Whoever was in charge of Mac OS X at that time should be promoted to the President of Operating Systems of this entire planet.
The myth of Snow Leopard
71–80 of 120 posts
Re: The myth of Snow Leopard
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true, but it’s also true of many other OS X and MacOS releases over the years. You’ve definitely hit on the core of the issue with the Snow Leopard myth, though: comparing the final battle-hardened bug-patched version of an OS, to a newly released version. Seems like “Snow Leopard” always gets trotted out whenever someone is unhappy with the latest release.
See also: Windows XP. Upon release it was a security/stability CF. Today there are retrocomputing forums dedicated primarily to it. What they are gazing rose-coloredly back on is likely Windows XP SP3, not how the OS was upon its release.
Until recently, no reasonable person ever expected a major new OS release to be rock solid before its first major point-release. And actually nothing has changed, except that what we used to call a "point-zero" release is now called a Public Beta.
Windows XP was sufficiently reliable by SP1, sufficiently secure by SP2, and sufficiently prepared for an extended lifespan by SP3.
Re: The myth of Snow Leopard
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
See also: Windows XP. Upon release it was a security/stability CF. Today there are retrocomputing forums dedicated primarily to it. What they are gazing rose-coloredly back on is likely Windows XP SP3, not how the OS was upon its release.
Because it was followed by garbage that didn't get taken out until 7, which was soon after followed by permanent forced garbage.
Vista wasn't garbage. In fact, Vista and 7 precisely parallel Leopard and Snow Leopard both in timelines and in release quality—a somewhat rushed, haphazard release of a new OS with tons of new features, many of which were considerably more resource-intensive than the previous release. 7 was more or less Vista SP3. The design language didn't even change except the Start bar.
People had bad experiences on Vista because they tried to run Windows Aero on 2001 hardware, and hardware vendors for once strong-armed MS into certifying their half-decade-old hardware as 'ready for Vista'.
Re: The myth of Snow Leopard
#74I have great memories of Snow Leopard. It even gave you back a few GB of storage (IIRC) at a time when every GB really counted.
I got 30 GB back on a 256 GB hard disk drive. It was amazing.
Re: The myth of Snow Leopard
#75Wasn't a lot of Snow Leopard an exercise in removing old cruft from the PowerPC architecture, and the last release to support 32-bit Intel machines? From my perspective at the time, it was really meant to set up Mac for the next decade or so, which it did brilliantly.
That's not how I remember it. In fact, Snow Leopard was no less buggy than any other release, I'd say. As explained in the article, that mythology of a stable release was formed over time later on.
I don't know what the opposite of rose-tinted glasses are, but I think the article paints a misleading picture by leaving unstated how polished 10.5.8 wasn't. Sure 10.6.0 had some new bugs due to landing major new under-the-hood technologies, but there were no serious regressions. It was a rare major release where you could install it on day one and not end up regretting it.
Of course 10.6 got better over time, and 10.6.8 was the best release of them all, and it was followed by Apple's answer to Windows Vista. But that doesn't mean 10.6.0 sucked.
Re: The myth of Snow Leopard
#76I don’t necessarily agree with Jeff Johnson’s conclusion that major software upgrades are impossible on an annual schedule. I also don’t know what he’s looking for, as someone who worked at Apple during this time quality improved substantially in 10.6 Snow Leopard and continued. Most bug fixes don’t get a marketing line item or even much fanfare. We were all users of what the OSX guys were doing and lived on the dogf…
> As I age I realize you need to entice the user with more value and service - anew features
Is this true of operating systems for most people?
Personally I’d take macOS from 15 years ago (with security bug fixes and new hardware support, assuming modern apps still worked, but no new features) over today’s Windows any day.
Re: The myth of Snow Leopard
#77I don’t necessarily agree with Jeff Johnson’s conclusion that major software upgrades are impossible on an annual schedule. I also don’t know what he’s looking for, as someone who worked at Apple during this time quality improved substantially in 10.6 Snow Leopard and continued. Most bug fixes don’t get a marketing line item or even much fanfare. We were all users of what the OSX guys were doing and lived on the dogf…
> As I age I realize you need to entice the user with more value and service When companies use to charge for OS … and the releases were staggered by 3-4 years, I would have agreed. But when OS upgrades are free, and happen yearly - there’s a different user expectation.
I'd gladly pay for the OS if this guaranteed abstaining from unnecessary changes and/or from removing useful features (eg 2d Spaces in Leopard and Snow Leopard, replaced by the inferior abomination that is Mission Control)
Re: The myth of Snow Leopard
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it was followed by garbage that didn't get taken out until 7, which was soon after followed by permanent forced garbage.
Vista wasn't garbage. In fact, Vista and 7 precisely parallel Leopard and Snow Leopard both in timelines and in release quality—a somewhat rushed, haphazard release of a new OS with tons of new features, many of which were considerably more resource-intensive than the previous release. 7 was more or less Vista SP3. The design language didn't even change except the Start bar. People had bad experiences on Vista becaus…
I had a brand new PC that came with Vista on it, it was terrible. Not just slow but also BSODs and bad UI. School PCs were higher end than mine but also had BSODs.
Re: The myth of Snow Leopard
#79Oh, this again. I should put a website with this up... I was the person who personally ran 10.6 security updates at Apple (10.6.1+), the "DRI". My team in the Updates Program office and I reviewed every single bug to determine if it should go in a security and stability update or wait for the next major version. Seriously, every morning we group triaged all Mac OS X bugs, both incoming and those nominated internally…
From years of experience with Apple software, I'm never installing any y.0
Re: The myth of Snow Leopard
#80A lot of comments are missing (IMO) the main point, which is the conclusion in the last paragraph.
> Still, whether Snow Leopard really was this bastion of stability and polish, the myth surrounding its development and stated purpose obviously resonates today. People invoke its memory because they’re broadly craving stability and quality of life improvements, something almost everyone has wilfully discarded as they chase the next rung of enshittification.
A lot of people want stability and polish. They get enshittification. I regard mobile app updates as new versions are usually worse TomTom (the free version - that replaced Amigo) is a good example. A major update took away the feature that most made me use it in the first place - it had full screen turn indicators you could see without looking at it directly (so not looking away from the road).
On the other hand its hard to think of a mobile app or website update that actually added anything I want recently. Things like Facebook certainly keep getting worse (especially for a group admin which is why I usually go on there). Banking websites mostly want to seem to push you to use the app.