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Hi, user of OS X from 10.2 to present. It’s a myth. Snow leopard was not some mythical stable release without bugs. Hell it had the remove your home directory

Hi, user of OS X from 10.2 to present. It’s a myth. Snow leopard was not some mythical stable release without bugs. Hell it had the remove your home directory bug when logging in as a guest. I’ve personally had no real problems with the recent releases, I know a fair amount of people inmy camp too. Angry people are just more vocal. I know there are a ton of hn posters that will disagree but this whole thing is like windows 2000 being the most stable release of windows. Or more recently windows 7.

dwighttk 8y ago
>angry people are more vocal That is a big thing. Kinda like this mac book pro is fine as long as you don’t get a bad keyboard.
- pdpi 8y ago
  The 15" one I had at my previous job had graphics corruption issues (just big red — presumably untextured — rectangles all over the place), and I have to restart my current 13" one at my current job every couple of days because one of the thunderbolt ports will give up on outputting video on a regular basis (and won't recover until I restart). I also lose audio on this one every few days. I'll accept a dud as unlucky. Two in a row feels sloppy. The keyboard is only one of many problems these laptops have.
  - chrisfinazzo 8y ago
    An 8600M GT killed my '07 15" and I've sworn off discrete graphics ever since.
    - peatmoss 8y ago
      While the long-term plan for Apple appears to be to move everything to their own silicon, I wonder if we'll see a hardware refresh based on a 7nm AMD Ryzen chip between now and then. The integrated graphics on AMD seem to be relatively performant compared to Intel's, and I can't imagine AMD not having pretty good power characteristics at 7nm.
      - chrisfinazzo 8y ago
        Maybe this is 2005 Me talking, but I simply don't trust AMD to do anything well. To be fair, both Intel and them have had high profile failures where the product either didn't work at all or didn't perform adequately (Itanium and Bulldozer). The AMD I remember also had a tendency to over estimate performance and underclock parts, (1800+, anyone?) even if they could sell them for less. It's this part that makes me think Apple wouldn't want to deal with them. For all of Intel's missteps, Apple choosing AMD because they are the cheaper alternative smells weird to me.
Angostura 8y ago
Lion, however was a slow, buggy resource hog that bought older Macs to their knees. 10.6.8 was, by comparison fantastic. Mountain Lion started fixing the damage.
stetrain 8y ago
I think it may also have to do with release timing. Leopard to Snow Leopard was 24 months and Snow Leopard to Lion was 27 months. That gave time for the 10.6.1, 10.6.2, etc patch releases to stack up. Most people probably didn't upgrade until at least a few of those point releases had been out, after which they could have enjoyed almost two years before another major OS update was released. I think much of the fond memories revolve around these later versions, and there were probably plenty of people continuing to run 10.6.8 long after 10.7 was released. Now MacOS is on a yearly cycle like iOS. Stability is probably still pretty good if you wait and upgrade until about the time the new OS is announced, but Apple definitely pushes users to update sooner than that so people are spending more time running on versions that are more fresh from a major release with major changes.
- classichasclass 8y ago
  This. Apple is really good at iterating, and nobody gets it right the first time. The early "cats" had lots of time to mature (look at how long Tiger persisted, my personal favourite) and I think Apple should strongly reconsider the annual cadence to allow that to happen again for macOS. They just changed the whole filesystem, for crying out loud. That needs time to settle. There's also the fact that Snow Leopard will run on any Intel Mac, and I think a lot of people remember how (necessarily) light on its feet it was by comparison with what followed.
  - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure they didn't develop the new file system between Sierra and High Sierra.
    - classichasclass 8y ago
      Sure. But it wasn't user facing until then, and that's a big difference.
    - chrisfinazzo 8y ago
      4 years internally is what I remember hearing, plus 1 year as a developer preview. So, no, certainly didn't happen overnight.
colechristensen 8y ago
It was a nicer release, but all of the praise/hate for versions is a little too loud.
jjoonathan 8y ago
