Mac Os X 10.6 Instant Download Updated

Mac Os X 10.6 Instant Download

Sneaking in a few days before its promised September release, the tune-upward for Mac Bone 10 Leopard costs $29 for current Leopard users, and packs just enough punch to exist worth your money. Apple is careful to point out that Snow Leopard isn't a complete system overhaul, just rather a collection of hundreds of smaller refinements to brand Leopard run more than gracefully. Hidden amid smaller tweaks are some technical improvements that result in a smoother, easier-to-use Leopard with plenty for Mac fans to be excited about. The user interface and everyday tasks feel faster in full general, although we didn't notice a noun improvement in application performance.

Fifty-fifty if you lot're not a electric current Leopard user, the $169 package that includes Snow Leopard, iLife, and iWork is a steal for the system upgrade and two of Apple's major software suites, not to mention the long-pined-subsequently inclusion of Microsoft Exchange compatibility. Finally you lot will be able to connect with Exchange Servers (without using Microsoft'south Entourage), just but if your company is using Microsoft Exchange 2007; many still aren't. Snowfall Leopard is offered on a single install deejay--there are no separate, tiered pricing structures to worry nigh--and you're getting every feature and technical enhancement available in a single install. Unfortunately, for those on PowerPC systems, Snow Leopard simply works with Intel Macs.

Installation
Installation of Snow Leopard is dead simple and (according to Apple) upwardly to 45 percent faster than Leopard using a newly designed installer that asks only one question during the process. On our test machine, the process took about an hour, including 2 automatic restarts. The default setting installs Snowfall Leopard without tampering with any of your saved files, music, photos, or documents. Generally we had no issues, just on one test auto we needed to reinstall the OS when it had problem rebooting. Fortunately the new installer is designed for safely reinstalling the Bone in the event you come across whatever hiccups during your initial installation. On our second attempt, the Bone installed perfectly on our exam machine and no files were harmed. PowerPC Macs are no longer supported with Snow Leopard, however; yous will need an Intel-based Mac to install the latest Mac Os.

Those who want to do a "Make clean Install" (starting fresh by deleting everything for minimal conflicts) however can, but unlike installations in previous versions of previous Mac OS X that offered the clean install as a master option, yous'll need to apply Disk Utility to first erase the volume, and so run the install. Apple tree explained to us that not everyone knows what a clean install is and often chose it, not knowing that they would lose their files. We're happy with that answer, as long as people still get the choice in some class.

Apple besides claims that Snow Leopard uses 7GB less space than Leopard because of better file compression paired with selective driver inclusion. Co-ordinate to Apple tree, Snowfall Leopard volition locate any missing drivers on the Web for you. Nosotros had no need of any special drivers during our tests.

New technologies
Apple tree says a few new technologies in Snowfall Leopard make it worthy of the upgrade alone, with several features that Apple says will boost performance. Because all new Macs come with 64-bit multicore processors, multiple GBs of RAM, and high-powered graphics processing units, all the major applications in Snow Leopard--including the Finder--have been rewritten in 64-bit to take total advantage of the hardware. (The 64-flake technology allows application developers to allocate more than retentiveness to complete tasks and so that the software runs faster and more smoothly.)

Apple has as well added what it calls the Grand Central Dispatch that manages data sent to multicore processors in an effort to maximize functioning; Apple says the GCD will speed up any application task, from processing images in Photoshop to playing your favorite games. The add-on of the GCD also takes abroad the need for software developers to spend every bit much fourth dimension managing multicore processors.

Some other new technology in Snow Leopard is OpenCL, which allows software developers to tap into the power of whatever onboard video cards (or GPUs, for graphics processing units) for general-purpose computing without the addition of enormous amounts of code. Like the GCD, these are improvements that will mainly affect software developers. But hopefully it volition mean more and meliorate-performing software for users in the futurity.

To put some of these claims to the examination, we decided to pit Mac Os X 10.v.8 Leopard against Mac Os X ten.6 Snowfall Leopard to run into how these new technologies affected overall performance.

In our anecdotal tests of operation within the Snow Leopard user interface (UI), the operating arrangement seems faster and more responsive than with Leopard. Finder, Stacks, Expose, launching apps, and other everyday processes feel snappy. We didn't, yet, observe whatever improvement in application operation.

Overall, we saw only a two.5 percent slowdown in application operation from Leopard to Snow Leopard on our more processor-intensive functioning tests, including our multimedia multitasking test, in which we mensurate the time for QuickTime to stop converting a short movie while iTunes is performing its own conversion of MP3 into AAC format in the background simultaneously. Equally this falls inside our typical margin of error (5 percent), we saw no significant deviation with awarding operation when moving from Leopard to Snow Leopard. (See the bottom of this review for functioning charts.)

