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History of Mac OS X, at a glance.

In 2001, Apple released the first desktop major release of their Mac OS X operating system, the successor to Mac OS 9 and the “Classic” Mac OS line, with “Cheetah”. The Unix-based operating system was a major overhaul to the Mac computing system by introducing the power and security of UNIX and a collaboration of several projects made by NeXT Computer, Inc. where Steve Jobs was CEO before returning to Apple in 1997.
Since then, Mac OS X has evolved with several releases (marked 10.1 -- 10.5) named after “big cats”, those being Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, and Leopard, bringing thousands of new features, limitless enhancements to the Mac user experience, newer software that accomplishes tasks for todays computing demands, and powerful under-the-hood security and design technologies that make Mac OS X the world’s most advanced operating system, according to Apple.

Introducing the Seventh “Big Cat”; PowerPC R.I.P

Snow Leopard is the seventh major release of Mac OS X. The upgrade to Mac OS X focuses on improving performance, efficiency, and reducing its overall system footprint compared to it’s predecessor “Leopard”. Snow Leopard brings numerous refinements globally around the OS, which I will cover later in the review.
Although Snow Leopard brings an overhaul “under-the-hood”, it meant for Apple to take a risky decision to abandon support for all PowerPC CPUs in order to speed up the efficiency of 64-bit Intel-based applications and to reduce the footprint of the operating system by removing all PowerPC code from the system kernel, extensions, and default applications.

Refinements from Leopard

Apple has claimed that Snow Leopard is meant to be a “refined” update to an already-amazing operating system rather than introducing or reinventing it with dozens of new features and options. The first thing users can notice is a much faster and advanced Finder. Finder was re-written from scratch entirely in Cocoa, a request from more advanced Mac users for years, and including Snow Leopard’s newest technologies, including 64-bit support and Grand Central Dispatch. You will also experience faster wake up time from sleep mode, and shut down times, by up to 2x.
From my experience, the Finder loads file icons almost twice as fast as Leopard Finder. It no longer takes a while to load all JPEG and PDF icons from photos, meaning browsing them is a breeze with this new Finder. Apple also included an enhanced icon view that lets you thumb through a multipage document, listen to an music file, or watch a QuickTime movie.
Time Machine, Apple’s easy-to-use backup technology found since Leopard, has also been refined making backups up to 80 percent faster and reducing the time it takes to complete your first initial backup. These results can be experienced with a Time Capsule, but can vary with a USB or FireWire connected external hard drive.

Via Apple.com: QuickTime X is the next-generation media technology that powers the audio and video experience in Mac OS X Snow Leopard. It includes a completely new QuickTime Player application with a clean, uncluttered design, a new trimming interface, and easy uploads to YouTube and MobileMe. And it delivers more efficient media playback, HTTP-based live streaming, and greater color accuracy.

New Technologies Under-the-Hood

Mac OS X has always been a very impressive operating system since it’s first introduction 2001, with a powerful UNIX foundation and a breeze of security technologies that makes the Mac a very immune operating system to most viruses, spyware, and malware. Snow Leopard continues to improve this amazing foundation with new technologies that take advantage of the future of computing that is already occurring today.
First off, the transition to 64-bit. The entire computing industry is moving from 32-bit to 64-bit, and has been for quite a few years now. For those with no quick knowledge of 64-bit, it allows your computer to address up to a theoretical 16 exabytes of memory. The wonders of 64-bit can best be found from a 64-bit written application (Finder, iCal, Address Book, Mail) and with a computer that has more than 4GB of RAM. Amazingly, 64-bit is backwards compatible with all of your 32-bit apps and system preferences, meaning you don’t need to buy a separate version of the OS, unlike Microsoft’s Windows Vista and Windows 7.
Grand Central Dispatch, or GCD in short, has been the talk of the town in the Mac community when talking about improvements to the operating system.

Expect Part 2 on Sunday. Stay tuned