Myth, huh? 2001 10.1 Puma: First OS X to ship by default 2002 10.2 Jaguar: GPU compositing, Mail.app / Address Book, MP4 2003 10.3 Panther: Safari, iChat AV, Journaled FS, Apple's PDF engine 2005 10.4 Tiger: Spotlight, Dashboard, Automator, Core Image/Video 2007 10.5 Leopard: Core Animation, Time Machine, Boot Camp, 64 bit, intel 2009 10.6 Snow Leopard: App Store, XCode overhaul with LLVM, major dev tool updates ~~~ wind leaves sails ~~~ 2011 10.7 Lion: Launchpad, auto-save documents, multi-touch 2012 10.8 Mountain Lion: Game Center, Notification Center 2013 10.9 Mavericks: iBooks, Apple Maps, iCloud integration 2014 10.10 Yosemite: Skeuomorphism -> Fisher Price, Continuity & handoff 2015 10.11 El Capitan: San Francisco font, Metal API 2016 10.12 Sierra: Siri, Auto Unlock, Night Shift ~~~ wind returns? ~~~ 2017 10.13 High Sierra: HEVC, APFS, VR On the upside, High Sierra was a release that lives up to the old standard. Hopefully that's a trend that will continue.
- classichasclass 8y ago
  What makes you say that High Sierra lives up to the standard? Because it had more "under the hood" stuff? I think the Snow Leopard meme is also about perceived quality, not just where the updates occurred. Also, apropos of nothing, when I was in my larval state and we walked uphill both ways to school, High Sierra was a file system, not an OS. My System 7.1 Mac has an extension to read them.
  - jjoonathan 8y ago
    Through 10.6, people had good reasons to suffer through buggy upgrades. Post 10.6, they didn't. Apple delivered bugs at the same rate but noticeably fewer heavy-hitting, impactful, and technically excellent features. The attractiveness of upgrading plummited, leading to "Why not just stick with Snow Leopard?"
- mitchty 8y ago
  Can you explain how any of this pertains to a stability problem? Cherry picking features added to each release is... a weird argument in this regard.
mi100hael 8y ago
But by the time they hit their final release of 10.6.8, it was pretty damn good. Then Lion came out with bugs left and right. You're comparing 10.6.1 to 10.7.1, but there were a bunch of improvements in between that you're omitting. And while you personally may not have had any issues (and I also haven't had any huge complaints w/ Sierra+), it's not like they haven't had their fair share of badly embarrassing bugs: - https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/10/macos-high-sierra-app-store-password-bug/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/10/macos-high-sierra-app-s... - http://fortune.com/2017/11/28/apple-security-flaw-vulnerability-bug-mac-high-sierra-root-password/ http://fortune.com/2017/11/28/apple-security-flaw-vulnerabil... - https://9to5mac.com/2018/03/26/macos-high-sierra-plain-text-external-apfs-disk-utility/ https://9to5mac.com/2018/03/26/macos-high-sierra-plain-text-...
- mitchty 8y ago
  > You're comparing 10.6.1 to 10.7.1, but there were a bunch of improvements in between that you're omitting. I don't recall where I omitted anything in my original post or compared 10.6.1 to 10.7.1, care to explain? And I'm not discounting that bugs exist, just that in my experience I've not hit any huge ones. And snow leopard also had its share of badly embarrassing bugs.
  - mi100hael 8y ago
    As mentioned in TFA, the home directory bug was fixed in 10.6.2. What badly embarrassing bugs exist in 10.6.8?
    - mitchty 8y ago
      > What badly embarrassing bugs exist in 10.6.8? Hell if I know, the goal posts seem to be shifting into me having to explain every point release now. Thanks for the discussion but its back to work for me.
      - mi100hael 8y ago
        As I mentioned in my first reply, that's the final release of 10.6. Your first comment mentioned bugs that had already been patched long before the final release, which is what everyone is referring to when looking back fondly at Snow Leopard.
whywhywhywhy 8y ago
Thing is, it's not about one or two large stand out bugs affecting a few. SL of course had bugs, all software has bugs. But Lion and the next few versions after that had constant small issues, instabilities and glitches that became a background noise that made the entire period of using versions 10.7-10.9 frustrating.
chrisfinazzo 8y ago
I remember that bug, fun times. Of course, I think it wasn't just limited to Guest accounts (which nobody needs - get your own damn machine), which made it all the more insidious.
h1d 8y ago
Question is more like, has Apple ever made a OS without adding/breaking stuff but just made the predecessor better after Snow Leopard? I think I can still feel at home using Snow Leopard as nothing significant has changed from users perspective.

