Snow Leopard is out (well, it’s in customer’s hands anyways), and that means I’m finally free from the burden of NDAs.
I have some gripes about Snow Leopard, I’ll get to my largest in a second. First, overall, it’s a progressive upgrade for Mac OS X. Exchange is nice, and the iPhone OS UI crossovers (Expose, Finder, etc) are nice touches. But, there are some significant misses. GeForce 8600 owners get QuickTime H.264 Hardware Decoding (which from my testing, appears to be there), but Apple says it’s unsupported. At the same time, people paying much less for their 9400M-based Macs get guaranteed H.264 decoding. Seriously, Apple, clear the air there… support the people that paid $2,000+ for their 8600M-based Macs.
But probably the worst offender in Snow Leopard is the new-found demand that you enter your password after the screen dims. Previously, you could have your display turn off after a certain period (and, as long as a screen saver wasn’t triggered), you didn’t have to enter a password to wake the machine up. If you closed the lid, or triggered a full system sleep, then you’d be prompted for a password.
This made it really simple to leave your system logged in, running whatever task you wanted, and not require a password to continue using it. As I’m about to explain, this change is really bad for the environment.
Now, to keep my machine active, I have to delay the display sleep to a very long period, like 30 minutes. Previously, I had the display set to shut off after five minutes of inactivity (both while plugged in and on battery).
So, now my MacBook Pro is going to sit there, chunking away a task, with the display on… basically all day. Think about it, I am going to use the machine every 15-20 minutes, and so the display never will really go to sleep. As such, I don’t have to enter my password in constantly, but my power bill is going to punish me in the long run.
Apple, please give folks the option to undo what you did. The Security System Preferences panel could easily have an option to “Bypass password on Display Sleep only”. That would solve this, and avoid the environmental damage that is about to ensue.
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Try to use Ctrl-Shift-Eject when leaving your mac to turn the screen off.
About the first thing: Are you sure that H264 decoding is hw accelerated even on older Macbook Pros with 8600M GT chips? That would be awesome! (for me :)
Control-Shift-Eject works in Snow Leopard, but triggers a password just like standard display sleep timers.
I played 12 videos (H.264, Standard Definition) simultaneously in Snow Leopard on a 2.4 GHz 8600M GT MacBook Pro 15-inch. At no time did the CPU break 60% utilization in QuickTime Player. I’d say that’s proof of QuickTime Hardware H.264 Decoding.
The password requirement after display sleep was the first thing I noticed after upgrading to SL. It is, as you allude, a royal pain in the derrière. Have you reported this to Apple, or made a request to have an option added to system preferences to be able to turn on or off?
Cheers
I’ve been asked a few times if I’ve let Apple know about this. I have a standard answer: At MechaWorks we talk to a lot of people at Apple about a lot of things.
Thanks CP. I look forward to Apple’s response ;)
Wow! I was about to upgrade to SL and curious about the h264 thingie. Then I find this. It’s the one gem that I totally love about my Macbook. When I’m using some other computer I hammer the corresponding keys for a while before I realize that I can’t turn of the display :P Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to fix but no upgrade for me until they do.
there’s kinda a work around:
in security there’s an option to choose how soon u have to use password…. that might help a bit?
Dennis, the problem with the security timer on triggering a password, is that it creates a security hole on the other end.
If you enable that, you have to make sure to lock the screen before putting the machine to sleep… whenever leaving a secure environment. It’s still not as simple as Leopard, where I could just close the lid.
Worse, someone could literally rip a machine out of my hands, and even if I managed to shut the lid, they would still have the potential to open the machine, and access all my FileVaulted content. Bye-bye security and encryption.
I was actually looking for something else… I hate screen savers, I prefer to turn off the screen.
I needed three modes:
1 – in which I could turn off the screen without having to enter the password later
2 – in which I could sleep without having to enter the password later
4 – in which I could sleep, having to enter the password later…
Any ideas? Thanx
… Basically I’m looking for customizable shortcuts that can activate a specific sleep mode.
I can see the next Microsoft ad (for home users)…
“Apple makes you type your password a lot. You have to type your password to
install software. You have to type your password when you boot your computer.
You have to type your password when you computer wakes up. You have to type
your password to stop your screen saver. With its new MacOS, Apple even wants
you to type your password to brighten the screen. That is a lot of typing!
Windows is better. We never ever ask you for a password. We save you a lot of
typing that Apple makes you do. Work smarter. Type less. Use a PC!”
Actually Windows gives you options to control the password behavior.
Chris,
If someone rips your machine out of your hands at any rate, I would say you have bigger problems than the security of your machine.
One more thing. Have you used Vista, lately? It prompts you for all kinds of things, while your working on something. I especially love it when I’m working in one app and another one interrupts me (gains focus automatically) to tell me nothing useful…it happens a lot.
For what it’s worth, I agree that the password thing on SL should be a toggle.
wtf? the password thing IS a toggle, and you CAN set the “grace period” from 5 secs to 4 hours. Prior to SL is was set in stone at a minuteish or so.
Check you “Security” settings and move on.
Piers, all I can say is re-read the article. You’re missing key usage scenarios, such as when a user wants to control passwording system sleep, while leaving display sleep un-passworded.
Again, re-read the article “and move on”. We’re still stuck with a passwording system we hate. It was fine before Snow Leopard, all we’re asking for is an option to put things back the way it was. You seem to fail to see how that is not an option under Snow Leopard.
I like the change, before this I needed to use an special screensaver that sleeps the display. Now I don’t need it anymore. But I understand people wanting the old way, it should be an option.
I agree with the gripe about the new password situation. I regularly set my display sleep to one minute and my system sleep to an hour or more when I’m listening to music and working on projects not involving the computer. It’s going to be a real pain typing in my password every time I want to see what song is playing or picking a particular song in the middle of my work.
Also, they took the power settings menu out of the main toolbar again. Most people don’t need or want to change their settings often, but I like being able to switch between “one minute display sleep, just listening to music while I’m in the room” and “fifteen minute display sleep so I can read news articles in peace” modes without opening system preferences and moving a slider.