Der skal nok være nogen der mener at det er horribelt at man skal betale for en “service pack”. Nu er sagen dén, at Snow Leopard er meget mere end en “service pack”. Det ikke er en fix af et ødelagt operativsystem, fordi Leopard altid har været et sublimt OS og aldrig givet mig problemer. Af fede nye features kommer ny Quicktime, ny-gammel Finder, ny iChat, forbedring af UI og Exposé og ikke mindst Exchange-understøttelse. Men det bedste er optimeringen af fundamentet, hvilket giver et hurtigere og lettere OS. Dét glæder jeg mig til.

Apple har helt klart det lange ben foran med deres stabile release cycle. Ca. et år for hver minor udgivelse. Det giver en gennemsigtbarhed og forudsigelighed som gør, tror jeg, at mange ikke føler sig taget i røven. Man kan jo altid springe en udgivelse over og hoppe på den næste. Der er ingen synkende skude. Ingen bliver efterladt på åbent hav. På fredag søsættes endnu en galleon i IT-verdenens svar på den spanske Armada.

Update Fredag d. 4 September: Nu har jeg endelig fået et eksemplar mellem fingrene. Forhåbentlig er der tid i aften til at installere det. Ars Technica har også publiseret deres dybdegående review. Altid spændende læsning:

Creating an operating system is as much a social exercise as a technological one. Creating a platform, even more so. All of Snow Leopard’s considerable technical achievements are not just designed to benefit users; they’re also intended to goad, persuade, and otherwise herd developers in the direction that Apple feels will be most beneficial for the future of the platform. [...]
I imagine all the teams at Apple that worked on Snow Leopard absolutely reveled in the opportunity to polish their particular subsystems without being burdened by supporting the marketing-driven feature-of-the-month. In any long-lived software product, there needs to be this kind of release valve every few years, lest the entire code base go off into the weeds. [...]
Should you buy Mac OS X Snow Leopard? If you’re already running Leopard, then the answer is a resounding “yes.” If you’re still running Tiger, well, then it’s probably time for a new Mac anyway. When you buy one, it’ll come with Snow Leopard. [...]
Snow Leopard is a unique and beautiful release, unlike any that have come before it in both scope and intention. At some point, Mac OS X will surely need to get back on the bullet-point-features bandwagon. But for now, I’m content with Snow Leopard. It’s the Mac OS X I know and love, but with more of the things that make it weak and strange engineered away.