dwighttk 8y ago

>angry people are more vocal That is a big thing. Kinda like this mac book pro is fine as long as you don’t get a bad keyboard.

pdpi 8y ago
The 15" one I had at my previous job had graphics corruption issues (just big red — presumably untextured — rectangles all over the place), and I have to restart my current 13" one at my current job every couple of days because one of the thunderbolt ports will give up on outputting video on a regular basis (and won't recover until I restart). I also lose audio on this one every few days. I'll accept a dud as unlucky. Two in a row feels sloppy. The keyboard is only one of many problems these laptops have.
- chrisfinazzo 8y ago
  An 8600M GT killed my '07 15" and I've sworn off discrete graphics ever since.
  - peatmoss 8y ago
    While the long-term plan for Apple appears to be to move everything to their own silicon, I wonder if we'll see a hardware refresh based on a 7nm AMD Ryzen chip between now and then. The integrated graphics on AMD seem to be relatively performant compared to Intel's, and I can't imagine AMD not having pretty good power characteristics at 7nm.
    - chrisfinazzo 8y ago
      Maybe this is 2005 Me talking, but I simply don't trust AMD to do anything well. To be fair, both Intel and them have had high profile failures where the product either didn't work at all or didn't perform adequately (Itanium and Bulldozer). The AMD I remember also had a tendency to over estimate performance and underclock parts, (1800+, anyone?) even if they could sell them for less. It's this part that makes me think Apple wouldn't want to deal with them. For all of Intel's missteps, Apple choosing AMD because they are the cheaper alternative smells weird to me.

Angostura 8y ago

Lion, however was a slow, buggy resource hog that bought older Macs to their knees. 10.6.8 was, by comparison fantastic. Mountain Lion started fixing the damage.

stetrain 8y ago

I think it may also have to do with release timing. Leopard to Snow Leopard was 24 months and Snow Leopard to Lion was 27 months. That gave time for the 10.6.1, 10.6.2, etc patch releases to stack up. Most people probably didn't upgrade until at least a few of those point releases had been out, after which they could have enjoyed almost two years before another major OS update was released. I think much of the fond memories revolve around these later versions, and there were probably plenty of people continuing to run 10.6.8 long after 10.7 was released. Now MacOS is on a yearly cycle like iOS. Stability is probably still pretty good if you wait and upgrade until about the time the new OS is announced, but Apple definitely pushes users to update sooner than that so people are spending more time running on versions that are more fresh from a major release with major changes.

classichasclass 8y ago
This. Apple is really good at iterating, and nobody gets it right the first time. The early "cats" had lots of time to mature (look at how long Tiger persisted, my personal favourite) and I think Apple should strongly reconsider the annual cadence to allow that to happen again for macOS. They just changed the whole filesystem, for crying out loud. That needs time to settle. There's also the fact that Snow Leopard will run on any Intel Mac, and I think a lot of people remember how (necessarily) light on its feet it was by comparison with what followed.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure they didn't develop the new file system between Sierra and High Sierra.
  - classichasclass 8y ago
    Sure. But it wasn't user facing until then, and that's a big difference.
  - chrisfinazzo 8y ago
    4 years internally is what I remember hearing, plus 1 year as a developer preview. So, no, certainly didn't happen overnight.

colechristensen 8y ago

It was a nicer release, but all of the praise/hate for versions is a little too loud.

