Review by D. Solberg

Here are some answers to questions that I think people might have:nnWho can use Snow Leopard?nThis is only for the new Intel Macs. You can install Snow Leopard if you have iMac made on or after January 6, 2006, Mac Minis starting Feb. 28, 2006, any Mac Pro, any MacBook or any MacBook Pro. Also note that you need at least 1 GB of RAM. Some older Mac Minis may not have enough memory.

Who can’t use Snow Leopard?nYou CANNOT install Snow Leopard if you have an iBook or PowerBook (check the text below the screen), a PowerMac, an iMac that was made before 2006, or a Mac Mini made before Feb. 28, 2006.

What are the most likely problems?nFor most casual users, the most likely problem is that your printer or scanner won’t work because the drivers are out of date. UPDATE: Apple has released updates that resolve a lot of printer problems for people with HP, Canon, and Brother printers. I have a Dell 1720dn printer that won’t install drivers, but I found that the Lexmark printer drivers would for the Dell.

Is Snow Leopard buggy?nYes, there are glitches and little annoyances. Unless you’re a power user, you may not notice these bugs. The vast majority of problems are caused by third-party incompatibilities with add-ons and extensions. Also, Apple releases over-the-internet updates to address bugs, so you can install it now and by default the computer will notify you when it is ready to update itself. At that point, it downloads the updater from the internet and installs itself.

How compatible is the software?nAll of Apple’s newest software (Safari web browser, iTunes, iCal, Preview PDF viewer, Mail email program, and so on) works fine. Microsoft Office 2008 programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage) all work fine. The latest Adobe programs (Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, InDesign, etc) work well with a few issues, with the possible exception of some problems with Adobe PhotoShop Elements 6. Most people don’t use much more than these programs, so they’ll be fine; however, there are some other programs with problems, and a very good list can be found at the macintouch website.

What does 64-bit, Grand Central, and OpenCL mean?nTechnically they means a bunch of things. To most users the net result is that a lot of the Apple programs and the Finder (some people call it the Desktop) are somewhat to a lot faster. It really won’t affect other programs until they are rewritten for Snow Leopard (you can see the macworld website for speed tests).

What other changes will I notice?nThere are a lot of little things that are made easy or faster to do, but you won’t notice them until you’ve used the system for a while. The more you use your computer, the more you’ll notice. I’ve noticed that they’ve fixed a lot of little things that would sometimes annoy me.

Why is Apple selling an operating system without a lot of new features?nApple’s Leopard operating system already had a lot of features, and Apple decided to improve and speed up what they already have. After the initial bugs are worked out, Snow Leopard is going to be the easiest, most pleasant operating system to date. Apple has also built a lot of code that software developers can use to speed up computers in the future, so programs on Snow Leopard are likely to get FASTER with newer versions instead of slower like is so often the case. These technical improvements were a major undertaking, and Apple took a risk by spending the bulk of their time on improvements will make future Mac software much faster rather than on end-user features we can immediately see.