mac osx

Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard And Mac Nostalgia

At some level, I feel like I celebrate chaos, although, I would not like to take my share of responsibility for creating any of it, to begin with. I buy and care for my stuff like my own life and store it at places inside my home where I could find them easily as the need arises but for me, ‘easily’ is a metaphor for “ease of access”, not signifying keeping stuff organized. Though with time, I lose some of my prized possessions and it makes me feel disappointed, like this priceless DVD copy of Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

I would have lost this precious possession forever to the sands of time but I rediscovered it quite accidentally last weekend while I was looking for another piece of valuable junk in my storeroom (ugh!!). I’m talking about this copy of DVD of Apple’s Mac OS X Snow Leopard released back in 2009 (August 28, to be precise) and it was a shocker for me to find that one can order it online on the Apple Store, even today!

My Snow Leopard Saga

Mac OS X Snow Leopard

So Snow Leopard (version 10.6) was released in 2009 and within a year of my purchase of the then newly introduced unibody MacBook Pro that had come bundled with OS X Leopard, and I am proud to admit, that even to this day, I still operate this wonderful piece of hardware in significantly augmenting my creative workload.

If my memory serves me correctly, I had obtained this particular DVD-ROM at the Croma outlet in Malad who still run a dedicated corner for Apple products. I was super excited about the process ahead because it was my first major upgrade of the Mac OS X since getting my MacBook Pro. It’s also nostalgic in a sense because I have come so far in understanding & appreciating the MacBook Pros not just from a cult/design perspective but also for its reliable performance & technical architecture, and I believe Mac OS X is what makes the Mac line-up truly awesome. This landmark release of Mac OS X back in 2009 wasn’t meant to introduce new features rather addressing the stability issues with previous versions & focusing on better performance.

Personally, I am glad to possess an important portion from my past that marks my sheer interest in Apple products & future technology. Now it goes without saying, that I since have recovered this valuable treasure, despite accidentally, I’m holding on to it for posterity.

About Snow Leopard

  • 10.6 Snow Leopard was the last version of OS X before Apple started to add iOS elements from OS X 10.7 Lion onwards
  • Snow Leopard came on a DVD and was the last version to be sold on a disk
  • It was also the last version to support OS X Rosetta, and thus the last version that could run PowerPC-only applications
  • Snow Leopard has often been compared with its counterpart Windows XP for its widespread adoption and longevity
  • Snow Leopard is the last release of Mac OS X to support the 32-bit Intel Core Solo and Intel Core Duo CPUs
  • Although Snow Leopard has officially been out of support since 2014, you can still purchase it in the form of boxed DVD-ROMs through Apple’s online store.

Snow Leopard also set a new precedent for software pricing. While Leopard retailed for $129, Snow Leopard was just $30. This made the update accessible to customers who would’ve previously stuck with older versions of the operating system.
– 9to5 Mac

I still wish that Apple would have continued naming Mac OS after wild cats, it brought a sense of connection with previous releases. Although with such rapid releases of major upgrades means they’d have run out of cat names sooner than later.

Move Over Konfabulator

Here comes Kapsules, a freeware desktop widget engine built exclusively for the Windows system. It is built upon the Windows Scripting Technology and is reliant on the .NET framework for it’s working. While Konfabulator was earlier written for the Mac OS X System and later ported for Windows, Kapsules is exclusively designed to be used by Windows components. Check out the widgets available for Kapsules and also preview the Mac OS X Dashboard Widgets.

Aperture Launched

Apple ApertureThis would be the greatest revelation as far as I am concerned. All this while I was feeling proud about Apple not succumbing to the market gimmicks of using Flash on their website. They have a novel way of seeking aesthetic value even in the most simplest of things. The fact that Apple was not using Flash anywhere across their website was a very challenging thought in itself because it was able to achieve good results without using the SWF technology.

Not any more. Apple has just launched it’s new software called Aperture and has used Flash beautifully on the official website. The black colour lends a certain entertaining aura, much to the liking of any photographer. If you are a designer and you want to see aesthetics marry usability then visit Apple.com.