Mac OSX Leopard: Worth The Wait

I can’t wait! CompUSA has it for 30 bucks off even in-store. I’ll be passing out leopard shirts for FastMac. Almost all of the Apple stores in the US will have these awesome shirts!

http://dailytechtalk.com/comme.....13_0_1_0_C

Does anyone know if it will be worth upgrading to Leopard on a 1.67GHz PowerBook G4? My computer has definitely been slowing down so I’m not sure what to do. Also, do you need to backup your files or does the update just install over Tiger without clearing everything?

Jesse
I ran both installations as an upgrade and everything is still there and working like it should. I’ve heard some people suggest a clean install (and as a former Windows user I’d suggest that) but so far, so good.

sinch isn’t a word. cinch is though.

@jesse

installed leopard on my g4 1ghz machine and it works great. it scales down by disabling things such as stacks but coverflow still works great. i installed it on my 1.67 g4 and it’s been fine and dandy ever since.

Here’s your ctrl-alt-del: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....ete#Mac_OS

Last call to buy a Mac with much-updated, well-proven Tiger 10.4 on board.
After next week, *new* Macs with Leopard installed WILL NOT boot Tiger.

cool, thanks duncan and alaska… i think i found something to spend that iphone credit on

Duncan,
The Mac counterpart of CTRL+ALT+DELETE is Command+Option+ESC.

As for the Time Machine slowdown, I commented on this twice in on my blog.
http://allmymacblog.blogspt.com

Duncan, image files that show the actual image and not an icon, are not new to Leopard. They already exist in Tiger.

OSX should become a Facebook application

walmo
I always saw a generic image in 10.4, it might have just been me.

Alaska
US English vs everywhere else. Sorry if it’s wrong.

@Alaska
Sinch is a word: http://www.webster-dictionary.net/definition/Sinch

If you check Websters, you’ll notice it has the same definition as “cinch”.

@All: Does anyone know if Leopard has the same limitation as Tiger with regards to mounting external servers in Finder? eg. now it only allows you to mount via read-only http://FTP.

For the record, I used my iPhone to find Command+Option+ESC, it didn’t work in getting me out of the Time Machine bork.

I would consider to wait till I get review from real end users.

I feel so behind now knowing that I don’t have it yet. But I’m very much looking forward to it! Can’t wait!

I’ve been a windows users since i started out until recently where i’ve been working on a mac and now tomorrow i make my first ever personal purchase of a Mac computer. I’m really looking forward to it and nearly everything I’ve read about Leopard is positive.

OS/X Leopard will beat Vista to the core.

Beware MSFT

http://www.meetingflex.com

How do the virtual desktops (or ‘Spaces’) work in Leopard?

I do work for multiple clients and I’ve got a nice ‘one desktop per client’ system in Linux - where each desktop would have it’s own instance of Firefox, a terminal, maybe an editor and whatever else is needed.

This works well in something like KDE as it remembers my setup the next time I log in… My experience with the Virtual Desktops 3rd-party application in Tiger isn’t nearly as nice — certainly no remembering and it tends to treat all instances of an application as one.

Just wondering how leopard compares.

Im a windows guy (but thinking of switching ) but for the record, Microsoft had a Virtual Desktop feature included as a part of its free PowerToys package since the early days of Windows XP.

http://www.microsoft.com/windo.....rtoys.mspx

It works surprisingly well - with buttons that allow you to control desktops via quick-launch-style icons.

I usually feel a tiny bit uncomfortable installing a 10.x.0 release. Quite often Apple will release a 10.x.1 or a 10.x.2 a few weeks after the initial release that fixes most of the problems. Early adopters are gamma-testers of sorts. Sounds like most things are going smoothly so far though.

Duncan,
You haven’t tried Ubuntu of late, have u! Go check out!!
Its a pity even today, people want to pay for an operating system. I can understand when it comes with the computer pre-installed. But even for upgrades?? Give me a break..

For the record: Windows XP had a bunch of small tools and one of them was Virtual Desktop.

