Apple’s Snow Leopard: Thinking so different it just doesn’t work

Unlike Microsoft, Apple users are not accustomed to having issues with releases of operating systems – and rightfully so.  Apple has set an unprecedented bar with quality reliable products that work bug free.  Updates to Mac operating systems are viewed as “enhancements” whereas updates to Microsoft products are jokingly called “enhancements”

I assure you it was to much surprise to have so many unpleasant, and really painful problems with Snow Leopard.  Much like the title, it seems like Apple took an otherwise perfectly functional product and threw it into a blizzard (see the pun there).

Snow Leopard has so many issues it’s virtually unworkable in a high demand business environment, and I’m not alone in stating that.  These guys have devoted an entire page to document the horror stories users are having.

CIFS and SMB support for NAS and Windows servers are absolutely horrible.  It might as well not work period.  At least then we can tell user’s it isn’t supported rather than explain why we’re rolling them back – which isn’t supported by Apple by the way.

If you can minimize your connections to CIFS and SMB shares you can work around it, but if you have any legacy applications kiss them goodbye.  Adobe CS2 Suite, Quark 6, and dozens of others will officially have met their match in Snow Leopard with Apple ripping out native support of these applications and replacing it with Rosetta.  I had flash backs to nights where I awoke in cold sweats after the release of Windows Vista.  Applications, like Adobe CS3 Suite, which can run natively in Snow Leopard, are met with numerous unexplained crashes, and random file saving issues.

Like most IT Managers, I gave Apple some room and time to work these issues out.  Apple reps have stated, albeit off the record, that a lot of corporate customers are migrating back to Leopard due to these and similar issues.  Though Apple isn’t officially acknowledging these issues – nor their impact – they have been telling IT Managers not to give up.  Well, IT Admin’s around the world have stood buy waiting for hope and change we could believe in, however, to date, Apple has failed to deliver.  With the release of Mac OS 10.6.2 these issues were yet to be resolved.  Adobe still crashes, CIFS are still painfully slow, and Rosetta still has a love hate relationship with Quark.

Perhaps Apple won’t work these issues out till OS 10.7, like Microsoft with Windows Vista vs Windows 7.  Furthermore, what would they call OS 10.7?  They’ve pretty much depleted the family of large cats, Snow Leopard was a bit of a stretch.  I don’t know about you, but when I’m thinking large cats, Snow Leopard doesn’t come to mind.  Perhaps they’ll switch to Owls, Mac OS 10.7 Spotted Owl.  Maybe they’ll run a contest and Stephen Colbet will win like NASA.  That would be kind of amusing.

Bottom line, don’t run Snow Leopard yet.  It’s like Apple’s Vista.