Regretful upgrade: Snow Leopard incompatibilities
(Credit:
Apple)
Apple's $29 operating-system upgrade, Snow Leopard, is for most users a straightforward and worthwhile upgrade. But some are regretting their haste in upgrading to Mac OS X 10.6. Little incompatibilities with existing apps are causing headaches and slowing down work flow.
It's not the current versions of the big apps that don't work, of course. The latest version of Photoshop still runs. Even the current versions of the close-to-the-metal virtualization applications Parallels and VMware Fusion work in Snow Leopard. Apple's own apps--Mail, Calendar, and iTunes--all work great. And Firefox runs fine, even though Apple has its own competing browser, Safari.
But many little things don't work, and the niggles are frustrating. Dealing with them makes the Mac experience very un-Mac-like. For some users who have spent time tweaking their Mac setup, the operating-system upgrade means a step backward in the pleasure and smoothness of using the platform. They feel a hit in productivity. For people like me, it's the little hacks that make the Mac experience uniquely personal and help me paper over some of the Jobsian UI dictums of which I'd rather not be reminded.
Necessary disclaimer: Apple and third-party developers deserve much credit for ensuring that so many major apps work well in Snow Leopard, since it is such a major under-the-hood upgrade.
Most incompatibilities will be fixed, of course. Apple released Snow Leopard earlier than expected, and developers are scrambling to update their apps. But even some of the big developers have fallen behind the cycle here -- Microsoft's Live Mesh sync and backup product doesn't yet work, for example.
You can see a big list of Snow Leopard compatibility issues at the famous Snow Leopard Wikidot page. For the record, here are some of the small incompatibilities that are driving people where I work up a tree:
iStat Menus, a Mac system monitor, does not work. Developer Marc Edwards said he's been working on the 2.0 version of the product, but that Apple's timing derailed his plans. "We expected that version 2 would have been ready before 10.6 was out," he wrote to me, "but the early release meant that wasn't possible."
The preferences pane for Growl, the universal-app pop-up notifier, doesn't work. The developers say they will update the app as soon as they can.
Apple's early release of Snow Leopard caught developers off guard.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)
Cooliris, a slick image viewer plug-in for Firefox, needs an update. Michelle Turner, vice president of product at CoolIris, told me they were caught by surprise when Apple moved up the release of Snow Leopard by about a month from previous expectations. I pressed Turner to compare Apple's developer relations with Microsoft's, and she said, "Microsoft has a more laid-out release plan." Still, Cooliris for Firefox should be out in a day or two. The Safari version is trickier (since that browser is a 64-bit app) and Cooliris is "still evaluating options" for developing its product for it. You can sign up for update notifications.
XMarks, the bookmark and password sync app for browsers, doesn't work on Safari under Snow Leopard. CEO James Joaquin told me that an open beta will be made available via the XMarks blog this week, with a production version probably shortly after Labor Day. On why XMarks missed the bus on Safari in Snow Leopard, he said that the company's lead Safari developer had left and the new one had to be brought up to speed. He added that XMarks is "committed to supporting Safari," but that 90 percent of the company's 3.5 million users are on Firefox.
Letterbox, a Mail.app plug-in that gives you a three-pane view, doesn't work. The developer missed his own deadline for getting it fixed by Snow Leopard release, likely because Apple changed its release date, but presumably it'll arrive shortly.
Microsoft's cross-platform file synchronization tools, Live Mesh and Windows Live Sync, don't work in Snow Leopard. Microsoft says, "Live Mesh customers will gain support for Snow Leopard in a future release of Windows Live," but would not be more specific as to when that would be. The company is also "investigating an incompatibility" with Live Sync. Alternatives include DropBox and SugarSync, but they're paid apps, and the Microsoft utilities were free.
Finally, there's SynergyKM, an open-source, cross-platform utility that lets you share a keyboard and mouse among multiple machines on your desktop. It works, but the icon and drop-down menu in the OS X navigation bar don't appear. The app was last updated in 2006. A few people in the open-source community are working on a fix for Snow Leopard.
It is unreasonable to expect that every single app and utility that a user is running will survive an operating system upgrade, no matter which company is behind it. And as iStat developer Edwards says, "Many [developers] probably wanted to wait for the final, shipping OS version before releasing updates so they could make sure things worked with the public release." Still, it does appear that Apple made things more difficult for developers by moving the release date for the product up a month from when people had been expecting it. It may have looked like a great marketing move, but it left developers, especially the smallest, more resource-constrained, unable to hop on board.
