{"id":41089,"date":"2023-11-16T15:39:21","date_gmt":"2023-11-16T20:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=41089"},"modified":"2023-11-24T10:33:45","modified_gmt":"2023-11-24T15:33:45","slug":"the-myth-and-reality-of-mac-os-x-snow-leopard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/11\/16\/the-myth-and-reality-of-mac-os-x-snow-leopard\/","title":{"rendered":"The Myth and Reality of Mac OS X Snow Leopard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeff Johnson<\/a> (Mastodon<\/a>):<\/p>\n

This famous keynote slide was, to put it euphemistically, a bit of product marketing. Non-euphemistically, it was a big lie. Snow Leopard had quite a few new features<\/a>, including significant changes “under the hood”, so to speak. In fairness, though, 10.6 was a smaller update than 10.5, 10.4, 10.3, or 10.2, and its price reflected its modest ambition: $29, compared to $129 for its predecessors. (Remember when major Mac updates cost money?)<\/p>

Since 2009, the myth of Snow Leopard has only grown. As memories (and accuracy) fade, Snow Leopard has come to be known as a “bug fix update”.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

Snow Leopard was not<\/em> a bug fix release. In fact, Snow Leopard was quite buggy, and Mac OS X 10.6.0 was certainly much buggier than Mac OS X 10.5.8, released a few weeks prior. So why do countless people still look back fondly at Snow Leopard as a high point in Apple software quality?<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

When you look back fondly at Snow Leopard, I suspect that you’re not remembering version 10.6.0 but rather version 10.6.8 v1.1, which was released almost two years after 10.6.0.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the fact that you could actually use that stable version for a long time. There was much less pressure to update, e.g. for Xcode support, in those days. The annual release schedule has not been good for the Mac.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n