Amazon taking pre-orders for Snow Leopard

Amazon is accepting pre-orders for the next Mac OS X, Snow Leopard. I chose that path for the last OS X upgrade and wished I had not: people who waited and ordered their Leopard upgrade from Apple had their software weeks before I did.

This upgrade doesn't cost much: $29.00 for single user, $49.00 for the family pack. That's because it's not much of an upgrade - nothing much to it. Oh, there are some nice features: for those of us getting tight on space on our old Mac Book Pro's, the new Snow Leopard supposedly frees up 6GB of space with its smaller OS footprint. They say it's faster shutting down, too, though I've never seen any reason to complain about that. Time Machine Backups are promised to be faster also - once again, that speed has never been anything I've even noticed.

So, the extra 6GB will be nice, but if it weren't for that little recession thingy we've been enjoying, I'd have already odered a new machine. As smart phones haven't become quite smart enough for me yet, and who knows what this "tablet Mac" will be, that would probably be another Mac Book Pro. But that's not in the cards because of a bunch of greedy rich folks who weren't happy with what they had already robbed from the rest of us.

But who knows - waiting a few extra years may bring nirvana. We're getting closer to the day where an inexpensive device will do everything. That Apple Tablet is probably not that, but it could be a step along the way. The next generation of that could be awfully close to something I'd buy as a phone/Kindle/computer.

For now, Snow Leopard. But not from Amazon.