John Siracusa goes in-depth with Snow Leopard:

The overall message from Apple to developers was something like this: “We’re adding a ton of new things to Mac OS X that will help you write better applications and make your existing code run faster, and we’re going to make sure that all this new stuff is rock-solid and as bug-free as possible. We’re not going to overextend ourselves adding a raft of new customer-facing, marketing-friendly features. Instead, we’re going to concentrate 100% on the things that affect you, the developers.”

But if Snow Leopard is a love letter to developers, is it a Dear John letter to users? You know, those people that the marketing department might so crudely refer to as “customers.” What’s in it for them? Believe it or not, the sales pitch to users is actually quite similar. As exhausting as it has been for developers to keep up with Apple’s seemingly never-ending stream of new APIs, it can be just as taxing for customers to stay on top of Mac OS X’s features. Exposé, a new Finder, Spotlight, a new Dock, Time Machine, a new Finder again, a new iLife and iWork almost every year, and on and on. And as much as developers hate bugs in Apple’s APIs, users who experience those bugs as application crashes have just as much reason to be annoyed.

Enter Snow Leopard: the release where we all get a break from the new-features/new-bugs treadmill of Mac OS X development. That’s the pitch.

This is an exhaustive review of the new operating system. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy.

If you want to see what’s working and what’s not in Snow Leopard, then jump over to Wikidot’s Snow Leopard Compatibility List.

It’s the best list around for Snow Leopard compatibility.

Dan Frakes gives Macworld readers a rundown of System Preferences in Snow Leopard:

As it does in every major upgrade to Mac OS X, Apple has renovated System Preferences in Snow Leopard, reorganizing individual panes and changing the layout of settings within panes. You’ll also find new settings and wonder where some old ones went.

Snow Leopard added a lot of good little nuggets in System Preferences. This is a good guide.

TUAW points out a little-mentioned Spotlight fix in Snow Leopard:

One of the little frustrations in my everyday use of Leopard was the way it searched in folders. When in a Finder window, there was a handy-looking search box in the upper right-hand corner. I would place the cursor, type my query, and be annoyed by the fact that OS X searched my entire Mac.

This is another “little thing” that makes Snow Leopard a welcome addition.

Updating a Mac OS has never been a challenge. Tiger took some time, but went flawlessly. Leopard was a breeze. And all of my reading on Snow Leopard had me ready for a 45 minute non-event.

Needless to say, my experience was not a smooth one. It took me two installs and hours of troubleshooting before I had Snow Leopard running properly on my 13″ Unibody MacBook.

After the first install, I had the following problems:

1. No sound. Checking under the Sound menu in System Preferences, Snow Leopard could not find my speakers.

2. Apps would not launch. After using the system for 20 or 30 minutes, apps refused to launch. Those already open worked just fine. Noting else would open — not utilities, apps or even System Preferences.

3. Keychain went crazy. kSync repeatedly wanted to know my 1Password password and the password to login to another computer connected to me via MobileMe.

A second install corrected the sound problem, but the other two problems remained.

Solving the Keychain problem was easy. I’ve run into it before. Simply open Keychain Access, find all MobileMe (or .Mac) passwords and delete. Problem solved.

Apps not launching, however, was a different story. I use a couple of plugins that I know do not behave perfectly under Snow Leopard: Glims and Evernote clipper for Safari. I killed both of those from my system. (In fact, I uninstalled Evernote all together, something I’ve been threatening to do for some time.)

I also killed off my DevonThink Pro Office sorter, which does not properly behave in Snow Leopard, and all DevonThink scripts for Safari.

After removing all of this, I tested for an hour. Everything worked perfectly. This morning, Snow Leopard is still going strong.

Granted, I miss my DevonThink add-ons and especially Glims. But I’m sure both will soon be updated to work properly under Snow Leopard. When they are, I’ll add them back.

As for Snow Leopard itself, color me impressed. The speed boost alone is worth it. Snow Leopard is snappy fast.

