back to article Snow Leopard - what doesn't work

A grassroots effort is assiduously testing a broad range of Mac applications to discover which work with Snow Leopard and which don't. And overall, the news is good. Unfortunately, you may or may not be able to access their complete list, which is on a WikiDot called Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Compatibility List. The website …

COMMENTS

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  1. John Molloy
    WTF?

    Leopard Cache Cleaner - system-maintenance utility

    Hmmmm. Which part of Snow Leopard is not Leopard do people not understand?

    Leopard cache cleaner, cleans the cache on Leopard based machines. Change the OS and it needs to be updated.

  2. Aaron 10
    Thumb Up

    Snow Leopard...

    ...DOES work with The Reg.

    Add "ooVoo" to your list of broken applications. It uses a Java backend that uses a newly-deprecated call, causing the application to crash at launch. My e-mail for update information has not yet been returned.

  3. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    How about something useful?

    Apart from Parallels the only thing I'm interested in is whether MacPorts will work okay.

  4. John 62
    Flame

    Photoshop Elements doesn't work?

    Serves Adobe right for creating such an awful UI and for not interfacing with the OS X Media browser. I curse the money I gave Adobe (and the Apple Store - it was cheap on the Black Friday sale). Having now used it, I think free is too expensive.

  5. Michael Hoffmann Silver badge
    Coat

    Wrong Priorities!

    What the world really wants to know:

    Does World of Warcraft run on Snow Leopard?

    (Mine's the one with the 4-item tier armour bonus)

  6. lucmars

    it seems that...

    MacOSX behaves more and more like a distro, no ?

  7. John Molloy
    Thumb Up

    @Michael Hoffmann

    Yup it runs fine.

  8. James O'Brien
    Pint

    @John Molloy & Michael Hoffmann

    Screw WoW I was impressed to no end to see Fallout 2 on that list.

  9. Sarah Baucom
    Flame

    snowleopard.wikidot.com incompatible

    Given that the list is geared toward people using Leopard, most of whom use Safari, I would expect them to be able to format a table so that it displays correctly in Safari on Leopard without stretching the window to 2048 pixels wide.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Halo

    Good!

    At least, unlike certain other O/Ses will not be forced to maintain backward compatability to a load of old rubbish software! Alright, so there is some quite up to date stuff in there and upgrading can cost money, but just like any upgrade, you are not forced to upgrade your O/S immediately.

    Apple have dumped older systems, like PPC and older Intels with SL, so it's fairly obvious that some stuff will not work with it. You don't find it lumbered with useless compatability libraries that will cause a load more problems!

  11. Edwin
    Jobs Horns

    Giggle

    When M$ releases a new OS and a bunch of things don't work, then Windows is crap, billg/monkeyboy are the root of all evil etc etc etc

    When Apple releases something new which is stupidly and confusingly named just like a previous incarnation, and a bunch of stuff doesn't work, the fanbois go on about how great it is that things do work.

    I guess Jobs is better at expectation management, no?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    I didn't realise . . .

    Mac had that many apps to test!

    And why volunteers? Doesn't Apple test application compatability?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    @James O'Brien

    I was disgusted to see such a good game affiliated with a dirty mAC.

  14. RPF

    My 3 favourite Finder improvements.....

    1) FruitMenu (for heirachical menus)

    2) MenuMeters (for network monitor)

    3) iStatMenus (for the calendar widget)

    All nerfed - damn! Hope the fixes don't take too long, as I won't be able to upgrade and enjoy the speed increases until at least 2 are fixed.

  15. richard 69
    WTF?

    rosetta?

    what, so none of these things run under rosetta? eh? you are saying that photoshop elements does not run under rosetta which runs in 10.6?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ James O'Brien

    Fallout and Fallout 2 have been available for OS X since the early 10.0.x days ... i.e. for 8+ years.

  17. Jonathan White

    Hmm..

    So Parallels doesn't work but VMWare Fusion does? Somehow, I'm, not entirely surprised.

    Jon

  18. jeffrey 1

    Adobe doesn't suprise me

    Adobe have gone seriously downhill in recent years, the devs/mangers are a bunch of useless numpties. I still can't use photoshop on my mac, as it is formated with a case sensitive file-system. Adobe couldn't be bothered to support it in cs4, even though the feature had been around for a year. Hopefully cyberduck will come out with a patch soon.

  19. Greg J Preece

    They broke Fallout 2?

    The bastards! Never mind the fact that Fallout 2 will run on ANYTHING. Win95, 98, ME, 2k, XP, Vista, 7, WINE, the works. How the hell did they manage to break it?

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Fallout II?!

    Noooooooooooo!

    Guess I'll have to delay my upgrade. Haven't found the GECK just yet.

  21. RichyS
    Thumb Down

    I am a mandatory title.

    All very interesting. Only a couple of apps on there that I have. Can't remember the last time I used them though.