I like Snow Leopard's improvements and new-found speed, and CNET appropriately recommends it to people who use their Macs off the rack, as it were. But I advise tweakers and geeks to hold off on this upgrade until more developers can catch up to it.
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe. 
Hate to break it to some of the people complaining, read the screen! Backup first! Check your key apps and then upgrade.... You don't go buy a new car, stick the old key in it and are surprised it does not work, do you? Or well buy a new car without digital in and complain your iPhone or iPod does not work with the new car.
Upgrades are responsibilities that both OS maker and user have to take seriously, so sorry to break it toe Rafe, if you have upgraded without checking on your key tools first, this might be a very good learning experience.
to work on their products?
Snow Leopard was available as part of ADC for long time!!!
Don't blame Apple!
worked on beta copy!
Don't you think this incomplete SP was remaned and rushed to market? And now putting blame on developer?
Can we say there is a DOUBLE STANDARD here. Its not okay if things go wrong with Windows, but its okay if things go wrong with the Mac. Please. At least Windows developers know when the OS will be coming out.
In fact; several apps not being ready for the OS X upgrade is probably somehow Microsoft's fault!!
I got a flat tire on the way to work a couple months ago... and you KNOW Microsoft had something to do with that!
Microsoft is to blame for everything!
Everything on my computer "just works" except for 3 things. 3. That's it. 3 things. All third party shareware, and all will be updated.
It also works just as well or BETTER on the 2-year old hardware I installed it on, whereas Vista was barely usable on 6-month old consumer level hardware.
How is that Vista-like in any way? Only in a mac-haters mind...
Nonetheless, I am still happy with moving forward on the upgrade.
You are out of your mind. Changes to an OS are just that - changes, not bugs. Yes changing things makes software break, nobody wants to break applications but it happens. Apple are pretty good at giving developers early access and timely updates to forthcoming OS releases (not that Microsoft aren't, I'm sure they're just as good).
Now take a moment to think, do you want a world where no new OS can change anything? No, none of us want that, not on the PC and not on the Mac, we don't want an OS to break application compatibility very much, but if the price of progress is a little, well I'm prepared to live with that.
Both true, both excellent points... and both very good reasons for Needleman not to have bothered writing this post at all. So why did he? Must be a reeeeeealy slow day in the blogosphere, huh?
Those of us who jumped on the upgrade on day 1 did so KNOWING there could be problems. I put it on my MacBook Pro and installed it fresh on a new HD, using migration assistant to bring my info over from the still intact 10.5.8 HD I replaced.
I am pleasantly surprised at how compatible this OS is. I've had no issues other than menu meters not working at first, and that has already been updated with a working beta. Other system preferences still work, though the sys pref pane is restarted in 32-bit mode. SMC fan control and others still work.
I also tried booting the MBP with 64-bit kernel for fun, and I'm writing this post now. Again, no problems. Though I don't think I can boot VMWare fusion with the 64-bit kernel. Then again, I only have XP installed as a reminder as to why I don't like it, and hardly ever use it for anything, but if I must, I can reboot in 32-bit kernel until VMWare updates Fusion.
Once Cocktail and Safari AdBlock are released for SL, I'll be fully up and running in 10.6. So while the author may not be able to use his particular customizing tweaks, maybe he should switch to ones with better support/better coders?
But again, this is not my mission critical machine. That's my iMac 3.06, used for Final Cut Pro, and it's still at 10.5.7, as I know it's stable and reliable. Once 10.6.1 is proven the same, THAT's when you upgrade.
Apple released Snow Leopard only a week or two early from what people were ASSUMING would be the release date. It was actually only 4 days early from when Apple had previously suggested it might be released.
Stop whining. If you want people to use your app (such as Letterbox or Live Mesh), get it updated ASAP or people will turn to your competitor's products and rightfully so. I respect Apple for getting it done on time unlike Vista. How long was that overdue?
In reality, I think the Snow Leopard upgrade has gone remarkably smoothly, considering the entire point of its release was to offer major "under the hood" changes that nobody but software developers would be aware of. Yes, Apple surprised some people by releasing it earlier than predicted -- but they're known to do that occasionally. If they waited the extra month to give developers more time to "catch up", then the community would whine and complain that Apple just needs to hurry up and "release it already", since "beta testers haven't received a new build in WEEKS".... You'd also start seeing massive piracy from all the people deciding to just run the last leaked developer build of Snow Leopard, since it would become clear it really was the final shipping version. People want to have their cake and eat it too, and that's just not going to happen. If Apple waited, they'd complain, and they're complaining now because they didn't wait.
