Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was billed as primarily under-the-hood
changes to OS X 10.5 Leopard, but
it was much more significant than that.
Snow Leopard was announced at the June 2008 Worldwide Developer
Conference (WWDC) and released on August 28, 2009.
For the first time since Mac OS 8.5 had been released in October
1998, Apple left behind an entire processor architecure. Back then, it
left behind the Motorola 680x0 CPUs in favor of PowerPC (the first PPC
Macs had been introduced in March 1994). With 10.6, Apple left behind
PowerPC CPUs in favor of Intel (the first Intel Macs were introduced in
January 2006).
Big Changes with 10.6
- Snow Leopard is smaller than Leopard. By removing PowerPC and other
unnecessary legacy code, Apple greatly reduced the drive space needed
by the operating system. It takes up about half as much space and thus
will install about twice as fast as Leopard. That said, it makes more
demands of your hardware, so a Mac that runs Leopard comfortably with 1
GB of memory may feel very sluggish with Snow Leopard once you have
more than a couple apps running. We strongly recommend at least 2 GB of
memory for 10.6.
Grand Central
Dispatch (GCD) means that the entire operating system is designed
to take advantage of multiple cores, whether on one chip or more than
one. Process threads, which were handled by apps in the past, are now
handled by the OS with new programs designed to use GCD. GCD will
assign only as many threads to an app as it currently needs, which
makes for better use of resources.
Full 64-bit
support means programs will no longer be limited to 4 GB of RAM;
the new maximum (16 exabytes) is meaningless, as no computer in the
forseeable future will be able to hold billions of gigabytes of memory.
Both the OS and almost all "system applications" (Finder, Safari, Mail,
iChat, iCal, etc.) are ready for 64-bit operation. And Snow Leopard is
completely backwards-compatible with 32-bit apps. First generation
Intel Macs designed around Intel Core Solo and Core Duo chips do not
support 64-bit operation; all Macs since then do.
OpenCL takes
advantage of powerful modern graphic processing units (GPUs, a.k.a.
"video cards") for more than displaying video. All of that processing
power will also be available for general purpose computing.- QuickTime X
introduced a new QuickTime player and will take full advantage of Core
Audio, Core Video, and Core Animation. It can record audio and video
using your Mac's built-in microphone and webcam, and it can trim and
export for iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, YouTube, and MobileMe so you don't
need to worry about which codec to use. QuickTime X supports HTTP live
streaming, which can adjust quality on the fly based on available
network bandwidth. Of course it takes advantage of GCD and 64-bit
operation.
- Exchange
Support is built right into the OS. Mail, iCal, and Address Book
will work with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. This may explain why
Microsoft finally brought Outlook to the Mac with Office 2010. So long,
Outlook.
- The Finder has been completely rewritten to support 64-bit
operation and take advantage of Grand Central Dispatch. This makes the
Finder much more responsive.
- For the first time, the Services menu is contextual: You will only
see the services available to the current app. (Until now, half or more
of the Services might be grayed out because they don't work with your
current program.)
- Exposé can work in the Dock - click and hold an application
icon and it will display that app's active documents in a grid. Apple
claims this will make it "even easier to find what you're looking
for."
- Time Machine backups are up to 50% faster, according to Apple. This
will be especially helpful for that first, long, full backup.
- Macs shut down and wake up more quickly, and joining a WiFi network
is also faster. This makes for more energy efficient file sharing -
your sleeping Mac uses less energy and wakes more quickly to serve up
files.
- If you travel with you're Mac, you'll appreciate automatic time
zone settings.
- The 'Wake on Demand' feature may keep your Mac from staying asleep.
The fix is to reset the Energy Saver settings to their defaults, then
put in your own settings.
Things Lost with 10.6
- There is no support for LocalTalk/AppleTalk in Snow Leopard. You'll
need to find another way to connect those old printers.