jjoonathan 8y ago

Myth, huh? 2001 10.1 Puma: First OS X to ship by default 2002 10.2 Jaguar: GPU compositing, Mail.app / Address Book, MP4 2003 10.3 Panther: Safari, iChat AV, Journaled FS, Apple's PDF engine 2005 10.4 Tiger: Spotlight, Dashboard, Automator, Core Image/Video 2007 10.5 Leopard: Core Animation, Time Machine, Boot Camp, 64 bit, intel 2009 10.6 Snow Leopard: App Store, XCode overhaul with LLVM, major dev tool updates ~~~ wind leaves sails ~~~ 2011 10.7 Lion: Launchpad, auto-save documents, multi-touch 2012 10.8 Mountain Lion: Game Center, Notification Center 2013 10.9 Mavericks: iBooks, Apple Maps, iCloud integration 2014 10.10 Yosemite: Skeuomorphism -> Fisher Price, Continuity & handoff 2015 10.11 El Capitan: San Francisco font, Metal API 2016 10.12 Sierra: Siri, Auto Unlock, Night Shift ~~~ wind returns? ~~~ 2017 10.13 High Sierra: HEVC, APFS, VR On the upside, High Sierra was a release that lives up to the old standard. Hopefully that's a trend that will continue.

classichasclass 8y ago
What makes you say that High Sierra lives up to the standard? Because it had more "under the hood" stuff? I think the Snow Leopard meme is also about perceived quality, not just where the updates occurred. Also, apropos of nothing, when I was in my larval state and we walked uphill both ways to school, High Sierra was a file system, not an OS. My System 7.1 Mac has an extension to read them.
- jjoonathan 8y ago
  Through 10.6, people had good reasons to suffer through buggy upgrades. Post 10.6, they didn't. Apple delivered bugs at the same rate but noticeably fewer heavy-hitting, impactful, and technically excellent features. The attractiveness of upgrading plummited, leading to "Why not just stick with Snow Leopard?"
mitchty 8y ago
Can you explain how any of this pertains to a stability problem? Cherry picking features added to each release is... a weird argument in this regard.

mi100hael 8y ago

But by the time they hit their final release of 10.6.8, it was pretty damn good. Then Lion came out with bugs left and right. You're comparing 10.6.1 to 10.7.1, but there were a bunch of improvements in between that you're omitting. And while you personally may not have had any issues (and I also haven't had any huge complaints w/ Sierra+), it's not like they haven't had their fair share of badly embarrassing bugs: - https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/10/macos-high-sierra-app-store-password-bug/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/10/macos-high-sierra-app-s... - http://fortune.com/2017/11/28/apple-security-flaw-vulnerability-bug-mac-high-sierra-root-password/ http://fortune.com/2017/11/28/apple-security-flaw-vulnerabil... - https://9to5mac.com/2018/03/26/macos-high-sierra-plain-text-external-apfs-disk-utility/ https://9to5mac.com/2018/03/26/macos-high-sierra-plain-text-...

mitchty 8y ago
> You're comparing 10.6.1 to 10.7.1, but there were a bunch of improvements in between that you're omitting. I don't recall where I omitted anything in my original post or compared 10.6.1 to 10.7.1, care to explain? And I'm not discounting that bugs exist, just that in my experience I've not hit any huge ones. And snow leopard also had its share of badly embarrassing bugs.
- mi100hael 8y ago
  As mentioned in TFA, the home directory bug was fixed in 10.6.2. What badly embarrassing bugs exist in 10.6.8?
  - mitchty 8y ago
    > What badly embarrassing bugs exist in 10.6.8? Hell if I know, the goal posts seem to be shifting into me having to explain every point release now. Thanks for the discussion but its back to work for me.
    - mi100hael 8y ago
      As I mentioned in my first reply, that's the final release of 10.6. Your first comment mentioned bugs that had already been patched long before the final release, which is what everyone is referring to when looking back fondly at Snow Leopard.

whywhywhywhy 8y ago

Thing is, it's not about one or two large stand out bugs affecting a few. SL of course had bugs, all software has bugs. But Lion and the next few versions after that had constant small issues, instabilities and glitches that became a background noise that made the entire period of using versions 10.7-10.9 frustrating.

chrisfinazzo 8y ago

I remember that bug, fun times. Of course, I think it wasn't just limited to Guest accounts (which nobody needs - get your own damn machine), which made it all the more insidious.

h1d 8y ago

Question is more like, has Apple ever made a OS without adding/breaking stuff but just made the predecessor better after Snow Leopard? I think I can still feel at home using Snow Leopard as nothing significant has changed from users perspective.