When Leopard (10.5) came out, I could mention a laundry list of features that were pretty great. When its spawn/sibling/relative(?) came out in the form of Snow Leopard, I was struck with a serious case of reviewer’s block. There is very little to say about something that really only innovates under the hood and at the fringes.

So, my review today will be short, so short that I won’t talk about more than one feature. And that feature may disappoint you, I know it. But, in the greater picture of things, I think it’s pretty cool.

Stepping over from Windows half a decade ago, I had to adopt a new behaviour. I was forced to use iTunes, which meant that I had to import my whole library into it to make full use of this software and it’s ability to organise music. The iPod also affected this, which, prior to the iPhone/Touch, delegated its entire user-interface to iTunes also, allowing people to create intricate smart- and playlists, download podcasts, etc. in the software, whilst letting the hardware be controlled by one button only.

My musical behaviour on the computer had become somewhat bloated, less spontaneous than before. Leopard (10.5) innovated on this a little, by introducing Quicklook, which, through the space bar, allows for the quick previewing of most files, which is especially nice for movies and occasionally nice with music as well. The problem with the latter is that when you shift the focus to another app, as ADD-affected/music-listening people tend to do frequently, the music stops… quite literally. So it wasn’t a perfect solution.

Snow Leopard (10.6) introduced an improvement to that feature, one that is already affecting the way I listen to music on my Mac. Quicklook still works the way it always did, but what’s new is that you can quick look within an icon. By hovering over a music file on your desktop and changing the display in the finder to large enough icons (they need to be made a certain size (64×64 on my Macbook) for this to work), you will see a play button on the icon, which, when clicking, plays the track or video. And you can keep playing it while you do your other stuff, such as me typing this blog post.

Pretty awesome, if you ask me. No need to fire up iTunes just for that one file and my need to ADD has been satisfied.

/End Review.

Vincent

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