

Complete List of Mac OS X Snow Leopard Enhancements - jasongullickson
http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/enhancements-refinements.html

======
cake
Things I wish could be fixed with 10.6

\- Cut and paste a file (no you can't with the finder)

\- Maximize the windows

\- This annoying audio "pop" I can hear when my Macbook's line out is
connected to a hifi system and no sound is playing.

~~~
potatolicious
Add:

\- Breadcrumb in Finder Windows. This is uber-annoying.

\- Revamped open/save dialogs. What do you mean I can't right click to rename
a folder in the save dialog?! What do you mean I can't search for a file in
this folder?

Sadly the Finder has nothing on Windows Explorer.

~~~
dmnd
The Finder has at least something on Windows Explorer: one thing I always miss
on Windows is the ability to drag a file or directory onto an open/save dialog
and have the dialog immediately navigate to and select that file or directory.
Saves you from repeatedly navigating the filesystem.

~~~
GHFigs
Slightly related: I recently discovered you can drop a file directly onto file
upload fields on web pages without even opening the open dialog.

------
ghshephard
Oh, thank the good lord:

    
    
      Date in menu bar.
      The date can appear alongside the time in the menu bar.
    

Seriously - This missing feature has driving me CRAZY - Windows XP has been
able to do it since the beginning of time. Finally I can look at my screen and
figure out what the date is without having to Click on the Time (or leave iCal
in my Dock)

~~~
holygoat
I've had this in Leopard for a long time. It's not obvious, but it's possible.
See

[http://lifehacker.com/software/mac-tip/display-the-date-
on-t...](http://lifehacker.com/software/mac-tip/display-the-date-on-the-
menubar-316029.php)

------
raganwald
> Restore deleted items to original folders: If you put an item in the Trash,
> then change your mind, you can restore it to its original location. Just
> select the item in the Trash folder and choose Put Back from the File menu.

Well lookitthat! They finally got around to making OS X's finder behave like
MacOS's finder, bringing it into the 1990s. I think I used this feature twenty
years ago.

Apple claim they don't copy Microsoft. Why should they, they are busy copying
themselves!

~~~
makecheck
Yep. Bertrand Serlet's comments on stage pretty much summed up Apple's
attitude: _they_ love the Finder in Leopard. They either don't know or don't
care about just how much the Finder has really lost, nor do they focus on
major UI issues in the Mac OS X Finder (that have been documented extensively
in many blogs and articles), issues that create daily frustration or confusion
for many users.

I'd bet that even this Put Back feature will be a poor imitation of the old
one, just like everything else. Scrollable stacks that can dive into folders?
Please, Mac OS 8.5's pop-up windows were brilliant, _scrollable_ windows that
could do everything else that Finder windows could do, and it doesn't even
look like Stack pop-ups can be resized.

------
TommyWiseau
Wow, it appears that they finally made an attempt to FTFF.

One feature I really, really, really wish someone would do would be to allow
me to explicitly disable my DVD drive until I actually need it. This is
partially a Finder problem, no doubt, but I would say that 90 percent of the
time it spins up, it is unnecessary. I've looked into fstab alterations, but
on Leopard when you open it up, you're greeted with a very ominous and
threatening message:

IGNORE THIS FILE. This file does nothing, contains no useful data, and might
go away in future releases. Do not depend on this file or its contents.

~~~
snprbob86
I am absolutely amazed that my brain was able to parse "FTFF" as "fix the
fucking finder". A cursory Google search for it doesn't show any places I
think I have ever been, but it actually was on Urban Dictionary. Wow... the
internet has clearly affected me...

------
barrybe
LOL at this paragraph:

"Boot Camp now includes HFS+ read support that enables you to access the files
on your Mac OS X partition from Windows. It’s read-only to prevent PC viruses
from affecting Mac OS X,"

------
carterschonwald
these caught my eye:

Multi-Touch gestures in older Mac models.

Static analysis. (for Xcode)

~~~
mcormier
Static analysis has been available outside of Xcode for some time now. Clang
is a great tool.

[http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/friday-
qa-2009-03-06-usi...](http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/friday-
qa-2009-03-06-using-the-clang-static-analyzer.html)

I haven't tried valgrind yet but there is a little buzz about it.

[http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/friday-
qa-2009-06-05-int...](http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/friday-
qa-2009-06-05-introduction-to-valgrind.html)

~~~
colomon
valgrind is available for the Mac?! Oh happy day! I was seriously considering
installing a Linux VM on my MacBook Plus just to get valgrind....

