seem noticeably faster, beyond that, it'll take a little more playing with it.
Don't forget you can ask us your Snow Leopard questions Monday night during TDL Live, Monday night at 9PM ET / 6 PM PT.
Reader Comments (3)
How do you like Dock Exposé?
Also, please Apple, put the refresh button over with all the other navigation buttons. I know we've talked about it before, but it's an easy thing to change, or make into a preference.
why? it's fine where it is. why complicate the preferences menu with a pointless feature to second-guess someone's design decision like that? how many times do you click refresh (rather than Apple-R) anyway?
Maybe I'm the only who feels this way, or maybe no one's speaking up, but I prefer to have some player around my media.
i for one don't. that's why i was using VLC and other apps to play video, the QT player took up a huge amount of screen real estate, especially at the bottom, with its incredibly large & tall play button and controls.
Hi Chris,
I think Iwould be fine with the way QuickTime X works, if it would (or give you an option) to grey out the rest of the window, similar to the way several online photo galleries work.
As for the refresh button in Safari, it makes sense to me to have it with all the the other buttons. I'm a mouse guy myself, so I rarely use Apple-R, at least until the button moved. I think this was done to mimic the position of the reload info on Safari on the iPhone.
@Partners in Grime: Dock expose is fine, but will take a little getting used to.