How To Download And Install Mac Os X Snow Leopard For Free
Sneaking in a few days before its promised September release, the melody-up for Mac OS 10 Leopard costs $29 for current Leopard users, and packs just enough punch to exist worth your money. Apple is conscientious to indicate out that Snow Leopard isn't a consummate system overhaul, but rather a drove of hundreds of smaller refinements to make Leopard run more gracefully. Subconscious among smaller tweaks are some technical improvements that outcome 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 substantive comeback in application performance.
Even if yous're not a current Leopard user, the $169 bundle that includes Snow Leopard, iLife, and iWork is a steal for the arrangement upgrade and two of Apple's major software suites, not to mention the long-pined-subsequently inclusion of Microsoft Exchange compatibility. Finally yous volition exist able to connect with Exchange Servers (without using Microsoft'southward Entourage), but only if your company is using Microsoft Exchange 2007; many withal aren't. Snow Leopard is offered on a single install disk--there are no carve up, tiered pricing structures to worry most--and you're getting every feature and technical enhancement bachelor in a single install. Unfortunately, for those on PowerPC systems, Snow Leopard but works with Intel Macs.
Installation
Installation of Snow Leopard is dead simple and (according to Apple) up to 45 percent faster than Leopard using a newly designed installer that asks only one question during the process. On our test motorcar, the process took about an hour, including two automatic restarts. The default setting installs Snow Leopard without tampering with whatever of your saved files, music, photos, or documents. Mostly we had no problems, but on one test machine we needed to reinstall the Bone when it had trouble rebooting. Fortunately the new installer is designed for safely reinstalling the OS in the event you encounter whatever hiccups during your initial installation. On our second try, the Os installed perfectly on our test car and no files were harmed. PowerPC Macs are no longer supported with Snowfall Leopard, however; y'all will need an Intel-based Mac to install the latest Mac OS.
Those who want to practice a "Clean Install" (starting fresh by deleting everything for minimal conflicts) still can, but different installations in previous versions of previous Mac Os X that offered the clean install as a primary option, you lot'll need to use Deejay Utility to commencement erase the volume, then run the install. Apple tree explained to united states of america 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 respond, equally long as people still get the option in some course.
Apple also claims that Snowfall Leopard uses 7GB less space than Leopard because of better file compression paired with selective driver inclusion. According to Apple, Snow Leopard volition locate any missing drivers on the Spider web for you. We had no need of whatever special drivers during our tests.
New technologies
Apple says a few new technologies in Snow Leopard get in worthy of the upgrade solitary, with several features that Apple tree says will heave performance. Because all new Macs come with 64-flake multicore processors, multiple GBs of RAM, and loftier-powered graphics processing units, all the major applications in Snow Leopard--including the Finder--take been rewritten in 64-flake to take full advantage of the hardware. (The 64-bit technology allows application developers to allocate more retentiveness to consummate tasks so that the software runs faster and more than smoothly.)
Apple has also added what it calls the Grand Central Dispatch that manages data sent to multicore processors in an effort to maximize performance; Apple tree says the GCD will speed up any awarding task, from processing images in Photoshop to playing your favorite games. The add-on of the GCD likewise takes away the need for software developers to spend every bit much time managing multicore processors.
Another new technology in Snowfall Leopard is OpenCL, which allows software developers to tap into the power of whatsoever onboard video cards (or GPUs, for graphics processing units) for general-purpose computing without the addition of enormous amounts of lawmaking. Like the GCD, these are improvements that will mainly affect software developers. Merely hopefully it will mean more and better-performing software for users in the futurity.
To put some of these claims to the test, we decided to pit Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard confronting Mac Bone 10 10.6 Snow Leopard to come across how these new technologies affected overall performance.
In our anecdotal tests of performance inside the Snowfall Leopard user interface (UI), the operating organisation seems faster and more responsive than with Leopard. Finder, Stacks, Expose, launching apps, and other everyday processes experience snappy. We didn't, still, notice any improvement in application performance.
Overall, we saw just a ii.5 percent slowdown in application performance from Leopard to Snow Leopard on our more processor-intensive performance tests, including our multimedia multitasking test, in which nosotros measure the time for QuickTime to finish converting a short picture show while iTunes is performing its own conversion of MP3 into AAC format in the groundwork simultaneously. Every bit this falls within our typical margin of error (5 percent), nosotros saw no significant difference with application performance when moving from Leopard to Snowfall Leopard. (See the bottom of this review for performance charts.)