    On the other hand, the developers will probably have plenty of time to get the updates out before I receive my copy in the post. Thanks to the work-shy layabout feckers at the Post Office.

  22. Rod MacLean

    @Sarah Baucom

    Don't you worry about that - I'm browsing from a laptop at work usig IE and the table was 2 and a half times the width of my screen...

  23. DZ-Jay

    How about...

    How about the following apps?

    - MacMame

    - Mame OS X

    - WoW

    - TextMate

    - Q (emulator)

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    @Sarah Baucon

    "Given that the list is geared toward people using Leopard, most of whom use Safari.."

    Umm, point of order, yer honour.. since when? My workplace has an unusually high proportion of mac users (the mix is linux, then windows, mac and then solaris, I suppose)- I haven't seen a single person using Safari for more than:

    a) downloading firefox

    b) compatibliltiy testing

    Admittedly, we're an unholy fusion of hardcore broadcast engineering and luvviedom, so maybe unusual. However, I have to say (in anecdotal evidence corner) that I can't remember ever seeing anyone voluntarily using it- either on Windows or Mac. It tends to be IE among the non.techie, if anything, and then mostly firefox and a smattering of Opera elsewhere.

    I don't think you can even assume that mac users will be using Safari, really.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    @ richard69

    Photoshop Elements 6 is universal. I don't know how they do it, but every bloody upgrade seems to break PSE.

    Cack as it is, I haven't found anything better for my photo-editing needs (which to be fair don't extend much past photoshopping a goat into a "nice" picture of the wife for a valentines message...)

  26. Andrew Austin

    No upgrade for me until...

    PGP release version 10.0 of PGP Desktop / WDE. Hopefully not too soon.

  27. magnetik

    Adobe

    Not surpised about Photoshop Elements. AFAIK there's still a lot of carbon code in Adobe's apps. Apple warned Adobe years ago to port their code over to cocoa but have they listened? No.

  28. Frank Bitterlich
    Megaphone

    Adobe

    Why am I not the least bit impressed to see Photoshop Elements on that list? AGAIN?

    It is completely beyond me why a friggin simple image manipulation app has to mess around deeply in the OS, rape the Mac UI, and stumble around in undocumented, deprecated and much-warned-against lowlevel OS functions like a fool. Any don't get me started on the requirement of an admin account to use (not install, but USE) their apps.

    And I guess we'll soon hear the usual "sorry, we don't SUPPORT Snow Leopard..." bullshit. Listen, guys, I don't weant you to "support" my operating system - just don't MESS AROUND WITH IT! Ten-year-olds can write applications that don't break with every minor OS upgrade.

    And, BTW, can anybody tell me why the software industry is the ONLY exception from product liability? Even if I'm selling a single banana, I can be held responsible if I mess up. But If I sell software instead, I can break multi-mullion dollar contracts, damage equipment for millions of customers, and finally set up an answering machine saying "Sorry, we don't SUPPORT the actual USE of our software. Thank you for calling."

  29. mrweekender
    Flame

    Photoshop Elements is balls...

    ...use Pixelmator instead it's far, far better.

  30. SmallYellowFuzzyDuck, how pweety!
    Megaphone

    What DZ-Jay said

    If MAME doesn't run on SL then I'm not going to be upgrading for a while.

    Need to get my fix of Star wars the arcade game on a regular basis.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Why is anybody surprised...

    ...that software doesn't work on a new version of an operating system when the developers of the OS announce with less than a month's notice that they are releasing the new OS a month ahead of their previously-announced schedule?

    The behaviour of Apple is increasingly a disgrace. Welcome back, Steve!

    And yes, I am a Mac user.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Bah, typical!

    The two things I actually care about (Serato Scratch Live and OOlite) aren't listed. I guess I will have to test myself, when my LOLcat arrives, and update the paga accordingly...

  33. George 24

    When Mac does it

    As expressed in this forum, when M$ does not retain backwards compatibility they are a bunch of money hungry bastards (which may be true), when Mac does it, it is great. Hard to understand. By the time the snow leopard upgraders have paid for the update itself, and then upgrade all the apps that don't work any more, they will have parted with more cash than the Window 7 upgraders.

  34. Richard 102

    @AC @9:56GMT

    "photoshopping a goat into a 'nice' picture of the wife for a valentines message..."

    Nurse, he's out of bed again!

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Safari Adblock not working..

    ..temporarily at least. Wow El Reg looks different somehow...

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    @George 24

    I think Mac is a pretty cool guy, Eh kills aleins and doesnt afraid of anything.

  37. Steve Button Silver badge
    FAIL

    But is it REALLY 64 Bit?

    just reading here....

    http://www.overclock.net/mac/564147-how-enable-64-bit-default-os.html

    That it doesn't actually boot into 64 bit mode, and one of my colleagues (thanks for the heads-up Matt) has just installed on his Macbook and confirmed this. There is a hack to make it work, but all you people assuming you've got the 64 bit kernel running might be in for a bit of a surprise (not that you'll probably notice).

    does this constitute a story, dear Reg?

