DigitalOutbox Episode 13
In this episode the team discuss Snow Leopard.
Playback
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Shownotes
– Snow Leopard
– Thoughts on install and changes?
– Install was painless – around an hour
– On boot SL asked for ‘System Events.app’ – located in /System/Library/CoreServices/ – pointed to it – never had error again
– Expose update nice
– Clearer
– Click and hold in dock – expose for that app on it’s own
– Works with drag and drop of a file
– Allegedly – doesn’t work for me – drag a file to Textmate, windows pop up in expose mode, drag file – nothing. Drag file from finder to window – success. Buggy?
– Hold down space over a window to zoom to a readable size
– Dock – meus changed, stacks updated to scroll through grids, click on folder to drill within stack view, change yellow minimize behaviour so it shrinks to dock icon instead of it’s own icon on RHS of dock – ctrl click or right click on dock or hold and expose to view
– Quicktime – excellent front end
– Screencasting built in which is simple but won’t replace dedicated screen capture app
– Trim similar to 3GS control – very simple
– Cut out many of the Quicktime Pro controls – bundle Quicktime Pro 7 to soften the blow
– Dumbing down app? Similar to iMovie HD?
– Speed – finder, mail, spotlight
– http://gizmodo.com/5345354/snow-leopard-benchmarks
– Big time savings on boot, loading in preview etc. Noticable that on app’s not optimised for Snow Leopard there’s virtually no difference. Should see improvements in 3-6 months?
– 15-20gb of disk space back
– Snow Leopard reports disk size correctly
– http://lifehacker.com/5349204/snow-leopard-reports-hard-drive-capacity-correctly-in-base-10
– In Snow Leopard MacOS 10.6 storage capacity is now reported the way storage vendors specify it: in base 10, not base 2
– New Wake on Demand
– http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/08/wake-on-demand-could-lead-to-appletv-bliss.ars
– Need 2007 (or newer) AirPort Extreme Base Station or a 2008 (or newer) Time Capsule
– Works over wireless if you have a 2009 Mac
– New soft keyboard – http://www.9to5mac.com/snow-leopard-soft-keyboard
– XL iTablet?
– rumours of 13″ and 15″ tablets in addition to 10″. One of them running OS X
– rumour comes from a “100% reliable” source …. hmmm
– “two touchscreen prototypes…shape of large iphone…in a factory in Shenzuen…one of them running OS X” – claims the source
– could they just be internal prototypes or maybe in future devices??? – Smaller, faster O/S
– Malware scanning tool
– Oops
– Only detects 2 malwares but can be updated
– Is that why theres a subtle change in latest mac vs pc ad’s from ‘no viruses’ to ‘without thousands of viruses’
– Preview – selecting text easier and markup PDF’s with comments now added
– One for the future, once apps support it, but Mac OS X now has system-wide, user-definable text substitution—see the Text tab of Language & Text in System Preferences.
– Services and automator updated
– http://www.macosxautomation.com/services/index.html
– http://www.pixelcorps.tv/macbreak235
– Services now application specific
– Use automator, you can create a service
– HDTV ready
– http://www.tuaw.com/2009/08/31/mac-os-x-now-hdtv-ready-with-10-6/
– Software compatibility list
– http://digs.by/7lx
– Lot’s of updates yesterday and today – coda, launchbar, superduper, wiretap studio, pathfinder, omni group app’s
– iStat menu’s came out today – lovely app
– Dan Benjamin – Those of you using Adobe Lightroom under Snow Leopard, get info (command-i) and verify that 32-but is *un-checked* for a huge speed boost
– Biggest improvements still to be seen – switch of 3rd party app’s to 64 bit and the increased performance that will bring
– Issues
– Mail – stops working after a couple of days – shutdown and restart fixes it – may delete accounts and create again
– Flash – older version included so download latest version – http://www.adobe.com/flashplatform/
– Licence and installation
– Needs to be an Intel Mac
– It is an upgrade licence…but you can install from fresh using Snow Leopard without using Leopard disk
– http://www.tuaw.com/2009/09/03/snow-leopard-in-eula-we-trust/
– Recommend AppFresh to check your installed app’s and make sure you get up to date software
– 64 bit computing
– http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137229/What_s_the_real_deal_with_64_bit_computing_in_Snow_Leopard_
– Apple app’s are 64 bit – most others aren’t
– Kernel loads in 32 bit for most users, can force 64 by holding down 6 and 4 on boot – can be flaky
– Foundations now in place for dev’s to move to 64 bit
– Leopard could run 64 bit apps but all core were 32
– Half way – next major OS fully 64 bit?
– Proper Review
– http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars
– John Siracusa – 23 pages, full and factual
– 10.6.1. seeded to testers