Hands-on: Snow Leopard all about speed

commentary From the time it first announced Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Apple made it clear that this wouldn't be like other Mac OS X releases. Work on the newest operating-system version would not focus on adding hundreds of new features but rather on improving on its previous releases.

(Credit: Apple)

While the speed of an operating system may not be considered by some to be a feature like Spotlight or Expose, the snappiness I have felt in using Snow Leopard has impressed me most. Everything I do feels noticeably quicker, from booting the machine to opening applications.

I didn't consider the start-up times in Leopard to be slow until I installed Snow Leopard. Likewise for applications--opening and working with applications just seems a bit quicker.

Brian Croll, Apple's senior director of Mac OS X marketing, explained to CNET that Mac OS X is made up of more than 1,000 individual projects. According to Apple, 90 percent of those projects have been touched in one way or another. For some projects, that meant a total rewrite; for others, it could be a few minor tweaks.

"We've refined everything from beginning to end," Croll said. "Everyone benefits from a faster system."

Technology integration also accounted for a large part of Snow Leopard. For instance, a new technology called Grand Central Dispatch makes Mac OS X aware of the multiple cores found on today's more advanced computer systems. That means that applications can distribute processes across multiple cores automatically.

Of course, Snow Leopard supports only the new multicore Intel-based architecture, not the older PowerPC machines. The move makes sense, considering that more than 80 percent of its customers have already moved over to one of its Intel-based desktops or notebooks.

While Snow Leopard includes features like built-in Exchange support for business users, there are a few surprises in the operating system for consumers too. For instance, Dock Expose allows the user to focus on an app and its open windows by simply clicking and holding the icon in the dock.

Croll said the No. 1 cause of crashes in Mac OS X are Safari plug-ins. In Snow Leopard, if a plug-in crashes while browsing the Web, it won't crash the entire application--just that plug-in. Reloading the page will reactivate the plug-in.

Of course, Snow Leopard is coming out just before the release of Microsoft's Windows 7. While Croll indicated that Microsoft's new operating system isn't quite as easy to use--"we strive to make it as easy as possible on the Mac, and it's just not like that with Windows"--consumers and businesses will soon be able to judge for themselves.

You can read more about Mac OS X Snow Leopard in CNET's full review.

[fazalmajid]

"the No. 1 cause of crashes in Mac OS X are Safari plug-ins".

By which he means Flash, of course...

[MyRightEye]

Yep...

[tektaktyks]

wow,flash doesnt cause any crashes in my windows 7,vista or xp,firefox is the browser i use ,actually non of my systems crash.

[JigenIII]

@tektaktyks: i have firefox on winxp and i have had plenty of flash related crashes.

[tektaktyks]

what can i tell you...you must be doing something wrog

[heavydevelopment]

Mark my words, Flash is dying. DHTML and AJAX are the culprits.

[sharmajunior]

OS X is good. Hardware is crap. Just had 2 fried power adapters and 3 logic boards replaced and its not even 3 months old. Talk about defective hardware.

[ElementalMac]

@tektaktyks: "what can i tell you...you must be doing something wrog"
What is "wrog"?

[ikramerica--2008]

It does not crash OSX, it crashes SAFARI, which then just quits and you restart it. Since there is no "work in progress" you don't lose anything, and you can choose to "reopen all windows from last session" to recover.

And it is almost entirely FLASH that crashes Safari, though also JAVA can.

And Flash sure does crash explorer and firefox too.

[tektaktyks]

@ ElementalMac i tell you what is wrong battery in my keyboard was dying,and u found a missing letter ,bravo macboy,great detective work...u get a medal

[o2bpitching]

Jim, thank you for an honest look at Snow Leopard. I am tired of the trolls who doubt the value of this new operating system. Hopefully this will put their baseless complaining to an end.

The new features look great and I cannot wait to install Snow Leopard on Friday!

[ikramerica--2008]

The CNET review showed all app tests ran slower on Snow Leopard, yet they said it was faster. This confused me. I plan on getting SL on Friday to try on my Hackintosh Netbook and MacBook Pro (but not on my iMac which is mission critical), but if it's slower, I'm worried.

[o2bpitching]

I'm no expert, but I read through the Cnet review, along with reviews from Gizmodo, Engadget, Macworld, Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. All the reviews felt that the OS was indeed much faster in real use, despite what the benchmarks say. One of the reviews (I believe it was Engadget) speculated that the slowdown was not in fact the OS, but it was the benchmark software used to test the system. It is unable to look at the full capabiulities of the system. If you use Geekbench, which is able to measure the multicore performance and GPU decoding of the system, Snow Leopard does indeed show an improvement over Leopard.