Other subtle changes that have impressed me are:

• Being able to minimize into apps instead of the Dock.
• New stack actions. They are now scrollable. Plus you can drill down into folders.
• Expose is grid-based and shows minimized windows.
• Scalable Services menu on an app-by-app basis.
• Better control over assigning keyboard shortcuts
• Adding Automator actions to the contextual menu

Before I close, I have to say a word about Apple Support. I could not have asked for better assistance. They were patient and thorough. And I was also impressed that Apple extended their customer support hours from 8 p.m. CST to midnight CST. (Maybe they have done this in the past, but I’ve never needed it.)

Despite the troubles upgrading, I’m a Snow Leopard fan. I’ve got three more computers to upgrade. Here’s hoping for a smoother experience with them.

You can find a lot of online hate for the Apple TV, like this recent confession from Aron Trimble at TUAW:

I imagine this will come as a surprise to many, but this TUAW blogger hates an Apple product. A product that could be great, could be so much better than what it is. For some unknown reason, this “hobby” is left to wither and die a slow, painful death. The real tragedy is that when Apple TV does die, I suspect Steve Jobs will never venture to create another, similar product even though the Apple TV has so much potential.

Goodbye, Apple TV: your promises were enchanting but your lies were enraging.

I don’t understand the hate. Just because it doesn’t do all a user wants is no reason to get angry. It does what it does well. If you want more, don’t buy it.

Granted, the Apple TV could be much more than it is. Apple is certainly not pushing the potential of this device. I can only assume that they view other products — iPhone and perhaps a tablet device — as higher priorities. Hopefully, one day, they’ll update the Apple TV with more offerings.

But for now, I use it to rent movies from iTunes. I’ve also hacked it with Boxee, and that opens a lot more. Add to that a library of movies that I own, and the Apple TV is a great hub for my video entertainment.

Sure, I’d love the Hulu client on there, but I use a Mac Mini attached to my TV to get that.

So stop the Apple TV hate. It may not have reached its potential, but it does what it does pretty well.

A rather long read from John Gruber at Daring Fireball on Microsoft’s Long, Slow Decline.

They’re a software company whose primary platform no longer appeals to people who like computers the most. Their executives are either in denial of, or do not perceive, that there has emerged a consensus — not just among nerds but among a growing number of regular just-plain users — that Windows PCs are second-rate. They still dominate in terms of unit-sale market share, yes, but not because people don’t recognize Windows as second-rate, but because they don’t care, in the same way millions of people buy metric tons of second-rate products from Wal-Mart every hour of every day.

That’s the business Wal-Mart wants to be in — selling a zillion cheap low-margin items and turning a profit on volume. That’s not the business Microsoft is in.

Worth the time you put into it. Five minutes. Tops.

Panic developer Steven Frank is mad as hell, and he ain’t taking it anymore:

There’s been no indication that Apple want to do anything to resolve the problems with app store policies that have been laid bare a hundred times over. There’s no indication of anything, as a matter of fact. Nothing. After a year. It’s a black hole yawning back at us. How much has been written about this over the last year? What reason is there to believe anything’s going to change in another year if the policies (whatever they are, who knows) seem to be just getting worse over time?

I’ve reached a point where I can no longer just sit back and watch this. The iPhone ecosystem is toxic, and I can’t participate any more until it is fixed. As people have told me so many times: It’s Apple’s ballgame, and Apple gets to make the rules, and if I don’t like it, I can leave. So, I don’t like it, and I’m leaving.

This is just one example of the rage against the iPhone App Store machine. It’s growing, and hopefully Apple will respond appropriately soon.

Darrell Etherington at The Apple Blog is ready to leave MobileMe if Gpush makes it to the iPhone. Gpush is an iPhone app that would essentially bring push Gmail to the iPhone.