------
arthurk
> Gamma 2.2. > The default gamma has been changed from 1.8 to 2.2

I've heard designers getting angry about this. Is there really such a big
difference?

~~~
DLWormwood
Enough to mess up color calibration for WYSIWYG workflows. (Though using
ColorSync profiles is _supposed_ to make this moot, not enough files contain
such profiles, especially if they are Windows originated or unedited after
camera capture.)

This seems to be a concession to web browsing. When visiting web pages, many
Mac users complain about images showing up as too dark, when they appear "just
fine" on Windows browsers. Safari was supposed to fix this, but third-party
browsers like FireFox and Camino never bothered to deal with color correction,
so this default is a work around, since so much work is done on the Web
anymore. /-: (Funny how Windows users never complain about images appearing
too bright or washed out. I guess Windows are used to problems dealing that
OS. (-: )

(Not that this should 'ffect me much, I'm using a ColorSync profile on my home
machine that changes the white point to a grey tinge to match the lighting in
my apartment anyways.)

~~~
hexley
Too bright you mean. Gamma 1.8 is lighter than 2.2

~~~
DLWormwood
I never could get the complaints straight myself. My personal Mac and the Macs
at my former employer all religiously used color calibration, so we never had
problems. It was mostly from end users, clients, and message boards was where
I fielded complaints in the past.

------
jcromartie
Customizable Services menu and Service authoring from Automator is just
awesome... but it's a long time coming! Most people don't even realize the
menu is there.

~~~
makecheck
Agreed. In the NeXT days, Services was a top-level menu that couldn't be
missed. I always found it silly that they buried it in Mac OS X, especially
considering that far less useful menus were not buried (such as Help).

------
mronge
I hope bootable ZFS is there somewhere. Sadly I don't see it in this list

~~~
chrisbolt
[http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/06/09/apple_backtrac...](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/06/09/apple_backtracks_on_safari_4_0_tabs_on_top_zfs.html)

------
makecheck
It's funny to see them market the fact that Mac OS X takes up less disk space.
While this is true, I'm sure the only _reason_ is because all bundled apps and
frameworks no longer contain PowerPC chunks in their universal binaries.

~~~
dchest
Bertrand Serlet said something about compression in the keynote.

Also note that the largest part of application size is not in binary, but in
resources (images, nibs, etc.)

Edit: also, all major apps are compiled with 64-bit support (and should run on
32-bit systems), thus it's minus ppc, but plus x86_64, which has a larger code
size.

------
Oompa
Split View Terminal Windows. Awesome.

~~~
makecheck
It was a feature of older Mac OS X versions, but mysteriously disappeared.

------
limmeau
With all the 64-bit happiness: does anyone know whether the first Intel Core
Duo (Yonah)-based MacBooks are still supported?

~~~
kylec
Phil Schiller said all Intel Macs, past and present, so I would say it's most
likely that the 32-bit Macs are supported.

------
Rob15283
How about allowing us to set windows for when Time Capsule backs up files? I
don't need to have backups run every fifteen minutes through the night.

Also, I'm never going to use Safari unless they make a bookmarks pane on the
left as FF and IE do. Message to Apple: don't put being different ahead of
being useful.

------
sant0sk1
They mentioned during the keynote that the Snow Leopard family pack is only
$49. Does anybody know if that is __just __for upgrades from Leopard? I have 3
Macs: 2 are running Tiger and 1 is running Leopard.

~~~
grinich
$29 for a single license of SL. $49 for the family license.

Also, it's important to note that Snow Leopard will only run on Intel Macs.

~~~
ropiku
Those are upgrade prices from Leopard.

------
jamesbritt
But no Java 6 as a default Java, and on 32-bit machines.

------
c00p3r
That is where PR people from FreeBSD or Linux should learn how to write. Not
just "we were upgraded gcc to 4.3 and now we have x86_64 builds".

~~~
pavelludiq
You mean like this: <http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/904features/>
? Or this: <http://www.kubuntu.org/news/9.04-release> ?

P.S. FreeBSD and some linuxes don't exactly target the same kinds of users as
apple. You know, the typical FreeBSD or Debian user probably cares about which
version of gcc is default, and probably couldn't care less about photo editing
software. Their PR seems adequate to me :D

~~~
whughes
No, I don't think those measure up. The Ubuntu listing is too short and too
non-specific to be much good. They also overuse acronyms and pack them too
densely (PSP, MP3..).

The Kubuntu listing is better than the Ubuntu page, but still not there.
There's overuse of bullet points, which limit detail. Everything is generally
too terse and badly-organized.

They rely on prior knowledge and don't explain what the improvements mean to
the users. What is this? "The new plasma-widget-network-manager replaces the
old KNetworkManager applet." What does that mean to me, a new Kubuntu user?

Apple does it better. They have nice delineation of features, so you don't
have to go looking for information. It's also listed in much more detail,
which is the main problem with the OSS lists.

Actually, looking at both pages, it seems like the Kubuntu people are doing
something fundamentally different. They're listing new versions of software,
briefly detailing the changes, and pointing to the software changelogs. Apple
is talking about the OS as a whole and dividing it into parts. They're not
saying "iChat updated to version X"; they're saying "iChat in Snow Leopard has
features Y and Z."