New features
Expose
Snowfall Leopard includes a number of user UI improvements intended to make working with Mac OS Ten easier and more efficient. Expose, Apple's system for visually finding the window you want on a chaotic desktop, used to exist relegated to the Function keys on your keyboard. Snow Leopard now makes Betrayal accessible from the Dock; just click and hold on a Dock icon to run across thumbnails of all the open windows in that awarding. Hitting the Tab key lets you cycle through the preview thumbnails of each open application. Using Expose in the Dock is very natural and elegant, making us wonder why this wasn't already a feature in Leopard.
Click and concord on an application icon in the Dock to bring upwards total thumbnails of open windows in an application.
The Dock
In addition to using Expose to discover the right window, you now as well have the ability to drag files from one awarding to another using the Dock. Let's say yous want to add an image to an e-mail, but your desktop is total of open up windows. In Snow Leopard you can become to the prototype, drag information technology to the Mail icon in the Dock, and your e-mail window will spring-load, allowing you lot to drop the image into place. Though the power to drag and drop files in this mode is nice, we're non sure it's 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'southward probably the faster method.
Stacks
Stacks got a much-needed upgrade as well. In Leopard, Stacks simply listed a sure number of files and applications requiring you to go to a Finder window if your app wasn't listed. Similarly, if yous tried to open a folder in Stacks, yous were sent to the Finder. In Snow Leopard, Stacks comes with a curlicue bar and then icons are still easy to read and anything can be launched out of the Dock. Folders are now attainable within Stacks as well, then you'll be able to navigate to files inside 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.
At present y'all tin can whorl through your applications and documents (and even open folders in Stacks) without being sent to the Finder.
The Finder
While the Finder itself saw petty in the way of interface tweaks, the mode files behave in the Finder makes information technology easier to use. A zoom slider has been added to the lower right of Finder windows and then yous can zoom in on icons. An enhanced icon view has been added, letting you preview multipage documents and fifty-fifty play QuickTime movies without ever leaving the Finder window.
Preview now lets yous preview almost whatsoever file, even if it was created with software you don't have on your hard drive. This means common file types from Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and even PDF files can all be previewed without owning the programs they were created in. As an added bonus, Preview in Snowfall Leopard provides authentic text selection to multicolumn PDF files using artificial intelligence to infer the layout of each page. This means that Preview recognizes that there are multiple columns in your document so you can select the text you want from any cavalcade.
You can now flip through the pages of multipage PDF documents using the arrows that appear over PDF docs when you mouse over.
Safari 4
Safari four has been widely available for some time, but it offers a couple of new features when running in Snow Leopard. Safari 4 already includes Tiptop Sites for viewing all your favorite sites equally thumbnails for easy access and full history search, which lets y'all view your history in a Encompass Menstruation-like interface. But in Snowfall Leopard, Safari is now crash resistant. This means that if a plug-in crashes, it won't crash the whole browser. Just refresh the page to endeavour to load the plug-in again. Besides, Safari checks to encounter if a site you lot are visiting is known to be fraudulent, is distributing malware, or is known to be a phishing site, and so warns y'all if it is.
Peak Sites, which was already available in Safari 4, lets you navigate to your about viewed Web sites rapidly.
QuickTime X
QuickTime X, Apple's media histrion, got some major tweaks in Snow Leopard. Now, when you play a movie and move your mouse outside the window, the interface fades away quickly to give y'all a more immersive video-viewing experience. When watching a pic, you can click the new Share button to convert your movie for iPod, iPhone, or Apple tree Television, and QuickTime converts the video to work all-time on your called device. You likewise can now record video from your Webcam, audio, 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 you take hold of but the video content you want.
QuickTime X probably received the most interface tweaks in the Snow Leopard update. The cleaned-upward interface and autofade features expect great (like nearly things Apple), but it'southward more than of an artful comeback than anything else. The recording features for video, audio, and screencast capturing are the big wins hither and used to be offered only in QuickTime Pro. It's good to see these features will be able to be used past a wider audience in Snow Leopard.
Trim your videos easily by clicking and dragging kickoff and terminate points of the prune.
Commutation support
One of the main roadblocks for Mac users in a primarily Windows workplace was the inability to connect with Microsoft Exchange servers. Most Mac users used Microsoft Entourage or available open up-source options as a work-around, just it was never as polish every bit connecting from a Windows automobile with Microsoft Office. Snow Leopard now supports Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 out of the box and then you can easily connect using Apple's Mail app, grab global address lists in the Address Book, and create meetings with contacts using iCal.
Apple tree did more than just give you the power to connect, however. Common tasks like creating meetings, for example, are incredibly like shooting fish in a barrel with intuitive controls. iCal lets yous view work events and personal activities all in the same window (with like shooting fish in a barrel controls to include or non include the information you want). The Apple tree Address Book works seamlessly beyond Postal service and iCal and so you can quickly bring up global accost lists, add together people to a meeting (including predesigned groups), and invitations volition automatically be sent to each attendee. Every bit an added bonus, if some attendees have scheduling conflicts with your proposed meeting time, iCal will automatically figure out the earliest available time that everyone is free. These are features already bachelor in Microsoft'due south Outlook for Windows, merely in Snowfall Leopard the process feels much more intuitive.
