In the past, new versions of Mac OS X have been greeted with large helpings of hype from the tech community. And in most cases, the enthusiasm has been justifiable. Past updates (Tiger, Leopard, etc.) have made significant improvements to an already excellent, intuitive operating system.
All that to say that Apple has set a lofty bar for subsequent versions of OS X. And after having tried out Snow Leopard, the most recent upgrade, we have to say that it does not meet the high benchmark set by previous versions. Of course, we should make an important distinction between Snow Leopard and previous versions of OS X: it only costs $30 as opposed to $130. So really, it's more of a service pack upgrade than a full-blown new version of the operating system. Apart from a few minor changes to the Dock and Expose, there aren't really any apparent changes to the look and feel of the system, and most of the significant developments have happened under the hood, so to speak, where most normal users won't notice much of a differnce.
Of course, that's not to say that Snow Leopard is a bad product, because it does have several worthwhile features. One of its major selling points is that it takes up less hard disk space. Of course, if you’re working with a newer system, the amount of space freed up might be negligible (sometimes as low as 1 GB), but every little bit helps, right? And perhaps the most important feature of Snow Leopard is that it supports 64-bit processing. This feature not only allows 64-bit systems to take advantage of their processing ability and memory but also provides a good foundation for future versions of OS X which will certainly use 64-bit operation.
And then there is the highly-touted support for Microsoft Exchange, which was an important step for Apple to take. The only problem is that Snow Leopard only supports Exchange 2007, so if you are using an earlier version (which we suspect a lot of users are) you're still out of luck.
So, yes, Snow Leopard does have its advantages. But it is also not worth the usual hype that surrounds OS X updates. If you feel like its features will be specifically helpful to you (i.e., if you have Exchange 2007, are strapped for space, or really want 64-bit support), then upgrading to Snow Leopard would probably be worth the $30 for you. Otherwise, it's not imperative that you upgrade, and that $30 just might buy you a pair of movie tickets.
Interested in reading more about Snow Leopard? Click here to read Engadget's review. Click here to read MacWorld's review.