BUT - and this is one BIG BUT - it sucks big time. X11 has it right, it was made with this support in mind. In Windows it is a horrendous hack and minimized and restores groups of windows. It takes screenshots of your desktop to show a bird’s eye view, and this is also slow. On modest machines this thing is sluggish and very very unusable (that’s only masochists really use it).

In OS X, Spaces takes advantage of the Mac’s light years ahead Quartz Compositing. Like Exposé it is a trivial task to show live apps in the bird’s eye view. It does have “VIRTUAL” desktops, not one workspace with minimizing windows. The real differentiator: it is FAST, extremely FAST. Nowhere near the Windows ‘power’ tool.

It is a pity that people not always work for free. It is nice to have a hobby, or to have a company invest in free stuff (and they all have an agenda, don’t be naive).

But for the desktop, unfortunately Linux gets nowhere near the uniformity, consistency, easy of use of the Mac. Even though there are good stuff in Linux-land (and I use them, I am a geek, Gutsy Gibbons is the closer you can get) there is no consistency. Apps behave differently, they look different. Compiz/Beryl ‘looks’ nice, but they have to drop down the eye-candy. Macs can do exactly the same effects, cubes and such. One has to wonder why Apple doesn’t do it!! Take a look at Spaces: it doesn’t get in the way.

Icons have similar quality, toolbars, small, widgets, network integration, graphics show off, etc etc.

The Mac is a good compromise between having most of the same Unix-power that Linux have but also having a good user experience up front and out of the box.

And come on US$ 129 is a bargain. A backup system alone from a third-party would cost half of that (if not more). The new Quick Look alone would cost some U$ 30 at least. The whole package has many really usable, stable and elegant stuff that don’t get in the way for a bargain price.

I am from Brazil, and even paying extra taxes I still think the package deserves being purchased instead of pirated. I am ordering it today.

The icons in OS X look HORRIBLE and this is even worse. Could they have thrown any more cheesy effects at it? And my IT dept won’t let us change anything… Possible solution?

With the launch of Leopard, fake Steve Jobs speaks out in a one on one interview on Wallstrip. Check out the interview at http://www.wallstrip.com . Enjoy!

Just the yesterday, dealmac showed an online offer of Leopard for $99 that didn’t require a rebate. Still $129 is relatively inexpensive for a OS with support. Would you rather pay twice that amount for Vista Ultimate? I have it and I decided I’d be better off sticking with Win XP Pro. I’m not Vista bashing, I just like Win XP Pro better.
I can hardly wait to upgrade to Leopard on my MacBook Pro 2.33. When I get my 8-core MacPro, Leopard will come pre-installed, so I’ll be set. Apple will sell millions of copies of Leopard, but I wonder how non-Intel Macs will fare when using CoverFlow or QuickLook. I’ll bet those features really need processing power to run smoothly.

I don’t see anything earth shattering, for most people this will not be enough of an incentive, but overall a nice upgrade for the average Mac fan.

I’m stopping by at 6PM, anybody else in Quebec City can get it for a hundred bucks by using this $20 off coupon from Micro Logic in Ste. Foy.

http://porsche.micrologic.ca/f.....loadframes

We wanted it this morning, but STUPID Steve Jobs made all the stores hold it until 6PM Friday WHEN ALL BUSINESSES IN CANADA ARE CLOSED until Monday, barring walmart and McDonalds.

It’s clear that Apple doesn’t think any businesses use their products to have done this.

I can not wait to have Leopard!

Microsoft should take care… my sister bought PC with Vista, and let me tell you, IT’S UNUSABLE!

So If I do a clean install of Leopard….what happens with iLife 08 that came with my new macbook pro? Will it be there after the clean install or what

129 dollars for what in the Windows world is a service pack. Its amazing how many loyal Apple fans will shell out money for hardly anything new.

And yes Alexis, I’m sure its “unusable”… Thats why it has more of an install base than all of OSX. The Vista bitching is really getting old, and no one ever seems to have any grounds for what they say…

That being said, Leopard looks like it has some nice new features to add from the mix, and some nice features borrowed from Vista too. I’m looking forward to seeing cover flow in the Finder… That’s a pretty innovative step forward.

