What is MacOS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard"? How is it different from MacOS X 10.5 "Leopard"?

At first glance, there do not appear to be major differences between MacOS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" and MacOS X 10.5 "Leopard". Apple itself refers to it as more of a "refinement" than an upgrade -- and, accordingly, has priced it at US$29 for those upgrading from "Leopard" -- and some Windows users have dismissed it as little more than a "service pack" of bug fixes.

If viewed as just a list of features, Snow Leopard may not look particularly interesting to the average user, and if it was just for the modest speed boost and estimated 7 GB of hard drive storage savings, it would be reasonable to dismiss it as a "service pack".

There are a handful of particularly valuable new features though -- native Microsoft Exchange support, improved VoiceOver for the visually impaired, and handwritten Chinese input support -- as well as welcomed minor improvements -- "Exposé" arranging open windows on a grid rather than in a disorderly fashion, the ability to copy a single column of text from a PDF file, and QuickTime X's fast and easy uploading to YouTube, for example.

Nevertheless, even with a small performance increase, hard drive storage savings, and some useful new features, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think of Snow Leopard as a minor update and perhaps not worthy of a "full cat" increase, even if it is comparatively inexpensive for an operating system upgrade.

However, there are three major technological improvements that Snow Leopard unveils -- 64-bit support, Grand Central Dispatch, and OpenCL -- and these advances are far more substantial than a service pack. These three technologies lay a foundation for future improvement and as programmers utilize each fully, performance will continue to increase.

Also see:

• What are the "pros and cons" of upgrading to MacOS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard"? Is it "worth it"? Is there any reason not to upgrade?
• Which Intel Macs have 64-bit processors? Which have a 64-bit EFI? Which are capable of booting MacOS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" in 64-bit mode?
• What is "OpenCL"? Which Macs support the "OpenCL" technology provided by MacOS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard"?
• What is "Grand Central Dispatch"? Which Macs support the "Grand Central Dispatch" technology provided by MacOS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard"?

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