Quite a few of these shareware and freeware apps and utilities are based on open-source code originally targeted for the Linux or BSD communities, too. I imagine if certain libraries break under Snow Leopard, a lot of developers who counted on them will just "wait it out" for the original library developer to fix them, before they can roll the new libraries into their own apps and declare their programs "Snow Leopard compatible" again.
If you rush into a new OS upgrade the first week the thing hits store shelves, you really should expect at least a few things not to work perfectly..... All these comparisons to Windows Vista, however, are pretty superficial. Yeah, they both had software problems after people upgraded - but that's where any similarities stop. Vista cost considerably more than the "token" $25-30 Apple is asking for a Snow Leopard upgrade, and MANY, MANY more developers were responsible for its development than Apple put on the Snow Leopard project. Despite that, and Microsoft spending over 4 years developing the thing, it had far more compatibility problems than the minor complaints people have with this OS X upgrade.
Now note that Apple has not gone the DRM route, no one is complaining about driver abandonment, and the fact that SL was released less than a month ahead of schedule, rather than a year late, and you wonder why the problem is with Mac fanboys and Apple..
Why does it matter? Lots of folks in other forums are reporting apps that are version dependent. Sure Sun says a 1.6 Java can use 1.3 classes - doesn't mean apps, usually the GUI, work properly.
For me it's a huge deal. I work with large vendor apps that still run on Java 1.4. From time to time I write custom classes for clients that use those apps. Without 1.4 on my laptop, guess where that puts me? SOL with SL. I can downgrade to Leopard or switch to M$. Anyone working with 'legacy' Java apps is in the same boat. There are _lots_ of apps built in the past few years that qualify as 'legacy'.
Sure, Java developers are a small market where Apple is concerned, but we're a vocal, techie market. We flocked to Apple when it said it would give us Java support. Now what do you suppose we'll do?
Oh and Fusion also breaks under the 64-bit kernel so that'll be 32-bit only.
Pfft, instructions! A Mac just works! You don't have to do any configuring or install any dependencies to make it work! You're so stupid LOL.
... No but really, what happened to "just working" guys?
mbenedict: I have parallels (those same apps have some XP only components) but was contemplating Linux or hari kari first, Windows only if those failed!
Manjyome Thunder: Hope you're ready for the Windows 7 roll-out. That'll just work, too. :D
As for Snow Leopard, I work in Tech Support at a Mac store and so have been hearing about some of the problems. Compared to what they could be it's shocking how few there are. Also, anyone knows that the flat version of anything (OS, software, game, etc) is going to have bugs and if they are disappointed when that happens, it's their own problem.
Overall, Snow Leopard is a great upgrade and the few minor bugs that will shortly be fixed are well worth the improvements that come with it.
My MacBook pains were similar to yours. It was refreshing to see that not everone took to a mac like fish to water. That's about all I ever found in Mac Reviews. Unlike you though I tolerate my Mac as I'm not always finding the "mac way" to do something simple. I also hate the keyboard having been spoiled by some good ones on ThinkPads and Dells.
My next Mac will be a Hackintosh. If my missing keys work I'll be happier than with a real mac.
Why do you hate your Mac? That's weird. I can understand "I play games, so I use a PC" or "I run xyz which is Windows only" or even "I'm quite happy with my PC so why would I want a Mac?". But "I hate my Mac" has me a bit foxed, I can't think of anything that you NEED a Mac for that you couldn't move to a PC, what's keeping you on the Mac? (For most people a Mac is a choice, only Windows users are stuck by necessity - aren't they?)
I use Mac/Linux/Windows (in that order) and that comes down to choice, if I wanted to I could walk away from the Mac tomorrow, but I don't want to - I really enjoy the Mac. It's not because I'm "too stupid" to use anything else. I don't think there is anything I do on the Mac that couldn't be accomplished on another platform (might be more work... but it's probably doable). If I didn't work in the IT industry I'd probably not use Linux/Windows - Linux is a great OS for some "IT project" often things you'd not commit a Mac to (like being a router, or a VoIP switch, or NAS well there's no end to what a Linux box can be "on the cheap" and you can scale it up to enterprise class if you need to). Windows, I use as I have so many clients on that OS, it's "OK", needs a little "TLC" to make it work right, and can be somewhat "uninspiring", and yeah I miss all the Unix tools (I know you can make them work, but what's the point when you can use Linux or a Mac?)
So I'm confused, what's the story with the Mac? Maybe an article?
I was happy to see that the makers of menumeters already created an SL version, and it works correctly.
And all of my HP printers work, so not sure why garfoon can't get his to work. Dymo sill likely be updated very soon.