    Steve

  38. Rob 10
    FAIL

    DNS-323 NAS Samba access is broken

    You'd think this little problem might be featured high on the list gotchas wouldn't you? Oh well.

  39. Jesse Dorland
    Linux

    It's all true!

    I downloaded all from torrent, and now I without games, movies, and porn! Whatever will I do with all this free time in hand?

    Seriously though. No serious Gamers in his right mind would buy a mac. True addicts stick with PC, thanks to our beloved modern pirates, and games consoles. OSX is for Jobs' cult, people who want to show off, or guys like me who buy it for their parents, or sick of virus industry -- aka - anti virus software "maker".

    PS: When will we ever see OS XI?

  40. JimFromOhio

    Reunion 9.0

    The developer, Leisterpro, mentions there are a few incompatibilities and they will have a free update released next week for their genealogy software.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re: @Sarah Baucon

    So let me get this right, nobody uses Safari where you work whether they use Windows or OS X, so therefore we can't assume Mac users use it either. Right....

    Last month, Safari had a little under 5% of the browser market. Apple has quite a bit less than 5% of the worldwide computer market, so who is using Safari?

  42. The Indomitable Gall
    Dead Vulture

    Now you've done it!

    That's trade secrets, that is!

    Burn in litigious hell, El Reg!

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    List is already wrong

    Given that I've received about 30 app update notifications proclaiming compatibility for SL from MacUpdate today could it be that, you know, developers were just waiting for the fricking OS to be actually released first? Good grief.

    Fwiw, Wiretap (at the least) is now compatible with SL.

    I'm hoping that the system hacks listed remain forever incompatible, however.

  44. Scott Earle
    FAIL

    @AC 14:40 GMT

    Probably on Safari's other platform, at a guess. Can't work it out? Here's a hint: it's small, and can also be used as a phone.

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    @Sarah Bacon

    Safari?

    I've heard of that- it's the thing you use to download a web browser when you set up your shiny new Mac, right?

  46. Jesse Dorland
    Linux

    Apple needs Hercules for advertisement

    Here in Canada I used to work in an awful convenience store, they had a tablet -- PC based. This was used for ordering, checking stocks, and other business related applications. Virtually, all convenience store in Canada and America have similar tablet.

    Apple will have hard time popularizing "iTablet".

    Here are two simple reasons:

    #1 Business community prefers tablets with "changeable battery". Apple hates giving such option to their customers. Steve Jobs would gladly throw his grandmother to the wolves than give loons option of changing gadgets’ batteries.

    #2 Business community desire matte screen tablet -- all apple products including iPhone are "glossy". With iPhone it’s hard to see during bright sun light. This is why Blackberry can not be replaced by iPhone. MacBook, iPhone, iPod Touch are so reflective that you can use them as shaving mirror! Until, last years they didn’t believe in “anti-reflective” LCD. Sadly, problem still persists, and Apple in their usual “democratic” way is “reasoning” with unhappy customers.

    As you can see, this device is already in use in business community. In today's economy with Apple's pricing is not going to be easy -- save for few Mac worshipers.

  47. Sean Timarco Baggaley
    Stop

    @George 24

    What the hell are you smoking? Kippers?

    *Every* major Windows release was followed by a flurry of updates and whining developers. I've been using computers since the days of CP/M and I've yet to see a single major upgrade like this NOT break *some* apps! Windows 3.11 - Windows 95, anyone? Windows XP to Windows Vista? (Oh, how I *loved* answering "Why doesn't my Nvidia-and-Audigy-stuffed PC no longer run your game without crashing?" queries from early Vista users.)

    (Oh yes: and a beta of ClamXAV 2.0 has been released in time for SL. It's a complete, ground-up rewrite of the 1.x app, so I shan't hold the beta status against this Open Source coder.)

    I note, however, that Adobe's main CS4 apps *and* Microsoft's Mac Office suite are conspicuous by their absence from the list. Most of the apps which appear to have broken tended to do hacky things. Cyberduck is no great loss: Transmit pisseth all over it from a great height. And Coda runs just dandy.

    Hell, I upgraded to Snow Leopard today and only Photoshite Elements 6 gave me any grief. No great loss. Pixelmator is a better app anyway. (Oh, and Pixen. Which seriously rocks. Especially if you're an ageing 8-bit era pixel-pusher like me who misses "Art Studio" on the Atari ST.)

    All in all: a good effort. Not scintillating, though the tweaks to the stacks and dock are much appreciated.

    Quicktime X, however, is a big disappointment. That Apple decided to leave the previous version in the "Utilities" folder speaks volumes. It's "iMovie 08" all over again.

  48. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    QUARKXPRESS DOESN'T WORK

    Here's another one for your list:

    QuarkXPress (all versions)

    Documents now open with type shifted down a couple of mm, ruining layouts. Can't believe Quark are saying 8.1 works with SL with all the comments on their own forum.

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