Did I miss out on some big secret? Were people passing around news articles about Snow Leopard that I didn’t have the pleasure of reading myself? Did people read that Snow Leopard was anything more than an under-the-hood, non-socks-blown-off update to Leopard? Perhaps articles that touted all sorts of major new user experience features and graphical updates? Was Snow Leopard supposed to come with those Minority Report gloves so I could Vogue my way through the Internet while listening to Beethoven? No? Really? Nothing like that at all?

Then why is everyone wandering the streets, wailing, gnashing their teeth, and rending their clothes as if Apple had somehow pulled a Lucy to their Charlie Brown? I mean, really? You’d have think that Steve Jobs himself had come into their houses and shot their dogs. Or, if they didn’t own a dog, bringing one in with him and then summarily shooting it in the head while they’re trying to watching The Big Bang Theory.

I could provide an avalanche of posts or comments where people whine fitfully but, instead, I’ll provide here one of the more mature and reasonable reactions to Snow Leopard:

I can’t believe that Apple has done this. This isn’t an OS upgrade, it’s a service pack! What in the hell does Apple think that they’re trying to pull? I can no longer count myself as a fan of Apple. I am going to go tear the Apple window cling off of my car and then I am going to march right back into the house and kill myself!!!!!! THIS IS A TRAVESTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, people, we’ve all been reading the same articles and rumors for the past six months. Developers and testers (and nefarious digital thieves) have had pre-release copies of Snow Leopard and they’ve been blogging furiously about it. Apple hasn’t kept any secrets from us and they haven’t made any promises. In fact, they’ve been rather blunt and apologetic about it because they knew people would pretty much go turd-crazy when they found out that it wasn’t an overhaul as significant as the jump between OS 9 and X. And that’s pretty much exactly what’s happened. Apple feels so guilty about it that they’ve priced the upgrade ridiculously cheap: $29. Cheaper in some cases.

But, no, that’s not good enough. People are still ranting and raving and insisting that somehow their honor has been besmirched. Sure, it’s not a parcel of eye candy. Sure, Finder’s still pretty lame (seriously, guys, no tabs? and I’m looking at you, too, Microsoft). But it’s what you don’t see and what you can’t impress your friends with that makes Snow Leopard so compelling: the move to 64-bit. That’s significant. It’s more significant than a service pack. Last I checked, none of the Windows service packs have ever packed such a punch. And, if you want to get really down and dirty with it, Windows 7 is essentially a Vista service pack with about as many graphical updates to the OS there as we’re getting going from Leopard to Snow Leopard. At least Microsoft’s also only charging about $30 for their update.

Oh wait, they’re not.

And then there’s the people who are complaining because the upgrade breaks stuff. Of course it breaks stuff. It’s an OS upgrade. That’s part of what they do. If you look back, Apple often doesn’t give a crap about backward compatibility so this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. But it’s not Apple’s fault; it’s developers’. And these developers should be given time to update their software for Snow Leopard compatibility.

Now. Isn’t there some other software that, when updated, breaks just about all of the functionality that everyone has to build into it themselves to make it even worth using? And don’t people still just furiously masturbate over it anyway? What’s it called? Oh yeah, Firefox.

So, here’s my advice: if you don’t like living on the cutting edge of software, then don’t upgrade yet. Wait for the smoke to clear, wait for your must-have software that’s currently broken by Snow Leopard to be updated and then upgrade. That $29 is going to spend the same then as it does now.

In the meanwhile, perhaps we should all practice our breathing exercises or at least stop punching ourselves in the face when we don’t get our petulant little ways.