Long story short, I think you will find that in real world usage it is indeed faster. But for full confirmation you (and I) will have to wait until Friday

[ikramerica--2008]

I'm sure the interface is faster, and likely multi-tasking is faster. And likely, once Photoshop is updated, it will overcome some bottlenecks that are making that test run slower (similar to what happened with Altivec, Intel switches).

I was just discouraged that Quicktime scores were slower across the board, despite a new Quicktime X that's 64 bit.

But I assume that if you are encoding in the background, it will be faster while you do other things than under Leopard. We'll see.

[eswinson]

Say what you want but my first generation MacBook Air is actually usable now.

[tektaktyks]

its just an os,the point is it runs on overpriced hardware

[pithenumber]

its a good os
and one can hack it onto normal hardware

[sebastien.kalonji]

It's the best OS! the point is it doesn't run on ****** hardware.

[tektaktyks]

you have no idea what u r talking about

[Perry_Clease]

"by tektaktyks August 26, 2009 7:23 PM PDT
you have no idea what u r talking about"

Oh my God! He just made a comment about his comment!

[The_happy_switcher]

Tektaktyks: What IS your first language? Because it certainly ain't English.

[ckh1272]

"by tektaktyks August 26, 2009 7:02 PM PDT
its just an os,the point is it runs on overpriced hardware"

And you should just move along little troll, since you don't use this stuff anyway. What exactly is your point for being here anyway??

[saturdaysaint]

I've never had a better system than my mid-2007 Macbook Pro. Rock solid stability, tight hardware integration, best-of-breed software... I hope to use it for years to come. A few hundred dollar price premium is well worth it for something you spend hundreds of hours on.

[tektaktyks]

i do have it installed,i just dont find much use for it except for final cut,and i would use avid mc in w7 but some files exported from fc are just incompatible with it because apple wants to be a ****(female dog) and wont provide a codec and converting hd video takes forever.

[compbry15]

More infinitely long sentences please.

Seriously, I enjoy both Mac and PC so this debate is moot to me, but if you are going to try to advocate for something, at least learn to express yourself in a readable manner.

[faellen-]

If you wish to communicate in an effective manner, it is important to be grammatically correct regardless of the language. Long sentences often lose track of the intended message. I don't believe everyone should be expected to have pretty, concise, and otherwise poetic constructions, but I do think at least a correct sentence is necessary.

The statement you made about pretty sentences is rather foolish. Not only is it sexist, but it paints your words with a sense of unimportance. If you want your comments to be taken into actual consideration by any serious audience, the use of foul language and attacks of others should never be used.

However, you are right: you do not need to perfect a piece of writing to make others happy. I don't believe compbry15's point was anything beyond suggesting being a little more clear when making a point so that others do not misunderstand your words.

[tektaktyks]

@ faellen -i hope i didnt hurt anybody's feeling,im not being hostile or anything,j was just saying that i dont really care

[ikramerica--2008]

what exported codecs from FCP don't work? Do you even know how to use FCP? It uses industry standard codecs. Apple Intermediate Codec is to be used internally as it's faster, renders quickly and takes up far less scratch space, but you can output in all standard codecs just fine.

Again, you don't know how to use your software, so don't blame the software. FCP has a lot of problems, but your complaint is baseless.

[ckh1272]

"by tektaktyks August 26, 2009 8:58 PM PDT
@ faellen -i hope i didnt hurt anybody's feeling,im not being hostile or anything,j was just saying that i dont really care"

And I'll say it one more time. Why are you here?? Oh, and way to blame FC Pro for the Avid issue. See if you if you can pull that off in reverse with Avid files.

