The Adventures of Systems Boy!

I don’t generally post rumors or speculation on upcoming software, but latest Snow Leopard action has me feeling all tingly with anticipation. For a release that was supposed to be mainly about size and performance enhancements and less about new features, Snow Leopard looks to have a bunch of new features that appeal quite a bit to me personally.

Snow Leopard

AppleInsider gives us a preview of what’s expected. Among the features that I find particularly useful:

• Date and Time Prefs now allow you to display the date and/or day of the week in the menubar along with the time without using a hack. (Finally! Jesus!)
• AddressBook can sync with Google contacts. Actually, it can do this now. Looks like they just revamped the preferences pane a bit. Thanks to JT for catching the error.
• Scanner Sharing. (Seriously, I’ll probably use this.) Scanner sharing is available in Image Capture. They’re just putting it in the System Preferences now and treating it like Printer Sharing, it appears. Thanks, P-M.
• Quicktime Pro features are now a freebie and include some new graphical and editing hotness and a “HUDless” mode.
• Screen recording.
• New Language and Text Preferences allow for text substitution.
• Split Terminal. I never used this before, but who knows, maybe now I will. I’m just always thrilled to see Apple constantly updating an app as proletarian — but important to us admins — as the Terminal.

That’s a pretty long list with as many interesting new features as in any previous release. Sure it’s low on the eye candy stuff, but you know? I can live with that.

I’m really looking forward to Snow Leopard. With the speed and size improvements and the handful of really useful new features, I think it’s going to be great.