- There is no longer any support for Palm OS devices in iSync. The
Missing Sync (commercial software) does support Palm devices.
- Snow Leopard ignores creator codes when launching documents,
something every Mac OS prior to 10.6 has supported - it's been
part of the Mac OS since the beginning.
- There is no write support for HFS+ volumes (floppies, hard drives,
etc.)
Snow Leopard was replaced with OS X 10.7 Lion on July 20, 2011 after
just 11 months at the helm.
Minimum Hardware Requirements
- Intel-based Mac
- 1 GB of RAM, although 2 GB is strongly recommended
- 5 GB of available drive space
- DVD-compatible optical drive
- Grand Central Dispatch requires a dual-core CPU
- 64-bit support requires a Core 2 or newer CPU
- OpenCL is compatible with all current Macs. It is not compatible
with:
- iMacs released before March 2009
- Mac mini released before March 2009
- MacBook released before October 2008
- MacBook Pro released before June 2007
- original
MacBook Air
- Mac Pro released before January 2008 (Jan. 2008 and later models
with unsupported video cards can used the discontinued GeForce 8800
upgrade kit - Apple part no. MB137Z/A - for OpenCL support. The
GeForce GT 120 retails for $149, is designed to work with the 2009
Mac Pro and has been reported to work with the 2008 model as well.)
Further Reading
- New iMacs and MacBooks soon?, Blu-ray
on Macs, looking back at Lisa and Mac Plus, and more, Mac News
Review, 09.25. Also Snow Leopard sales data, using FreeHand and
AppleWorks with Snow Leopard, affordable Pentax K-x DSLR even comes in
red, and more.
- Cheap USB 2 CardBus solution, OS 9
and Kanga, mobile Mac value, and more, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous
Ramblings, 2009.09.09. Also a look at several options for using an old
LocalTalk printer with a Mac running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
- 100 apps incompatible with 'Snow
Leopard', Mac mini and SuperDrive firmware updates, and more, Mac
News Review, 2009.09.04. Also August market share changes, retrieving a
stuck disc, anti-malware in Snow Leopard, USB 3.0 certification begins,
and more.
- Wake on demand in Snow Leopard,
extended repair policy for MacBook Air hinges, big drives, and
more, The 'Book Review, 2009.09.04. Also Windows 7 great on a
MacBook Pro, gScreen preparing dual display notebook, free OS X 10.6
deal from QuickerTek, bargain 'Books from $179 to $2,294, and
more.
Downloadable Updates
Standalone Updates let you update to a newer version of Mac OS X
from your hard drive instead of using Software Update, which requires
an Internet connection. Download the one(s) you need and install them
after mounting the disk image and launching the Installer program.
There are two types of Standalone Updates: Individual (or Delta) and
Combo.
- Individual Updates update one version of Mac OS X to the
next version. For example, the Mac OS X 10.6.4 Update updates Mac OS X
10.6.3 to version 10.6.4. Individual Updates are also known as Delta
Updates.
- Combo Updates update the base version of a Mac OS X release
to the version specified in the Combo Update, including all
intermediate updates. For example, the Mac OS X 10.6.4 Combo Update
updates any earlier version of Mac OS X 10.6 to Mac OS X 10.6.4 using a
single installer, as opposed to installing the individual Mac OS X
10.6.1, 10.6.2, 10.6.3, and 10.6.4 updates.
Standalone Updates are generally available 24 to 48 hours after the
Update is available through Software Update.
If you burn a Standalone Update to CD, its disk image must be copied
to your desktop or another location on your Mac OS X startup disk in
order to be installed.
This page will be updated as new Standalone Updates become
available.
Mac OS X 10.6.1
Mac OS X 10.6.2
Mac OS X 10.6.3
Mac OS X 10.6.4
Mac OS X 10.6.5
Mac OS X 10.6.6
Version 10.6.6 introduced the Mac App Store.
Mac OS X 10.6.7
Mac OS X 10.6.8
