Introduction

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is an intriguing beast. It’s the most recent version of a major computer operating system, but there are few new “features,” in terms of items you can list on the back of a retail package. In contrast, the previous version, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, added capabilities such as Time Machine, Quick Look, and Spaces.

But Snow Leopard isn’t some humdrum update. The new operating system makes fundamental changes under the hood, with improved 64-bit support, OpenCL, and Grand Central Dispatch (see Chapter 2 to learn what those are and why they’re important).

Apple also rolled in a large number of enhancements to existing features. For example, the Finder has (at last) been updated to take full advantage of ...

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