Her HP networked printer has no such issues in XP3, nor do I have that issue using it in OS 10.4 or 5. Haven't tried 6 yet.
I use the Mac OS and XP extensively every day. When I installed SN I also installed 7 on my iMac. I wanted nothing more than for 7 to be as great as people were saying.. but it just isn't. The new task bar is great... and, after all of this time... finally having a decent built-in screen shot utility is nice to.
But at the end of the day.. you still have to defrag the drive.. and navigate through the start menu maze to get where you want. I at least hoped they would put all of the system tools in the same place (control panel).. but no.. they still split the maintenance and system config utilities for some odd reason.
That... and the damn pop-ups are so invasive.. you pretty much have to turn off all of the "security" notifications in order to get anything done. Just visiting a local news website triggered a damn security popup every time I visited a page with a flash movie.
It's funny, no matter when a company releases a product, people will always say too early. Okay, my crystal ball says January 19, it will be perfect....lol
I dont understand why people have trouble looking for anything on start menu or in control panel. Just do a search! Quick and easy.
it was internet explorer.. and there is no antivirus installed. It was the OS generating the popups. The start menu is cumbersome because it is not logical.. and forces you to wade through multiple menus for simple items. Putting all system tools in one place is common sense.
Just search.. agreed. That's what I do on my mac.. "command+spacebar" pulls down Spotlight.. I start typing "act", Activity Monitor is highlighted..hit return.. and all is good... I also use google desktop to find things in windows. However... that doesn't preclude the need to keep things organized. Apple.. even though Spotlight is an excellent application launcher.. does not scatter the applications or utilities around the hard drive.. they are on one neat folder. System Preferences.. which works well with spotlight.. has everything you need in one panel. Makes a little more sense to me.
I had a late 2008 MacBook Pro, and I went back to Windows, on a Sony VAIO FW. I don't see why you guys are always "LOL ONCE YOU GO MAC", it's not that special.
In windows just hit the windows key and start typing, hit enter when what you want is at the top. Is it more difficult because you have to press 1 less key?
Not really. OSX beats XP, but for my use (yours may vary) Vista (which I am not a fan of) has a better interface than OS X.
It's not the Vista interface I slam, it's the crappy support from MS and the simple fact that Vista remained problimatic in my installs when XP and even the Beat 7 didn't. If they could get 7 to work why the heck didn't they fix Vista right?
As for "going to dominate" - where have you been? Windows already dominates, just the wrong version. Forget Snow Leopard, if you're a PC user it's irrelevant, the only thing that really matters is can Microsoft make Windows 7 the "default choice" for PC buyers? (And at the risk of answering my own question: it seems very likely)
My printers do not work and no fix soon. My HP, Samsung and Dymo printers do not work.
TiVo desktop does not work, no talk of any fix anytime. Constant requests for my password with MobileMe synch. All of this was enough for me to uninstall before I tried my other software. I will wait for it to mature a bit more.
Cisco's own AnyConnect for SL is still in Beta so not production ready. Snow Leopard also breaks PGP WDE. How many enterprise environments mandate PGP WDE on all laptops? A gazillion. Even TrueCrypt doesn't work under SL.
These are all in 32-bit mode. Forget running anything in 64-bit mode, all hell breaks loose. E.g., Citrix.
Crap like this is why Apple isn't used in the enterprise. Apple needs to learn that they need to coordinate with their developers and user base, instead of just mandating crap on their own.
I work for a "top 10" hospital..... the built-in VPN works just fine for me (on my iPod touch and SL mac)... But even if it didn't....Cisco's VPN Client software works just fine.
Nice to see your "top-10" hospital apparently not HIPAA compliant. Hope your iPod Touch doesn't get stolen with private medical data.
For which hospital do you work for again? Lawsuit waiting to happen there... maybe your idiot sysadmins might finally treat security (and patient confidentiality) seriously.
Really, the incompetence is sometimes mind-boggling.
Ever heard of RSA??? Not HIPPA complaint because my computer can access our network through an industry standard VPN?
How is this violating HIPPA regulations?? LOL
My touch.. .just like my computer at home.. does not store patient information. I get through our VPN with an RSA key.. they remote desktop (from my iPod or Mac) into one of the computers on my desk.
If you have no access to confidential information then your reference to a "top-10 hospital" is irrelevant. Go play solitaire via VPN all you want.
