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Apple’s new operating system, Snow Leopard, hit stores last Friday. To encourage upgrading, Apple has slapped a super low $30 price tag on the upgrade.

But hold on Apple Fanboys. Snow Leopard isn't a major OS upgrade. Snow Leopard is mainly just a performance boost for Macs equipped with 64-bit Intel processors.

So what should you expect to find in Snow Leopard? Here are the 5 most important things you need to know about Mac OS X 10.6:

1. Performance Boost
2. Lighter - Less OS Bloat
   
3. Third-Party Software Compatibility Issues
   
4. Minor Interface Improvements
   
5. No PowerPC Support
   

Performance Boost
Snow Leopard was coded to take full advantage of the hardware in 64-bit Intel Macs. So all applications coded for 64-bit processors will be much faster.

Lighter
As operating systems add new features, they get bigger and bigger and take up more of your hard drive. But Snow Leopard is unlike most bloated OS upgrades. Snow Leopard will actually free up some space on year hard drive. We're read reports of users seeing anywhere from 2-7GBs of extra space after installing Snow Leopard.

Third-Party Software Compatibility Issues
One of the biggest drawbacks to Snow Leopard is the incompatibility of some third-party applications. If your livelihood depends on a third-party application, for example a cash register app, then you will want to wait to upgrade until the developer gives Snow Leopard the green light. Snow Leopard is still compatible with 32-bit applications, but Apple admits that some third party software will have issues.

Minor Interface Improvements
Apple made a few minor user interface and software improvements to SNow Leopard. For example, Expose was moved into the Dock, time stamps added to screenshots and QuickTime Player now has the playback controls from iTunes' full screen mode.

No PowerPC Mac Support
Still rocking an older Mac these days? If you own an older PowerPC Mac and have yet to upgrade sine Apple's switched to Intel, then Snow Leopard is not for you. Snow Leopard will only run on an Intel Mac equipped with at least 1GB of memory. You also need 5GB of free hard drive space and a DVD drive.

Final Thoughts
Snow Leopard isn't enough of an OS upgrade to knock your socks off, but the speed improvements alone are well worth the $30 price tag.

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Labels: apple, review, tech news