If the store you buy it at has a 10% lowest price policy, you can show them this coupon
http://porsche.micrologic.ca/f.....loadframes

That should force them to get it to you for a hundred bucks. At least if you’re in Canada.
Both Best Buy and Future Shop have such policies.

not the most important aspect, but he has a point… http://www.creativereview.co.u.....its-spots/

http://www.bestbuy.ca/helpsect.....=EN#lowest

“Either prior to purchase or within 30 days of purchase (14 days for computers, monitors, printers, notebook computers, camcorders, digital cameras, radar detectors, portable DVD players, and air conditioners) should you find a lower advertised price, including those on the internet from an authorized Canadian Dealer, we will match that price.”

“Simply present us with your original Best Buy or BestBuy.ca sales receipt, along with proof that the item you bought is being advertised at a lower price. Once our staff verifies that the item is in stock and available for immediate sale and delivery at the advertised price, you will receive your refund.”

porsche.micrologic.ca/fmi/iwp/cgi?-db=Leopard&-loadframes

It falls within the parameters of Best Buy’s lowest price offer. So I would suggest doing it.
Every single Best Buy in Canada will now have to sell OSX Leopard for about $100.

Or be stupid and pay more. I know I won’t

Why is it that, the first day Leopard comes out, everybody says wooo…, and and higlisht just the good parts…and when Vista came out, everyone was ‘well we will have to see…but here are the bad parts so far’…

MIcro Logic in Quebec City’s retail price is $129, same as best buy. They ARE an authorized Canadian retailer, and would fall in the Best Buy price guarantee, I believe.

The coupon price would be $109, then 10% price guarantee off of that, that Futureshop and BB offer would knock it down to under $100. In theory. I’m going to put it to the test later today.

@Balnko

Because its fun to love the little guy and hate the big guy. Web 2.0 fanatics and journalists are, for whatever reason, mac people. Its amazing to me that Microsoft Internet TV (in Windows Media Center) got no attention when it was released. And Front Row is a joke a against Media Center, yet the journalists ate Front Row up. What about the Office 2007 ribbon as a major innovation?

It’s cool and trendy to be a mac geek… Microsoft is just a “big corporate bully” who can never get it right.

@Andre

Apple, the little guy?

@erick

Yes, Apple is the little guy in this ring…

Don’t get me wrong, I like alot of what Apple does. I think they produce alot of cool products, but I think Microsoft gets such a bad rap, just because they’re Microsoft.

Some of the smartest people I know work there, and alot of the work they do is really pretty innovative and cool, it just doesn’t get the attention it deserves. They also make some head-up-ass decisions. UAC (the annoying prompts in Windows) is a good idea, but some of the implementation really needs to be cleaned up.

What happens to iLife when you do a fresh install of Leopard? Does it include iLife 08 or what? Is it on my Tiger disc? Id like to know ive never done an OSX update before.

iLife and iWork are not on the install disk, dito with microsoft office and any other program like it.

You need to back up your programs folder just like you need to backup your documents before you wipe your drive.

That said you should be just fine running the normal update process without wiping the drive.

Doing a “clean install” with an OS X install just means it makes a copy of the old system, and installs a new one from disk. You still retain all your software and all your preferences. Heck, you still retain the old “system” and can rename can revert back I believe. It’s a no brainer and has actually less risk than a normal update.

Everyone who getting Leopard this week, enjoy.

Ken

For the record, the mac CTRL+ALT+DELETE is CTRL+OPTION+(the button you turn the computer on with).

@ Balnko

Disclaimer: I’m not trying to exhibit fanboyism, this is just a simple question. I currently run Windows XP MCE, and Windows Vista, but plan on buying a Mac in the near future.

You ask why Leopard gets only good features highlighted, whereas Vista only has bad features highlighted. Here’s your chance to rectify that. Please list the bad features of Leopard over the previous iteration, and then please list the good features of Vista over the previous iteration. I’m not saying that there’s nothing bad about Leopard, and nothing good about Vista, but I believe that you would find that when comparing both of these upgrades, only one of them would likely stand out as an upgrade.