New features

Expose
Snowfall Leopard includes a number of user UI improvements intended to brand working with Mac Os X easier and more efficient. Expose, Apple's system for visually finding the window you lot desire on a cluttered desktop, used to be relegated to the Function keys on your keyboard. Snowfall Leopard at present makes Expose accessible from the Dock; but click and hold on a Dock icon to see thumbnails of all the open windows in that awarding. Hitting the Tab central lets you cycle through the preview thumbnails of each open awarding. Using Expose in the Dock is very natural and elegant, making the states wonder why this wasn't already a feature in Leopard.

Click and hold on an application icon in the Dock to bring up full thumbnails of open windows in an application.

The Dock
In addition to using Expose to detect the correct window, you now besides have the power to elevate files from one awarding to another using the Dock. Permit'due south say you want to add together an image to an e-mail, just your desktop is full of open windows. In Snow Leopard you lot can go to the image, drag it to the Postal service icon in the Dock, and your email window volition spring-load, assuasive yous to drib the image into place. Though the ability to drag and drop files in this fashion is squeamish, we're not sure information technology'due south much easier than attaching an image by browsing through your folders. Even so, if y'all know the image is already on your desktop, it's probably the faster method.

Stacks
Stacks got a much-needed upgrade as well. In Leopard, Stacks but listed a certain number of files and applications requiring y'all to go to a Finder window if your app wasn't listed. Similarly, if you lot tried to open a folder in Stacks, yous were sent to the Finder. In Snowfall Leopard, Stacks comes with a scroll bar so icons are still piece of cake to read and anything tin can be launched out of the Dock. Folders are now attainable within Stacks as well, and so you'll be able to navigate to files within folders all without leaving the Stacks Window. These changes make Stacks much more useful than before and probably should have been available when Stacks was introduced.

Now you lot can scroll through your applications and documents (and even open up folders in Stacks) without beingness sent to the Finder.

The Finder
While the Finder itself saw fiddling in the mode of interface tweaks, the manner files conduct in the Finder makes information technology easier to employ. A zoom slider has been added to the lower right of Finder windows so yous tin zoom in on icons. An enhanced icon view has been added, letting yous preview multipage documents and even play QuickTime movies without always leaving the Finder window.

Preview at present lets y'all preview almost whatever file, even if it was created with software y'all don't take on your hard drive. This means common file types from Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and fifty-fifty PDF files can all exist previewed without owning the programs they were created in. As an added bonus, Preview in Snowfall Leopard provides accurate text selection to multicolumn PDF files using bogus intelligence to infer the layout of each page. This means that Preview recognizes that at that place are multiple columns in your document so y'all can select the text you want from any cavalcade.

You tin can at present flip through the pages of multipage PDF documents using the arrows that appear over PDF docs when y'all mouse over.

Safari iv
Safari 4 has been widely available for some time, just information technology offers a couple of new features when running in Snow Leopard. Safari 4 already includes Top Sites for viewing all your favorite sites as thumbnails for easy access and full history search, which lets you lot view your history in a Comprehend Flow-like interface. Simply in Snow Leopard, Safari is at present crash resistant. This means that if a plug-in crashes, it won't crash the whole browser. Simply refresh the page to try to load the plug-in once again. Also, Safari checks to see if a site y'all are visiting is known to exist fraudulent, is distributing malware, or is known to be a phishing site, and and then warns you if it is.

Top Sites, which was already available in Safari 4, lets you navigate to your near viewed Web sites apace.

QuickTime X
QuickTime 10, Apple's media role player, got some major tweaks in Snowfall Leopard. At present, when yous play a movie and move your mouse exterior the window, the interface fades away quickly to requite yous a more immersive video-viewing experience. When watching a moving picture, y'all tin click the new Share push button to catechumen your pic for iPod, iPhone, or Apple Television receiver, and QuickTime converts the video to work best on your chosen device. You also tin now record video from your Webcam, sound, or just the action on your screen with a few clicks. Those with the iPhone 3GS will recognize the new trimming feature in QuickTime X, letting y'all grab only the video content you want.

QuickTime X probably received the well-nigh interface tweaks in the Snowfall Leopard update. The cleaned-up interface and autofade features look great (similar well-nigh things Apple), only it's more of an aesthetic improvement than annihilation else. The recording features for video, audio, and screencast capturing are the big wins here and used to be offered just in QuickTime Pro. It's good to encounter these features will be able to be used by a wider audience in Snow Leopard.

Trim your videos easily by clicking and dragging start and end points of the clip.

Exchange back up
1 of the main roadblocks for Mac users in a primarily Windows workplace was the inability to connect with Microsoft Substitution servers. Nigh Mac users used Microsoft Entourage or available open-source options as a work-around, just information technology was never as smoothen as connecting from a Windows machine with Microsoft Part. Snow Leopard now supports Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 out of the box so y'all tin easily connect using Apple's Mail service app, take hold of global address lists in the Address Book, and create meetings with contacts using iCal.

