The new OS for MAC is coming up on Friday - the Mac OS X Snow Leopard. I am wondering whether to spend the $30 on it now (upgrade), or wait for a while, until they sort out the little problems that may occur in the beginning. I have a MacBook Pro from the previous generation, one of the last available with the 2,5GHz, 6mb cache and 800MHz bus speed along with the nvidia 8600GT with 512 mb and 2 gb of DDR2 ram.

I am wondering whether it's worth it and will it actually increase the productivity?

I would say its worth it! It potentially frees up 7Gb of HDD space, and from reading reviews it has added alot of little refinements and speed improvements that make normal leopard feel extremely clunky and slow. Its only £25, its hardly going to break the bank.

I will be getting it

One question i do have though is how is it going to restore my machine from a Time Machine Backup as surely that will put leopard back on or is it just progs and files it re-installs

Carl:thumbup:

I have got the same model of MBP but have upgraded my drive to 500GB. I ordered Snow Leopard yesterday so will report back next week on changes

Even though I am MS to the core, £25 is not a bad price for an upgrade and it will be useful to see how it installs and if the promised improvements manifest themselves.

One thing to consider though is there may well come a time when an app is only supported on 10.6 Snow Leopard so why not get upgraded now?

One thing I have to add though, is that it does actually look like more of a "Service Pack" than a new OS, so I am paying to Service Pack my OS ...... that's a novel concept.

I will be getting it

One question i do have though is how is it going to restore my machine from a Time Machine Backup as surely that will put leopard back on or is it just progs and files it re-installs

Carl:thumbup:

Isn't it an inplace upgrade rather than a clean install? Time Machine is pretty swish though so I am sure it would just be a restore of apps and data and not overwriting any newer files. It did a great job when I upgraded the disk.

I am recently new to the Mac world, but I love it so far. My next question was about how do I restore my installed progs and everything. Time machine? Never created a system back up, so far... :rotz:

I am recently new to the Mac world, but I love it so far. My next question was about how do I restore my installed progs and everything. Time machine? Never created a system back up, so far... :rotz:

Time Machine is an excellent backup utility mate, I would suggest you get an external drive and get time machine going. If you use Mail (the app that is) you can do a restore of an individual message or a single photo in iPhoto.

It was invaluable when I upgraded my hard disk. You don't need mac specific hardware for time machine, any external drive will do

Comes with free malware protection as standard too... times are changing...

Mine's ordered as well

Just been reading that apparently the last pre-release did allow for a clean install without leopard, no guarantees this will make the final release though :thumbdwn:

Nice. I have a 320gb external hard drive, so will do the back up asap. Should I expect it to transfer everything I have installed now to the new OS?

A little off topic, but... Do you use a Mac forum or an info site and which one? I found some, but they are either too complicated or made for retarded people. Nothing for the average user like me.

I use

Mac Forums - Mac News and Rumor Discussion

Mac OS X and iPod Troubleshooting, Support, and Help - MacFixIt

Shame it's a no go for anyone with a PowerPC apple really isn't it.

Shame it's a no go for anyone with a PowerPC apple really isn't it.

Yes. :mecry:

but that is kinda the point, ditching all the legacy stuff.

Yes. :mecry:

but that is kinda the point, ditching all the legacy stuff.

Seems a bit silly since some of the heavier users are still playing with the Dual G5 systems.

Seems a bit silly since some of the heavier users are still playing with the Dual G5 systems.

Agreed, and without turning this into a mud slinging match, what would people be saying if MS dropped support for AMD CPU's ........ MS are carp ... blah blah blah. Sometimes I don't understand apple marketing, don't get me wrong, I love using OSX, but they are either short on developers to get it working on G5's or they just enjoy the stalinist attitude of "this is how it is .... or else"

The Mrs has a MacBook. I've bought her an external hard drive for back-ups. I think I'll do a manual copy of her music, pics, docs etc to the external drive, do a clean install of Snow Leopard, copy her stuff back on to the laptop and from that point start using Time Machine to backup to the external hard drive.

but they are either short on developers to get it working on G5's or they just enjoy the stalinist attitude of "this is how it is .... or else"

Or both... + perhaps they want you (me) to change the 'old' G5 for a new Mac.

I understand why they have ditched the legacy stuff in OSX. OSX has a long & complicated history. For the last few years Apple have needed to keep the updates rolling; including new features/eye candy to woo buyers away from Microsoft.

This latest update seems minor but it is actually the most radical of the lot. They could of done a PPC only version of Snow Leopard as well but it would have been huge effort for little to no gain. They make money from hardware sales. The OS is there to sell the hardware.

Thing is; Apple software is very user friendly, Apple themselves are not. You pays your money and makes your choice!

Looks like my G5 will be coming to the end of its life then! Not sure I want to replace with a new tower model, might be tempted down the 24inch imac route then i can get all the wizzy new software

Looks like my G5 will be coming to the end of its life then! Not sure I want to replace with a new tower model, might be tempted down the 24inch imac route then i can get all the wizzy new software

The thing is though, it does not look like Apple are pushing the specs up on the iMac's, I was reading MacUser a couple of weeks ago (blagged a free Sub) and they where saying that it looks like Apple are having a huge shift towards Laptop / Phone at the neglect of the desktop market.