The reason that so much hype surrounds Apple, and so much animosity surrounds Microsoft is pointed out by Andre, but I don’t think it’s as clear-cut as that. Apple has been steadily improving their products, whereas Vista is a failure. That’s not to say that Microsoft is a failure, but in an attempt to reach the “coolness” factor of OS X, they have released a flawed product. Perhaps Vienna will be better, and I hope for them that it is, but they stumbled, and the “leopard” pounced (pardon the pun, but it was too obvious to resist).

Wow - that’s really interesting. First TechCrunch admit some weeks back to using torrent sites to download illegal tv shows and movies, and now you have a full article up talking about receiving ‘my copy around 9PM Thursday’.

Here’s the Apple MacOS X license

“This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time. This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time”

So, unless you specifically ordered a family pack, you just broke the law and are yet another example of a TechCrunch writer stealing IP. When oh when is someone going to get the authorities to raid the offices of this bunch of software/movie/music/tv show stealing muppets.

sorry, missed the context

“…“DVD check” a process that for me (Mac Pro, twin Intel Dual cores 2.6 something, 4gb ram) took around 20 minutes…”

“On my second install on a Macbook Pro …”

@Joe: Let me remind you that “coolness” is just an “inch long”. I bought MacBook earlier this year (because it was cheaper than Dell by $100 bucks given the same spec) and I’m using Vista in it full-time by now.

Somehow I felt that OSX is not that useful compare to Vista in the long run. But that’s for me personally. Everybody has different expectations of the OS.

I laughed at university students that bought MacBook just to read e-mail and browse their Facebook account. I’m sure they’ll buy OSX Leopard just to use it for e-mail and browsing their Facebook account. They won’t use anything else.

Oh, Microsoft just launched an initiative to cut MS Office 2007 Ultimate price down to $64 for College Students. Now you’ll hear these Mac owners scream “OH CRAP!”.

This is all a fraud!
Back in June, Mary Jo Foley of ZDnet fame wrote a stunningly concise article, “Leopard looks like … Vista”. Truer words were never spoken! Many of you peolpe out there do not realize the truth, all software is born at Microsoft, even our competitor’s! You see the Apple hackers constantly scour our site for hints of what we are planing for the future, they send spys, moles, fake pizza-boys,… In their desperation they even steal experimental betas so far from production that even most MS employees don’t realise that we are developing them. They then slap some of their crappy code under these interfaces and claim to have developed it first.
This is why Leopard and all of the so called versions of OSX over the past 5 years looks like Vista, you see, Vista is the real thing. We just take our time to make sure it is done right before releasing to the public. We care, we take our time, we do stable coding. Don’t be duped by imitations.
Ms Foley, you have been backing down, trying to explain, apologising, … DON’T! Stand strong, tell the truth, you were absolutely right all the time, “Leopard looks like Vista!”
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

Fake Steve Ballmer. You’re a turd.

For the rest of you. You’ll find a much more informative article (compared to the one above) about Leopard here:

http://www.appleinsider.com/ar.....sktop.html

@Joe

To be fair, Vista isn’t a failure, but alot of expectations were broken when they did their internal “reset”. The “stacks” in the OS and filters are very innovative and useful, the search is well improved, security is much better, they make sure applications that are poorly written can only write to the user folder now (so if you ever have a problem, you can create a new user and start from scratch), The window composition they do now fixed a ton of redraw issues with frozen applications, the small workflows (such as connecting to wifi) have been cleaned up for the better, the driver model is much more stable, Windows Presentation Foundation is a huge gift to the developer community and some really cool apps should come out of it…

There is a ton of rich new features in Vista that makes it overall a much better experience. Its a much larger step forward than Leopard, and for the most part, they made that step while keeping compatibility in-tact.

Apple has an advantage that they wiped the slate clean a while back. Vista did alot of the same, but kept 90% of their backwards-compatibility. Mac users didn’t complain about the OS9-OSX jump nearly as much as people complain about the XP-Vista jump.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens when one of them makes a major paradigm shift towards a new type of interface (leaving the windowed interface behind). That will be the guy who takes the prize for major innovation (or a major flop).