What are you babbling about? I hope you don't work in hospital IT. As long as they connect through VPN the only remaining HIPAA questions are application related. They're accessing patient records, I assume through a remote client application- no data is stored on the iPod or any local computer for that matter. The software should log out after lack of use, with no remaining data, local encryption is not an issue. If you're actually storing patient information or sending e-mails regarding patients, then yes, you need to have an encrypted/secure device or application. Applications for patient information on Palms and iPods are all password protected and encrypt their internal information.
An unexpected problem was that I could not connect to work through the Cisco VPN software.. The solution.. even though all I had to do was reload the Cisco software.. was to use the built-in Cisco-compatible VPN connection settings that were already in the OS. I'm not sure if Snow Leopard added better VPN support.. but it's an even smoother process for me now.. especially since I thought it was strange that my iPod could connect to my work VPN without 3rd party software...
That said.. there were a lot of tech "journalists" that incorrectly touted this update as minor...which is part of the problem. This was not a minor update by any means.
You realize that after the first 5 minutes..... it's noticeably faster.
Brother Laser Printer - Okay
Fujitsu ScanSnap Scanner - Okay
EyeTV Tuner - Okay
MS Office - Okay
Paralels Desktop - Okay
Menu Meters - nope, update needed (freeware)
Vuze - nope, update needed (freeware)
-E
HERE THAT WINDOWS USERS: NO REBOOT REQUIRED. ;)
I think you'd get a little more than that. Where did you get the "extra $1000" (sic) figure from? How much you'd spend/save really depends, if you're looking to develop software for the platform then you get Xcode with a Mac, and Visual Studio costs a fortune on Windows. Macs often work out cheaper, but not always - don't believe the hype, check out ALL the options (and unlike Microsoft's "Laptop Hunters" think about the cost of the software, that's likely to be more than the price of the system!)
Nothing is perfect. Look at Microsoft and Windows Vista. It was pure junk when it first came out, now it's not so bad after tons of patches. Same wiht Xbox 360. It really sucked by breaking so much, and now they are updating the hardware (not sure 100% if it helped as results too early to analyze) but everything new is always a dud in some form or another.
There are exceptions though, but if I say what it is I'm going to be dubbed a fanboy.
You are absolutely right. It's the FOSS and Apple fanboys that get it wrong. Vista had the same problems with OEM and third-party stuff but took the hit for it. The FOSS and Apple fanboys love to gloat about this but they forget reality: software is made by imperfect humans and businesses are out to make a buck.
"You are absolutely right. It's the FOSS and Apple fanboys that get it wrong. Vista had the same problems with OEM and third-party stuff but took the hit for it. The FOSS and Apple fanboys love to gloat about this but they forget reality: software is made by imperfect humans and businesses are out to make a buck."
I think the FOSS peeps might have you on: "out to make a buck".
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/01/02/apple-market-share-tops-10-windows-share-lowest-since-tracking/
Says Macs has less than 4.87% share, vs Windows at 93.06%.
snow leopard<Vista there fixed that for ya"
I guess you have a different version of Vista on your planet. On earth, it's at least debatable.
- by jheinikel September 1, 2009 11:48 AM PDT
- Enjoy the "service pack" that you had to pay for! Make sure Apple at least calls you in the morning after this one hahaha.
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- by Gadget70 September 1, 2009 1:48 PM PDT
- You can call it a patch all you want. I'll pay $29 for exchange support built-in anyday. Windows doesn't even have exchange built-in! Adios windows, OS X is now going to eat up the office demographic
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- by ckh1272 September 3, 2009 10:41 AM PDT
- @jheinikel --Your delusions of grandeur astound me. Microsoft may have to add more phone in a few months, so I wouldn't be too happy right now. These "issues" are a whole bunch of nothing just like the Vista release.
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- by ckurowic September 7, 2009 6:54 PM PDT
- @gadget70: agreed, now there is NO reason a workplace cannot let users choose what OS they want to use. An IT department that cannot support both is downright worthless and I would not tolerate it. Before people start flaming me for that comment, yes I actually do work in IT (M.S. in IA and B.S. in technology management).
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- by Hernys September 7, 2009 9:46 PM PDT
- @ckurowic:
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Showing 1 of 5 pages (294 Comments)Really? Not counting the fact that Apple doesn't support even 5% of the enterprise necessities (such as Group Policy, full disk encryption OOB, Enterprise Rights Management, NAC/NAP support, etc.) you don't think that support departments have good reasons to force standardization? And that's not counting that Apple's security is definitely far from enterprise ready.
So yes, there are good reasons for companies, to their discression, not allowing certain OSs to be run, which can be legal, technical, economic or operational. If a company wants to standardize on the Mac, that's great, but don't think that every company should, because there are many situations where Leopard would become a liability.