Leopard was released 2007 and Snow Leopard was released 2 years later in 2009. They both look pretty much the same, with a few minor GUI exceptions. They almost work the same, again with a few minor exceptions. I know that the whole Finder was re-written, but I want to know more detail about the differences between the two. What are the major difference between Leopard (10.5) and Snow Leopard (10.6)?
I remember watching the keynote when Snow Leopard was introduced: Steve Jobs pointed out how fast MacOSX was being improved and new features were added. Several major upgrades have been shipped, while Microsoft took years to ship Vista.
From the beginning, Snow Leopard had the focus on improving the overall system performance and optimizing already implemented features. Also, cleanup was required as PowerPC support was dropped.
Because no major enduser related features have been added, it's been widely assumed that this is why the price dropped from $129 to $29.