The question surrounding GPush isn’t whether it can pull off what it claims to be able to. That it can do just fine, as TechCrunch’s tests prove. The question is, will Apple ever allow GPush to exist in a form that’s widely available to all users via the App Store? Cupertino has a vested interest in blocking Gmail push, since some users (like me, for instance) might walk away from MobileMe were it to become available, resulting in an obvious loss in revenue.

First, I will likely stay with Mail on the iPhone. I have too many email accounts to jump ship. But even if I didn’t, I’d stick with MobileMe for the cross-computer syncing, iCal syncing with iPhone and Address Book/Contacts syncing for iPhone.

Certainly some folks will leave, but I bet more would stay and some of those who did leave would return.

Mashable has a piece on the Justice Department’s investigation into AT&T and other wireless carriers who have exclusive agreements with phone makers:

The U.S. Department of Justice may not be happy with this and other exclusivity arrangements, though, and has opened a review of AT&T, Verizon, and some of the other major telecoms. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, this “initial review” will explore issues like anti-competitive practices, the sheer market share of AT&T and Verizon (60% of wireless customers), and the practice of locking up phones via exclusivity agreements. Could the government end the AT&T-Apple partnership?

I am not an AT&T fan, moreso for their poor DSL service than their wireless service, though I’d prefer Verizon.

That said, the Justice Department should leave this one alone. These agreements are not anti-competition. They are due to competition. They are two businesses doing business together. And these types of agreements are everywhere.

Kirk McElhearn talks about how we listen to music and a future of unlimited music for subscribers:

The way we listen to music changed when, after decades of coming from needles in grooves, it went digital. Now that digital music is mature, the next step is to disembody it entirely and stick it on central servers somewhere. No more will we need to worry about what to put on our iPods; someday soon, we’ll have an unlimited choice of music—for a monthly fee—wherever and whenever we want it.

I don’t see this happening anytime soon because I can’t imagine an affordable subscription model that would allow for unlimited choice and still generate revenue for Apple to be profitable and still pay the record labels.

I use Fluid for Gmail, Pandora and a few other sites. It’s a great app for people who need site-specific browsers.

One of the new features I was looking forward to trying in Safari 4 is its “Save as Web Application” or SSB functionality. Who knows if I would have switched, especially considering all of the control Fluid offers.

But the question remains, now that Safari 4b1 is out: What happened to SSB in Safari 4?

Apple released their first public beta of Safari 4 today, and being the app junkie that I am, I gave it a spin.

My overall impression: Safari 4 has some good improvements — the least of which is not speed — but has nothing revolutionary.

Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s new in Safari 4:

1. Tabs: The most notable UI change is having tabs on top. I like it for the simple reason that adding and removing tabs does not distract from the viewing window. The downside is that with the tabs on top the ability to drag tabs around has changed slightly. You can only do so from a grip on the right side. There is also the added risk of accidentally closing a tab when you are simply trying to move the entire Safari window around.

2. Cover Flow. Cover Flow comes to Safari 4 in Top Sites (see below) and a full history search (see that below, too). I’m not a huge fan of Cover Flow, but I like it for the history search.

3. Top Sites. Top Sites puts your most visited sites in a cool little window. You can “pin” sites, which will always keep them there. I’m sure this will be used by some people, but I’m not sure how or if I’ll use it.

4. History View. You can now see the websites in your history using Cover Flow, which I find useful. The extra visual cue helps locate something I need but didn’t clip or bookmark in Delicious.

5. Smart Address Field. This is better implementation, giving you a top hit and page names with URLs when you are typing in an address in the URL field. Unfortunately, it is not as smart as Firefox, which would find http://www.apple.com/safari/ just by typing “safari” in the field.

There are a couple of weak points in Safari 4:

1. Plug-Ins. Safari 4 crashes — or, more accurately, does not launch — with certain plug-ins installed. For me, that was Glims. Even with search improvements in Safari 4, I still like the search shortcuts, additional site searches, tab controls and search when typing offered in Glims.