File Quarantine
According to Apple tree, File Quarantine has also been refined in Snow Leopard. Commencement introduced in Mac Bone 10 ten.4 Tiger, File Quarantine checks for known malware signatures, and in Snow Leopard, volition now display an alert dialog if it finds a known offender. The dialog volition tell users to movement the offending file to the Trash. For example, a bogus version of iWork circulated on the Web a few months agone that contained malware. That particular malware is now automatically detected by File Quarantine in Snow Leopard.
Apple tree says that File Quarantine volition be automatically updated via Mac Os Ten's software update as new malware signatures are found in the wild. We had no manner to test these features, only nosotros are happy to run across that Apple is taking strides to defend confronting malware as more people switch to Macs and the danger of new malware becomes more prevalent.
Universal admission
Beginning with Mac Os X x.4 Tiger, Apple included VoiceOver to help people who are blind or with impaired vision to meliorate empathise and collaborate with what is happening onscreen. Apple continues to help visually dumb users in Snow Leopard by calculation gesture back up 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, merely generally we institute the features to be useful. The trackpad acts as the viewable area on the current window so you can tap to have Window elements explained to you or swipe to move on to the next particular in the window, for example. New features in Snow Leopard are particularly helpful when Web browsing, with options similar Spider web page summaries to explicate the various elements on a Web page yous haven't visited before, making it easier to get the information you want.
More than xl different Braille displays (including wireless Bluetooth displays) are supported in Snowfall Leopard right out of the box, allowing visually impaired users to plug in and commencement calculating immediately.
Other refinements
Some of the smaller refinements in Snowfall Leopard are worthy of note, affecting many of Apple'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 but ane-third the bandwidth it used before. New Chinese character input via the trackpad predicts which characters you're creating and offers likely subsequent characters to speed upwards the process. A new text substitution feature in applications like iChat, Mail, and TextEdit lets you create shortcuts for phrases you use frequently. The Services bill of fare in Snow Leopard has been rewritten to include only the services relevant to the awarding or content you're viewing. Core Location technology locates nearby Wi-Fi hot spots to discover your location and automatically resets your fourth dimension zone so wherever y'all are in the world, your Mac will be set to the right time. While all of these are small refinements, each make your Mac easier to utilise with smart features not constitute in other operating systems.
Conclusions
Mac Bone X ten.half dozen Snow Leopard is not a complete organization overhaul and is instead a refinement of the current Leopard OS--some have gone so far equally to call information technology a "service pack." We think the interface tweaks to Betrayal, Stacks, the Finder, Postal service, and iCal brand Snow Leopard more than than just a service pack and worthy of the $29 upgrade toll. We don't like that PowerPC users are unable to use Snowfall Leopard, but nosotros understand that afterwards three years with Intel, Apple tree is making a conclusion to continue moving forward with this engineering science.
The largest of the feature enhancements are probably reason enough for Intel Mac users to spend the coin on Snow Leopard. Added enhancements such every bit video, audio, and screen recording in QuickTime 10 were once just bachelor to those who purchased QuickTime Pro (which was about $30--the same every bit this organisation upgrade). Only the killer characteristic addition for Snow Leopard might exist Exchange support out of the box--not even Windows 7 comes with Microsoft Exchange support without buying Microsoft Role.
Overall, we think that Snowfall Leopard did almost everything Apple says it set up out to do: it refined and enhanced Leopard to brand it easier to use. Though the arrangement performs well in everyday use, many of our tests indicate it is slightly slower than the older version of Leopard in more than intensive awarding processes. Still, we highly recommend upgrading for all the new features and Microsoft Exchange support.
iTunes encoding (in seconds)
(Shorter bars signal better functioning)
Photoshop (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
QuickTime multimedia multitasking exam (QT7 on 10.5.8 and QTX on ten.vi) (in seconds)
(Shorter confined indicate ameliorate functioning)
iTunes multimedia multitasking exam (in seconds)
(Shorter bars point better performance)
Cinebench
(Longer bars point better performance)
Organization configurations:
Unibody Apple Macbook Pro / Cadre ii Duo 15.4-inch
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.53GHz; 4096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT; 320GB Hitachi five,400rpm
Apple MacBook Pro / Core Duo 15.4-inch
Intel Core Duo 2.0GHz; 2048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 256MB ATI Radion 1600, 100GB Toshiba v,400rpm
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