Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was superseded by OS X 10.7 Lion but is definitely worthwhile upgrading for OS X 10.5 Leopard users.
The first thing Mac users should be aware of is that there's nothing eye-popping in Snow Leopard that's going to have you scrambling to upgrade. The focus of OS X 10.6 is simply to improve overall efficiency and reduce it's footprint. However, there are a few interesting new features that will certainly interest some users. Here are some of the most notable:
Slimmer QuickTime Player
Maybe inspired by the success of VLC Player, "QuickTime X" features a simplified GUI with a greater focus on codec support
Cocoa Based Finder
Finder has a glossy new Cocoa Desktop Window and Contextual Menu
Safari Beta 4 Default Browser
In an unusual (and some might say slightly desperate move) Apple included a beta version of Safari 4 with Snow Leopard presumably in a bid to give it a leg-up against Firefox.
Microsoft Exchange Server Support
A smart business move that will surely attract more corporate users. Mac users can now connect to Microsoft Exchange 2007 servers via Mail, Address Book, and iCal
Faster Installation Time
May not be of much interest to single users but network administrators installing Snow Leopard on multiple machines can expect to install it in around 15 minutes compared to around an hour for Leopard. Testmac.net completed an install in an incredible 13 minutes.
More Stacks Control
Stacks has been improved to allow users to drill-down the contents of sub-folder
If you're finding your Mac is operating increasingly slowly, then for speed alone it's worth the upgrade to OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. In addition, its also fair to say that developers will find much to be happy about about in Snow Leopard. The integration of Grand Central, OpenCL and a 64 bit kernel will finally allow them to take full advantage of the dual processing power of Intel Macs and produce some stunning applications.