Apple did more than than simply requite y'all the ability to connect, however. Common tasks like creating meetings, for example, are incredibly easy with intuitive controls. iCal lets you view work events and personal activities all in the same window (with piece of cake controls to include or non include the information yous want). The Apple Address Book works seamlessly across Mail and iCal so you can chop-chop bring upwardly global address lists, add people to a meeting (including predesigned groups), and invitations will automatically be sent to each attendee. As an added bonus, if some attendees have scheduling conflicts with your proposed coming together fourth dimension, iCal volition automatically figure out the primeval available time that everyone is complimentary. These are features already available in Microsoft's Outlook for Windows, but in Snow Leopard the procedure feels much more intuitive.

File Quarantine
According to Apple, File Quarantine has also been refined in Snow Leopard. Start introduced in Mac Os X 10.4 Tiger, File Quarantine checks for known malware signatures, and in Snow Leopard, will now display an warning dialog if it finds a known offender. The dialog volition tell users to move the offending file to the Trash. For instance, a artificial version of iWork circulated on the Web a few months ago that independent malware. That particular malware is at present automatically detected by File Quarantine in Snow Leopard.

Apple says that File Quarantine will be automatically updated via Mac OS 10's software update as new malware signatures are found in the wild. Nosotros had no fashion to test these features, but we are happy to meet that Apple is taking strides to defend against malware equally more people switch to Macs and the danger of new malware becomes more prevalent.

Universal access
Get-go with Mac OS 10 10.four Tiger, Apple included VoiceOver to help people who are blind or with impaired vision to improve empathize and collaborate with what is happening onscreen. Apple continues to aid visually dumb users in Snow Leopard past calculation gesture support on multitouch trackpads with easy-to-larn gestures to perform specific functions. Nosotros had mixed results with these features depending on the Web page we visited, but mostly we found the features to be useful. The trackpad acts as the viewable surface area on the current window and then you tin can tap to have Window elements explained to you or swipe to motility on to the next item in the window, for example. New features in Snow Leopard are particularly helpful when Web browsing, with options like Web folio summaries to explain the various elements on a Web page you oasis't visited before, making information technology easier to get the information y'all want.

More than than 40 different Braille displays (including wireless Bluetooth displays) are supported in Snow Leopard right out of the box, allowing visually dumb users to plug in and start computing immediately.

Other refinements
Some of the smaller refinements in Snow Leopard are worthy of note, affecting many of Apple tree's core apps. iChat is now compatible with more routers, making video chat accessible to a wider range of users, and iChat Theater now offers 640x480 resolution, using only one-third the bandwidth it used earlier. New Chinese character input via the trackpad predicts which characters you're creating and offers probable subsequent characters to speed up the process. A new text substitution feature in applications similar iChat, Mail, and TextEdit lets y'all create shortcuts for phrases yous use frequently. The Services menu in Snow Leopard has been rewritten to include only the services relevant to the awarding or content yous're viewing. Core Location engineering locates nearby Wi-Fi hot spots to detect your location and automatically resets your time zone and so wherever yous are in the globe, your Mac will be set to the correct fourth dimension. While all of these are small refinements, each make your Mac easier to utilise with smart features not found in other operating systems.

Conclusions
Mac Bone X x.6 Snowfall Leopard is not a consummate system overhaul and is instead a refinement of the current Leopard Os--some take gone so far equally to call it a "service pack." We think the interface tweaks to Betrayal, Stacks, the Finder, Mail, and iCal brand Snow Leopard more simply a service pack and worthy of the $29 upgrade price. We don't similar that PowerPC users are unable to use Snow Leopard, merely we understand that subsequently three years with Intel, Apple is making a decision to continue moving forward with this applied science.

The largest of the feature enhancements are probably reason enough for Intel Mac users to spend the money on Snow Leopard. Added enhancements such every bit video, audio, and screen recording in QuickTime X were one time merely available to those who purchased QuickTime Pro (which was about $xxx--the same as this organisation upgrade). But the killer feature addition for Snow Leopard might be Exchange support out of the box--non even Windows seven comes with Microsoft Exchange back up without buying Microsoft Role.

Overall, we recollect that Snow Leopard did most everything Apple says it gear up out to do: it refined and enhanced Leopard to make it easier to use. Though the system performs well in everyday employ, many of our tests indicate it is slightly slower than the older version of Leopard in more than intensive awarding processes. Nonetheless, we highly recommend upgrading for all the new features and Microsoft Exchange support.

iTunes encoding (in seconds)
(Shorter bars point better performance)

Photoshop (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate improve performance)

QuickTime multimedia multitasking test (QT7 on 10.5.8 and QTX on 10.6) (in seconds)
(Shorter bars bespeak meliorate functioning)

iTunes multimedia multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter confined signal better performance)

Cinebench
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

System configurations:

Unibody Apple Macbook Pro / Cadre ii Duo fifteen.4-inch
Intel Core two Duo 2.53GHz; 4096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT; 320GB Hitachi five,400rpm

Apple MacBook Pro / Core Duo xv.4-inch
Intel Core Duo ii.0GHz; 2048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 256MB ATI Radion 1600, 100GB Toshiba 5,400rpm