OS X Snow Leopard
As other reviewers have written, it is hard to tell that you have performed an operating system upgrade after the first boot. Even the introduction video is identical to 10.5. What was immediately apparent to me, and this is purely subjective, was that the operating system felt a tad more snappy than the older one on my 2.4GHz iMac that I use as my desktop machine. Windows seems to snap open and closed more eagerly. Wait times for applications opening seem to be a tad shorter.
Next, I opened Photoshop, Illustrator and In Design CS4 in turn, just to make sure that nothing was broken with them. Yep, all good here after a cursory inspection, so now with my major concerns out the way, it was time to try out what I really was after when I purchased Snow Leopard:
The new integration of Mail with Microsoft Exchange 2007! I am a huge Exchange fan, I love the service, however I have longed for that seamless Outlook like interface to Exchange from the Mac. Entourage, to me, has always been clunky – and then it sets you back a ton of money too, so after putting my Exchange credentials into Mail, I felt content as I watched Mail sucking in my e-mail, iCal came alive with my calendar and task items, and address book listed all my Exchange contacts and I was able to search the GAL from Address Book.
I sat back with a muffled sense of excitement, took a long slurp on my now slightly cool Tim Horton’s double double coffee and was well pleased.
For the $35 CAD ($28 US) this upgrade had set me back, just this single feature made it all worth while!
