It's common among a small group of Mac users to hold Snow Leopard up as the peak of software quality, but only because of rose-colored glasses [1].

[1] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2528936/mac-os-x/snow-...

It's the last release they made any significant updates to the BSD userland. I'd mark this as the release they ceased serious investment into the operating system itself. After this point it's almost nothing of note. If you look at the dates of the various tools etc., this release is when they were last updated. Many are now getting on for being a decade out of date. The only major change has been the switch to llvm, and they made that horribly painful.

It also marks the decline of the desktop UI to introduce increasing amounts of iOS-like behaviour and appearance to the detriment of a usable desktop. Like proper scrollbars etc.

While some nostalgia might account for holdouts, it was the peak of MacOS in the minds of many, including myself. As a developer, I've been quite disappointed by its direction and declining quality. For the amount we pay for this hardware, it's not much to ask for some basic maintenance work and testing to be done.

I remember my Macbook's battery life being significantly extended by an OS upgrade; either Leopard or Snow Leopard.

There's been releases ever since that improve battery life, or, keep it the same while doing more; background apps get throttled, graphics rendering has been optimized using Metal, and in future Mac devices, I'm sure they'll put their mobile processors in it to handle background tasks - it might even be strong enough to power the next generation of Macbook Air.

Mavericks was a big one for extending battery life. It came quite a bit after Snow LeopRd and introduced timer coalescing which significantly improved battery life across the board for all MacBooks:

https://m.imore.com/mavericks-preview-timer-coalescing

I should have specified I meant 10.6.8 I ran it on my main computer until 10.9.2 because of the problems I had experienced with Lion and Mountain Lion on other computers.

Also I think when most people think of Snow Leopard they're thinking of 10.6.8, at least that's the version number you always see get thrown around on the internet.

The last High Sierra update will have less bugs than the next major release too, so I don't think that's really relevant.

Your right but I think the biggest Issue is Apple does much more frequent releases now than when they were doing Snow Leopard. So more iteration hence more stable OS.

I have been in the apple ecosystem for about 10 years. For a company that has been priding itself on end user security, the bugs that have been creeping their way into the OS are just... disappointing. What is the point of paying a premium for a well polished hardware/software bundle if the OS is malfunctioning in a non trivial manner. Design? Right now when I use my calculator app on my iPhone and do 2+2+2 I get 24. That's a pretty awful design. Actually, it's a lie.

It can't be a coincidence that this was the last major release before Steve Jobs died.

It can’t be a coincidence because it’s not true. Lion was released well before SJ’s death.

Unless you’re arguing Lion wasn’t major because you didn’t like it, but that’s an argument that proves to much, methinks.

3rded. I wish time stopped at 10.6.8.