Apple OS X Snow Leopard

The latest Mac update adds little gloss but plenty under the bonnet

Sometimes, as the saying goes, less is more.

Like the new Windows 7, the latest version of Apple’s OS X operating system for Macintosh computers focuses on better performance rather than the eye-catching features we normally expect from Apple.

After you install Snow Leopard on your Mac the display on the screen will look the same as it did before – in fact, you might be wondering why you bothered to pay £25 for the ‘upgrade’ at all.

But while it looks the same on the surface, Apple has completely rewritten the Finder, the part of the operating system that displays the contents of the hard disk on the computer screen, in order to make it run much more smoothly.

The main area in which we noticed an improvement was when using the Quicklook option that allows users to quickly peek inside files and preview their contents without actually opening them.

When a user hits the space bar to activate Quicklook the preview window pops up more quickly, even with complicated files such as video clips.

It can also browse through long documents containing multiple pages, which is handy when you are looking for specific information. Other options, such as Exposé, which neatly organises all the open windows on the screen, also respond more quickly and smoothly.

There is one big new feature but it’s mainly suitable for business users. Snow Leopard now allows Macs to work with the PC-based Microsoft Exchange Server e-mail system that is used by many businesses.

Its new ‘autodiscovery’ option allows the Mac’s Address Book, Mail, and Calendar programs to automatically connect to Exchange Server running on an office network.

That means people can take their Macs to work – as long as their IT departments allow it – and easily exchange emails, contacts and calendar details with PC-using colleagues.

Snow Leopard requires at least 1GB of memory before it can be installed and it will only run on Macs that use Intel processors rather than the old PowerPC processors that Apple used until about three years ago.