2. Page zooming. When I zoom in and out on a page, Safari hangs. That’s bad. In fact, that’s very bad.

If you want more information about Safari 4, I’d recommend having a look at these pages:

1. Apple’s Safari page: You can download Safari 4b1 from here.

2. 150 Features of Safari: This is Apple’s extensive list of Safari features, not all of which are new in Safari 4.

3. Hidden Preferences: Want your old tab bar back? How about the blue page loading status bar? This list will let you do that and more. (H/T Daring Fireball)

4. 1Password functionality. If you use 1Password, like I do, then you can use this little hack to get 1Password functionality in Safari 4b1. That said, the way the 1Password developers update their app, you’ll have the fix in and update within 24 hours. HA! They actually updated 1Password before I finished posting this. Just left this point to show how responsive the guys at Agile Web Solutions are.

5. MacWorld Review: It’s a review from MacWorld.

6. ArsTechnica Review: It’s a review. This time from ArsTechnica.

In the end, I like Safari 4, and I’m going to keep it loaded and use it as my default browser. I’m hoping Glims will add computability soon. Better yet, it would be nice if Apple would just add the functionality of Glims natively.

Two articles in the New York Times illustrates the strength of a company that makes top-flight products and pushes the envelope with functionality and design versus a company that churns out products of the lowest common denominator that routinely disappoint.

First, on Apple:

Apple said robust sales of iPods and laptops buoyed the company amid a terrible holiday shopping season that hurt nearly all other technology and consumer electronics firms.

Apple said its quarterly profit jumped to $1.61 billion, or $1.78 a share, from $1.58 billion, or $1.76 a share, a year earlier.

Revenue increased to $10.17 billion, from $7.9 billion. Analysts had expected Apple to announce revenue of $9.74 billion and profit of $1.39 a share.

The news sent Apple’s stock up more than 9 percent to $90.70 in after-hours trading.

“Where many of the other consumer-facing companies are missing their expectations and seeing their revenues decline, Apple continues to see growth,” said David Bailey, an analyst at Goldman Sachs. “It is gaining market share in every category and, given the premium price of their products, that is a significant achievement.”

Next, on Microsoft:

With sales of computers deteriorating by the day, the PC industry’s dominant players — Microsoft and Intel — have arrived at the stark realization that the slump in sales could last a long time, perhaps years.

“We are certainly in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime set of economic conditions,” Microsoft’s chief executive, Steven A. Ballmer, told investors Thursday in a conference call to discuss the company’s dismal second-quarter financial results. “Our model is not for a quick rebound. Our model is things go down, and then they reset. The economy shrinks.”

To help it cope with that lower base of demand, Microsoft said that it would lay off up to 5,000 employees, or about 5 percent of its work force — the first significant cuts in the company’s 34-year history. The layoffs follow a rare decline in sales of Microsoft’s Windows operating system for personal and business computers in the second fiscal quarter. Net income for the period, which ended Dec. 31, fell 11 percent to $4.17 billion.

I’ll take my “over-priced” Apple products any day of the week, mainly because I can depend on them for years and not have to worry about shelling out extra money to fix them, replace them or maintain them.

Plus, I like the way they look, work and feel better than just about anything Microsoft produces. (I am, after, a fan of the Xbox 360…)

My last post on using Adium for Facebook has led me to this: a quick and dirty comparison of Adium vs. iChat.

Pros for Adium

1. More chat service options
2. More control over notifications
3. Unified Contacts list for all accounts
4. Full jabber support (Can sign up for account from Adium)
5. Facebook chat support

Pros for iChat

1. Nicer interface (I love me interfaces, folks)
2. Video conference chatting
3. Better file transfer protocol
4. Voice chat

I installed Chax to gain a unified Contacts list in iChat. That was my biggest complaint.

Honestly, I just enjoy using iChat more. And I don’t have a need for the other chat services Adium uses that iChat does not.

And with Jabber, I can connect to just about everyone I need.

And by the way: you can chat with me via Jabber at samrhall@jabber.com, via AIM at sam@samrhall.com and via MobileMe at samrhall@me.com. In case you care…