[tektaktyks]

@ikramerica heres all the codec info :
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : QuickTime
Codec ID : qt
File size : 1.58 GiB
Duration : 8mn 32s
Overall bit rate : 26.5 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2008-01-16 13:10:53
Tagged date : UTC 2008-01-16 13:16:18
Writing library : Apple QuickTime
com.apple.finalcutstudio.media.u : B8B854BB-F964-4D34-92FD-903BB1E45068

Video
ID : 1
Format : hdv3
Codec ID : hdv3
Duration : 8mn 32s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 25.0 Mbps
Width : 1 440 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.643
Stream size : 1.49 GiB (94%)
Encoded date : UTC 2008-01-16 13:10:53
Tagged date : UTC 2008-01-16 13:16:18

Audio
ID : 2
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : sowt
Duration : 8mn 32s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Stream size : 93.8 MiB (6%)
Encoded date : UTC 2008-01-16 13:10:53
Tagged date : UTC 2008-01-16 13:16:17

Menu
ID : 3
Format : TimeCode
Encoded_Date : UTC 2008-01-16 13:16:18
Tagged_Date : UTC 2008-01-16 13:1....
...yea i know fcp,its as easy as avid xpress or media composer,and i didnt output the file i got it from somebody ,so your your complaint is baseless
@ ckh1272 im not blaming fcp but apple and its not avid issue but also premiere and other editing programs.im here to save some poor dumb people from being conned into buying an apple computer,i dont care about the grammar ,u a bit slow aren't you?

[rouse51]

My friend just purchased a mac book and I was really impressed at the stability of it compared to my PC that I spent 6 hours getting rid of crap and updating Vista. He may have paid twice as much but he has already got three times the use out of it. Mine has chrashed at least once a day websurfing along with my work computer running office. Yet he plugs along running office for mac just fine. His last MAC is 8 years old and running without any issues, I am on my 4th PC and second laptop. Doing the math he has paid $1800 and I have paid a total of $3600, which makes his MAC purchases $1800 cheaper then mine. Compared to my friends I am on the low end of that scale. I guess it's like a car. I can drive a cobolt and complain or drive a reliable car like a Fusion and be happy. In the end you get what you pay for. Make my next PC a MAC.

[stewy79]

amen!

:) it's worth it, i promise

[o2bpitching]

I made the switch in October of 2007, right when Leopard came out. I got one of the new iMacs, and let me tell you it is the best computer I have ever owned. I switched to Mac and I never once looked back. Now I have the iMac and a new MacBook Pro and they are a joy to use. Slightly more expensive upfront, but they save you so much time and money in the long run.

[tektaktyks]

if u dont wok for apple ...u r just clueless when it comes to buying the right pc and how to make your machine run .6 hours ?dude get some pro help

[o2bpitching]

but see tektaktyks, thats the point.
1) it shouldn't take 6 hours for the average user to clear the crap off of a PC
2) you shouldn't need to get pro help to maintain your PC

Please do us all a favor and stop trolling on the Snow Leopard articles. We all know you like MS more. No need to keep harping on that

[saladbar1]

Finally somebody who is level headed. My friend has some of the macs from the Apple II era, and they still work wonderfully. He even has one that requires the floppy disk to run, the screen is just black and green, still works too. They have an Intel mac (the white iMac) that works great too, as well as the bubble iMac, still works great too.

In my house, we've been through three PCs. Our first was a gift, the second we bought ourselves, the third I built. However I've gone through three mobos on the third. First was DOA, second doesn't support virtualization which I will use in Win7 so I had to get one that did.

In the end, that built PC cost as much as the mid-07 MacBook I'm posting this on. The only upgrade I've done on here was going from 1GB to 2GB of ram, and what a difference it made.

Preordered Snow Leopard and can't wait to get it. Hopefully it will come on Friday since that's my birthday, it would be great.

Oh, and tektaktyks, why don't you lay off on the insults long enough to learn some grammar skills? As my friend said to somebody who flamed and talked like you, "If you can't figure it out, ask a 5 year old"

Have a good evening!

[saladbar1]

And now that I see that english is not your native language, I take back what I said.

But still, stop trolling. It's one of the reasons I can't stand reading comments on sites like this or Neowin, people bash like crazy.

[sharmajunior]

Ok now, how many times do we have to go through this. Its a Mac and not MAC (Media Access Control). Thank you.

[heygeo]

Let's try to be honest here for a second...
just doing the simple math... 3600 divided by 6 PCs/Laptops = 600.00 per PC.. and 600 per laptop?! puhleeez I call Bulls**t.
I find it hilarious that you say at the end of this drivel "In the end you get what you pay for", clearly you are either undeniably cheap hence why you most likely will never own a Mac (as they are ridiculously expensive) or just a plain bald face liar who should done a better job at being an Apple shill.

