Which upgrade is more worthwhile: Windows 7 or Snow Leopard?
The battle between Microsoft and Apple wages forward, and it’s more intense than ever.
On August 28th, 2009, Apple released the most recent version of OS X, Snow Leopard; advancing it up to version 10.6 of their kitty-cat themed operating system. Snow Leopard was released mainly as an upgrade and not an individual install, and is priced at $30. The upgrade revamps many cobwebbed pieces of functionality that have been in place since Tiger (10.4) was released in 2007. A quick list:
- the GUI received a spiffy overhaul, yet retained the look-and-feel Mac users love.
- the OS itself leaves a smaller footprint, utilizing about 7GB less hard drive space than Leopard.
- Safari (Apple’s web browser) is updated to version 4, adding various spiffy features and bug fixes.
- the Finder has been rewritten, and makes better use of the Intel chipsets that have become the Mac standard. The previous Finder was built for the PowerPC CPU, the old standard.
- 64 bit processors (available in most new Macs) are fully supported by Snow Leopard, which will result in improved performance.
Considering the similarities this list of updates shares with what Windows users receive for free in Service Pack releases, fans of Microsoft snarkily call Snow Leopard the “Mac Service Pack you have to pay for.” As much of a dig as this is, they are not far off. New browsers and various bug fixes are always included in Windows Service Packs, and you never have to pay for these updates. Additionally, they are automatically downloaded and installed to your computer.
Windows 7, priced at about $120 for an upgrade CD and $200 for a full installation; was released to the public on October 22nd, 2009. The list of upgrades were solely based on complaints users repeatedly harbored when using Windows Vista. Microsoft made the following general modifications to their operating system:
- an updated Taskbar, which works similarly to the OS X Dock, featuring shortcuts to any programs you’d like to have readily available.
- various updates to the graphical user interface, making for a better experience as you traverse the operating system.
- handwriting recognition.
- the operating system itself is less demanding of the graphic accelerator, improving performance of both installed programs and the operating system alike.
- support for virtual disks.
It can safely be said that this operating system should be considered equivalent to an apology note addressed to the people who complained heavily about Vista. It runs smoother, than Vista, and is less needy when it comes to performing mundane and routine tasks. Some considered the “Is this okay to do?” prompt (now removed from Windows 7) very good for preventing malware and spyware from taking over your computer; but everyone just got sick of bothering with it.
No matter which you prefer in this ongoing feud, both updated operating systems offer minor upgrades and ask you to shell out some of your hard-earned dough. Which do you think makes more sense to pay for?
I’d day that the Windows upgrade is more important. After upgrading to Snow Leopard on my white macbook, I noticed a bit of a performance boost, but nothing to write home about.
With my limited experience with Vista, I yearned for XP.
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Dan Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I partially agree. I feel that the cost of both software packages makes the obvious choice Snow Leopard. That being said, why did Apple charge us for something that Microsoft may not have charged us for? This would be a moot debate if Apple gave Leopard investors this upgrade for free.
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Carlo Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Snow Leopard should have been a free upgrade. But this is what apple does.
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Dan Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Going back to the “swallow the pill, you know you want to” ethic they’ve successfully adapted.
Batman Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Wrong.
10.X updates are the equivalent of XP/Vista/7 upgrades.
Your so called “service packs” are the 10.6.X updates, which Apple puts out for free as well as more frequently than Microsoft’s Service Packs.
I dont have either because I wanna punch the economy in the face.
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LINUX 4 LIFE!
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Which is more worthwhile?
Look at it this way:
Short term? Windows 7, clearly. Vista was an absolute failure, and they went and fixed all (or most of) the problems with it. But it’s all built on the previous OS, which is why every time the basic hardware requirements have gone up. Windows continuously sucks up more resources.
Long term? Snow Leopard. PowerPC code is gone, everything is optimized for 64bit / Intel chips. They’re recoding programs to work in Cocoa (which is some programming language I will not bother to learn about), meaning everything will be snappier while using less memory. You may not see all thee updates on the front end, but they are setting the stage for whatever comes next.
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First.
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With a 64 Bit dual core G5 PowerPC, bought when they first appeared in 2004, I want to know if it’s worth getting Snow Leopard or is this largely just for Intel machines?
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Dan Reply:
January 25th, 2010 at 10:19 am
Snow Leopard requires an Intel processor to work. There are ways to hack it to get it working with PowerPC but I’m not well-versed on how it would work exactly. In my opinion, I didn’t need to move on from OS 10.4, but all the cool kids were getting Leopard and subsequently Snow Leopard. I had to keep up
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