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Snow Leopard struts its stuff at Apple’s WWDC

Nick

Nick

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Snow Leopard logoApple’s prestigious Worldwide Developers Conference got underway in San Francisco yesterday and delegates finally got to see the long awaited next incarnation of Mac OS X – Snow Leopard – in action. I wrote about what to expect from Snow Leopard a few weeks ago and there seems no reason to refute any of the claims made there, except that Safari will no longer be in beta stage when it will be released, probably in September. There are however some new revelations that weren’t originally mentioned:

Higher Resolution iChats – Better video quality yet only consuming a third of the bandwidth

Support for Chinese – Including those written on a trackpad writing and predictive typing

Enhanced Exposé – Click and hold a dock icon to reveal windows for that program

Drag and Drop Features – Drag and drop items and images between different programs

Cheap Upgrade – Leopard users can upgrade for just $29 (family license is $49)

Those that we already knew about but now have more details on include:

Enhanced Stacks – Handles a larger range of files and allow you to drill-down sub folders

Microsoft Exchange Support – Browse global Exchange addresses and integration with iCal

More Discreet Quicktime – The interface hides as soon as your cursor leaves the window

As I mentioned before, the most noticeable benefit for most general users will probably be speed enhancements. That said, the long-awaited support for Microsoft Exchange is bound to be a big pull for business users. And for programmers, Snow Leopard presents the most exciting developments of all with support for 64-bit architecture, Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL. Many of the other subtle enhancements mentioned above aren’t exactly essential but they will streamline your workflow. And for just $29 dollars to upgrade, you can’t really go wrong.

Nick

Nick

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