Mac OS X Snow Leopard
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Is all the excitement about the recently-released Mac OS X Snow Leopard operating system much ado about nothing? Actually, in a way, it is -- and that's a good thing. Keep reading to find out why Apple's insight that less is more could help them win new converts.
Sometime during the fall of last year Apple realized it had to put a stop to the vicious, never-ending cycle of mindless software consumerism. It goes something like this: you buy software and in many instances, in less than a year it’s passé, over, no longer used -- so you feel inclined to upgrade. As encouragement or perhaps as an excuse to make you upgrade, the software manufacturer packs the new version with all kinds of new features, tools, etc. they claim you can’t live or work without. So you fall for it and pay for the upgrade … until next year.
This happens over and over again until the software you once knew and loved has become a crazy, confusing, incoherent mess so jam-packed with cutting edge nonsense that it’s barely operable and can no longer accurately perform any of the tasks you needed it for in the first place. This can happen with operating systems as well, and when it does, it’s even more unfortunate (hello, Windows Vista).
All of this is just to say that over the summer, Apple not-so-quietly released their new Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system a month in advance, which doesn’t bode well for Microsoft who was scheduled to have their new simplified, dignified Windows 7 operating system coincide with the release of Apple’s. Apparently, both companies came to their senses and realized that the pile-on-junk model of business is working now, but it’s not really sustainable in the long run.
Both Microsoft 7 and Snow Leopard are being heralded as slimmed down, cleaned-up versions of previous systems. We’re not here to talk about Microsoft, though. Let’s discuss the new look of Snow Leopard and the operating system’s new features- oh wait, there are none …
Next: No New Features? >>
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