[B-Ri]

Wow, I'm shocked an OS X article and people are bashing Windows again. Then the windows fans come out and bash OS X. I use and own both Macs and PCs and I have very little trouble with either system. I have had hardware issues with both and software issues on both, so what. That all being said I don't understand how you can spend 6 hours getting rid of crap and updating Vista. Are you talking about viruses and spyware? If so then yes trying to clean that up can be time consuming, a better/quicker solution would be to back up and re-install windows. As far as crashing once a day websurfing and using office, dude that's not normal. Either a hardware issue or something related to the virus/spyware you have/had on your machine and subsequently cleaned off. I have a Gateway Desktop PC from 2000 still running as a media/file server. It has been running pretty much non stop for at least a couple years. I also have an old iMac G4, the one that looks like a lamp. That thing is also still running like a champ. I guess my point is that regardless of your OS of choice you can get a positive experience. I'm just tired of the same old tired arguments from both sides.

[slickuser]

Add SSD, this thing is awesome for users !

[CammKelly]

OSX, stable. You gotta be kidding me. And hardware stability, pffft. Last time I spend 5000 on a laptop. Stupid overpriced POS....

[steve4lee]

Yes, one shouldn't spend $5,000 on a Point-of-Sale computer.

[ikramerica--2008]

What Mac Laptop costs $5000? I can't configure a 17" above $4499 even after adding the stupidly priced 8GB of RAM and equally overpriced 256GB SSD (non-Intel).

[ckh1272]

@CammKelly--Care to clarify, since this is your first post on CNET? How did you manage to spend $5k on a laptop? Or is it all just some BS to throw out there?

[Dalkorian]

Interesting, most trolls use at least one small tidbit of truth in their rambling nonsense. Are you allergic to the truth?

[Aerilus]

just waiting for apples market share to get large enough to be targeted by viruses that will be the real test of how stable Snow leopard is and how apple implements a full blown anti-virus. In my opinion apples OS skills have not been fully tested because they have not been the target malicious malware. as they expand there market share I expect to see many more viruses as well as targeted adware and such. as of now I have seem only two apple viruses on osX. waiting to see a mac come in with 80 browser bars. but then again they have proved fairly adept at locking down there app store so maybe they can keep there software regulated on snow leopard and beyond.

[Dalkorian]

by Aerilus August 26, 2009 9:54 PM PDT
just waiting for apples market share to get large enough to be targeted by viruses ...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Really? That happened a decade ago with OS 9, it suffered from hundreds of them with less market share than OS X currently has. I can find no reason to read another word of your misinformed rant.

[Mr. Dee]

Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Worlds Most Yawnable Upgrade

[The_happy_switcher]

I can say the same for your posts. ZZZZZ

[o2bpitching]

Windows 7: The World's Biggest Mea Culpa

[ckh1272]

Thanks Mr. Dee for confirming my earlier statement about sad little people like yourself. Good luck in getting a life.

[stickfu]

But exciting enough for shillbot to post?

[invisible21]

Okay, I just glanced at the review and "requires $29 upgrade fee" is listed as a negative? How much is the upgrade price for Windows Vista/7/whatever? This is a substantial upgrade and Apple pricing it at $29 should be praised.

As for the typical Mac haters, I used to be hardcore PC because I thought Macs were for dummies. Little did I realize there's just as much ability to be a "power user" as there is on a Windows PC if not more. And when I don't want to be a power user, it just works. Also, I know for a fact that Leopard runs perfectly on a nearly 10 year old Power Mac G4. Show me a 10 year old PC that can run Vista or 7, and then show me that that computer still powers on...that's what I thought.

[invisible21]

whoops, just did a little "fact" checking after flying off the handle a little and it's probably more like a 7-8 year old G4 without aftermarket upgrades, but it still makes my point.

[B-Ri]

Yeah I wouldn't put the $29 price as a "bad" item. But lets face it Windows 7 and Snow Leopard really should be free updates to their predecessor. Neither really adds massive new features that I can tell. You say Snow Leopard is a substantial upgrade but it isn't even out yet how would you know? All the reports including the CNET review seem to indicate that it isn't a major upgrade for the user, that doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile as CNET also says. But that's neither here nor there. I wish 7 was cheaper but that's not MSs style. I did order a copy at the $49 promo price and I believe it is normally $99 for the upgrade. I haven't run 7 on 10 year old hardware but I do have it running on an old Lenovo X40 laptop and it appears to work better than XP that came with it. I could put it on my older Gateway tower that's 9 years old and since it is similar spec-wise to the X40 I have no doubt it would run smooth but why would I want to do that. Its better to use the old hardware as a media/file server.