I nearly bought an iMac a few weeks ago, until I noticed that they have not got the oled display and the graphics card is at best, mildly pants (bearing in mind I would be boot camping for COD4 / CodWaW / MW2)

Maybe there is a monster horsepower MBP on the horizon and that is the direction they are going, coupling it with the cinema display and apple keyboard and mouse?

I nearly bought an iMac a few weeks ago, until I noticed that they have not got the oled display and the graphics card is at best, mildly pants (bearing in mind I would be boot camping for COD4 / CodWaW / MW2)

And which all-in-one-box PC with an OLED screen and high-spec gfx card were you comparing it to? Have a look at the Mac Pro and you'll find some hefty cards in them and a nice screen to plug in. Just like a PC box.

The iMac is designed to be a (reasonably powerful) all-in-one space saving solution more for convenience than the latest games or video editing etc. Apple will put the specs up, but they never have (and never will be) pushing the envelope on performance with them. Plus it seems Jobs' a bit hooked on getting this tablet sorted at the moment. (and as an iPhone owner I'm quite happy they're putting all there efforts into battery tech research )

And which all-in-one-box PC with an OLED screen and high-spec gfx card were you comparing it to? Have a look at the Mac Pro and you'll find some hefty cards in them and a nice screen to plug in. Just like a PC box.

The iMac is designed to be a (reasonably powerful) all-in-one space saving solution more for convenience than the latest games or video editing etc. Apple will put the specs up, but they never have (and never will be) pushing the envelope on performance with them. Plus it seems Jobs' a bit hooked on getting this tablet sorted at the moment. (and as an iPhone owner I'm quite happy they're putting all there efforts into battery tech research )

Mort

I don't want to go down the morals of each route. Lets just say I was thinking of ditching my PC which is running Quad SLi 9800GX2's, water cooling and a Q6600 at 3.6GHZ, 16GB RAM and 64Bit Windows 7

It's not a fair to compare an iMac with that at all, but Mac Pro's would be more than double what it cost me to put the PC together. A Dell XPS, whilst not having OLED can come with a high end 24" monitor or 30" monitor and the standard Nvidia 280's rip the guts out of the Radeon 4850 the iMac's come with.

I can't shoot things in real life any more, am to old to go back in the mob so vent my frustrations on FPS games I was considering tidying up the office and going for a full Mac transition, I can see so much potential in the iMac but apple seem to be letting it drop by the wayside.

Before we head down the horn locking route, consider that I am typing this on my MBP which I am very very happy with, have had 2 iPhones and have no desire to switch to a different "phone", I just accept that Mac's like PC's are not perfect, some people (and I don't know you so can't class you as one) won't accept that they have faults......

Simples

I think the stand-alone desktop PC is coming to the end of it's road.

I think the near future is a box of some kind that sits under the stairs, serves several terminals or laptops/netbooks/tablets round the house, securely connects to the net & backs up regularly. There is already a Microsoft based box that does this (Dell/HP?) & Apple are moving towards this with the Time Capsule etc.

As for the iMacs, don't buy just yet; they're due an upgrade/price drop: -> Mac Buyer's Guide: Know When to Buy Your Mac, iPod or iPhone

Before we head down the horn locking route, consider that I am typing this on my MBP which I am very very happy with, have had 2 iPhones and have no desire to switch to a different "phone", I just accept that Mac's like PC's are not perfect, some people (and I don't know you so can't class you as one) won't accept that they have faults......

I've been using Macs (and PCs for that matter) for the last 25 years. I know they have faults, and I don't by any means mean to lock horns or irritate. I know it's often seen as a 'fanboy' attitude but I honestly don't think direct comparisons between Mac and PC work. If you added an OLED screen and the graphics card you want to an iMac you'd end up with something that would make the low-end Mac Pro look value for money. It's just not what Apple are aiming for.

Whilst I despise Windows and think MacOS is a much nicer place to live, I often happily reccomend people to build a PC for, even casual, gaming as Apple simply don't cater for that market yet. There isn't really a best-of-both-worlds solution out there. Until recently I had a separate PC rig for my gaming. Now due to cost and space I've just dropped the PC and just boot up ScummVM to pretend I'm 11 again when I want a gaming fix.

Been a week since its released. Anybody got it yet?

Cut my teeth on Windows XP in 2005 so to speak, then 2 years later 2007 went iMac 'Tiger' and using boot-camp, had Windows XP installed.

Moving from 'Tiger' to 'Leopard' was smooth, got son-in-law to install for me.LOL

Now I see 'Snow Leopard' not crystal clear advantages I would benefit so will save the £25 upgrade cost and wait for next generation.

I find navigating the iMac difficult as compared to Windows XP, even flipping through photos asking for one preview after another just fills screen up, then I have to delete one at a time.

I know this will cause a stir (not intentional) Apple versus Windows!! but add Apple needs Windows for countless programs it hasn't got of it's own, sorry.

Ian. 04/09/2009. :confused: