I'm not a computer geek so there won't be any jargon and I might miss out a few things, but if you use your Mac daily for work/play and know how to get around it, this'll help.
Is it worth getting? Yes, if you love speed. It is genuinely faster, but it might take a little while to 'warm up'. It took my Macbook a couple restarts and a little while of usage before the fullness of the speed (web browser especially) settled in - and it seems it only finds this fullness with Safari. I think they've rigged it so Firefox works slower. Still, it starts up and shuts down a good bit faster and let's face it, 1 second in the cyber world equals 60 seconds in the real world - and that could mean one whole Tweet!
The Safari is a nice edition with the grid button of your fave sites. However, I downloaded that before I got Snow and use nothing else, BUT I have to use Firefox for Google Voice and Video cause it doesn't seem to work with Safari...sucks. The dock has more refined pop up menus for the applications therein - seamless - and you'll forget what it was like before (I already have). But I can't seem to get the stacks function to do the nice fan format - now it's just grid or list. But in the downloads and documents folders you can scroll and search folders even in the stacks view - that helps a lot.
Quicktime does look better with a more viewer friendly screen, and has two smart additions: you can upload video to YouTube or MobileMe (or move video to iTunes) and edit video length at a click - very clever. The edit function is a simple drag-bar reminiscent of Garageband.
They don't mention this in the marketing material but they do sneak some new wallpaper in which is a nice little surprise.
The big function addition I don't use, and that's the compatibility of the Apple Mail with Exchange so you can synch it with your work email (or something like that). Can't comment. Sad really because it's probably the major functional upgrade offered by Snow Leopard. Everything else, as Apple says, is refinement.
Indeed it is an incremental move ever closer to user perfection. It is the intuitive and insightful change that we love about Macs, and they have made the interface even smoother and more sensible. This is why a person should convert to Mac or stay put. Unlike Microsoft that often sends out updates to fix problems - Apple sends out upgrades to enhance usage. Well done.
It cost me about £27 but the upgrade is free if you purchased your Mac from July 09 (check that). You can live happily without Snow Leopard - but you will be that much more happier with it, and in this world we need all the ups we can get right?
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