[ikramerica--2008]

In 2009, $29 is not a lot of money. It's sad, but here in Los Angeles, you can pay $29 for 2 movie tickets at certain movie theaters on a Friday night.

Or, if you want to look at it as a lifespan thing, assuming it's 1.5 years until 10.7, that's 500+ days, or about a nickel a day. If a nickel a day is too much to pay for a "modest" upgrade, all software companies should just go out of business now because the world now expects everything to be perfect and free of charge...

[invisible21]

@B-Ri

I may have chosen my wording wrongly by using substantial because I have read all the reviews and I understand that it's mostly feature tweaks. I say substantial because even though they are mostly enhancements, that's generally what OS updates are and the enhancements here are all nice and more obvious than 95% of XP Service Packs (to which some Windows lovers/Apple Haters compare Snow Leopard to). For myself in particular, the fact that Quicktime X has all the features of Quicktime Pro, which was $29 is enough to make the jump to Snow Leopard 'substantial' enough to justify it's price tag.

Anyhow, just my $.02. Also, that is interesting about your x40 running 7. My experience with Vista was not as negative as some but I had a fairly beefy PC and Vista used over 2GB of memory regularly just to sit 'idle'. I guess they've finally sorted some things out in 7. Here's hoping the corporate world takes to Windows 7 because I think that's what really killed Vista.

[Tucknoloji]

Can anyone have a knowledge about Boot Camp 3.0 and 2.0. What is difference and what would be advantage of having Boot Camp 3.0 in Mac. as per my knowledge, the New Boot camp 3.0 will help Microsoft OS windows 7 to run swifttly along with Snow Leopard ... is it right ???

[kelmon]

You have to figure that Snow Leopard probably doesn't support Windows 7 yet since it has not been released. When October roles around and Windows 7 hits the streets then I'm expecting to see Apple release a Boot Camp update of some description.

[Gold_Storm_Mac]

this is new in snow leopard
HFS+ read support in Boot Camp.

Boot Camp now includes HFS+ read support that enables you to access the files on your Mac OS X partition from Windows. It?s read-only to prevent PC viruses from affecting Mac OS X, but you can easily save your work to your Windows partition and access it later from Mac OS X.

[DrtyDogg]

Does anyone know if they have updated the EFI firmware so we can natively dual boot yet?

[Mystigo]

What does that mean: "natively dual boot"? You can boot into any installed OS from power on by holding down the option key. That has been there basically forever. Is that what you mean?

[kelmon]

I am thoroughly looking forward to installing this on Saturday. As much as I like a lot of the features of Leopard, it is the worst release of OS X that Apple has made since it has consistently given me issues throughout its life. Even today, with 10.5.8 installed, I still has instances where the OS gets completely screwed up such that applications cannot be killed and the whole computer has to be restarted. I really hope that Snow Leopard is going to address these sorts of problems.

[michael_j_x]

When are we going to see Windows 7 vs Snow benchmark comparisons?

[o2bpitching]

As soon as someone can benchmark them using Geekbench. But the test would have to be on the same computer, just different partitions, so as to make the hardware equal.

[BennyBoyBlue]

I've never really used an Apple machine myself, don't like their snobby advertising campaign and Windows and Linux have always been essentially free and what I used at work.

However, I feel a bit of a void in my life because I don't blindly support a massive multinational that engages in anti-competitive business practices.

Now I hear a lot of bad things about about Nestle. What do you Apple heads think ? I've heard other chocolate brands actually jump out of you pocket and attack the neighbours' dogs. My wife ate a Cadbury's Dairy Milk and 2 minutes later she's put on 100lbs !

[Dalkorian]

faellen-, this is the second CNET article I've read with that exact word-for-word post from Ben342. There are two explanations for this, either he's a troll making this whole thing up (most likely) or he's angry because of a hardware issue (bad RAM by the sound of it). If it was a hardware issue, I would think he would try to find someone (an Apple store? a Google search?) who could explain it and hopefully fix it for him instead of whining on blog after blog about the new OS Apple is releasing.

[faellen-]

I had the same impression of him earlier, I just don't like to attack the words of someone else.

However, it appears his comment was removed and along with mine. I think that supports the hostility of his words and the unnecessary flood of posts were nothing more than the voice of someone wanting to discredit Apple.