If TechCrunch is such a big deal, why didn’t they pay a real Mac product reviewer to do this article? It’s full of holes.

* The article claims image thumbnails are a new feature in Leopard. They are not.

* The article says there’s no Ctrl Alt Del for Macs. There are several. Hold Ctrl and the Apple key and press the power button to reboot. Or hold down the power button for a full five seconds to shut off a hung Mac.

* Virtual desktops are not “new to the Mac.” Free programs like Virtue have been popular for years. The newness is only being built into OS X.

* “Don’t Click The Time Machine Button” For a bug this bad, he should have contacted Apple to see if it’s a known problem. Hello, you’re TECHCRUNCH, make the call. His Mac may have a hardware defect, but we’ll never know.

The article is full of make-nice to the Mac fanboys, so I doubt Techcrunch will get the flaming they deserve. They say OS X was worth the four month wait. That equation is only valid for people who got an iPhone, thus benefitting from the hold on OS X development.

Way back when Vista was being developed (in Beta, I think) it had Virtual Desktops… I guess that got cut, though…

Since when is an operating system upgrade within Tech-Cruch’s domain? Widgets and social websites, this review is worthless. A blatant attempt to generate phony hits for this site.

I test drove Leopard today. Nice, but there is nothing in it that makes me want to cough up the money:

1) Time machine is brilliant, but its nothing more than a GUI for rsync.
2) The VNC functionality in iChat rocks, but its nothing more than what freeware like Chicken of the VNC and VineServer offer.
3) Its about time that they thought to include virtual desktop functionality, but I already have it via freeware like VirtueDesktops.

I dig the improved functionality in both Mail (RSS reader) and iCal. However, I can’t find enough added value to justify the cost of upgrading. For now, I’m just hopeful that they will release 10.4.11 so that I can log onto WPA encrypted networks again!!!

OS/X Leopard will beat Vista to the core.

Ans: Vista is already beaten..

Bought Leopard on preorder a week ago. Got the confirmation that it’s been shipped. Maybe I’ll receive it Monday?

Does anyone know how an upgrade from Tiger to Leopard effects a Parallels installation running Windows Vista Business?

Vista already came defeated in the war, its biggest competitor being XP and not Ubuntu or OS X. People who bought systems with Vista pre-installed usually switch to XP.

Btw: I worked on a vista laptop of my friend for some days, and it felt pretty comfortable. Not that slow or buggy as hyped.

Dumbass Mactards would buy even a turd with the Apple logo.

“Apple (to their credit) made delivery for Friday no matter where you live, so I had my copy around 9pm Thursday PST.”

Not if you live in Italy, they didn’t. My copy wasn’t even dispatched until this morning (27th). Won’t apparently be delivered until Wednesday. Last time I use the Apple Store. Would have been quicker getting it off BitTorrent.

It is not against the law to install the OS on more then 1 computer. The EULA is what you are stating and the EULA is not law. It is just there. The EULA is inamissable in court and has no baring on anything. ONce you purchase software its yours whatever you do with it is whatever you do with it. Its called the first sale doctrine.

The OS got to me yesterday and immediately installed it on my MacBook Pro. I love it!!

Today I installed it on my wife’s and two kids’. And tomorrow at my father-in-law’s. And then I will be out of licenses!!

I think it is great.

I guess no one used Desktop Manager. ‘Twas the first virtual desktop manager AFAIK. It still works for Tiger on x86 even tho it was never ported. That’s the beauty of Rosetta.

http://desktopmanager.berlios.de/

Can’t speak for Virtue. I still use my PPC Desktop Manager on an MBP running 10.4.10 to this day.

Its kind of scary thinking about how many people are so unfamiliar with virtual desktops. Maybe I am jaded, having used them for over 10 years.

I have friend testing this so I might wait first how it go with him before I go. I am planning of switching to Mac for different reason - graphics! I am jealous with my friend’s Mac :(. I read an story that Leopard for PC hacked on Launch Day, link below.

http://www.ebenta.com/story.ph.....Launch_Day

Check it out!

First thoughts
- why can’t you use Time Machine to backup to a USB drive connected to an Airport Extreme?
- When buying the 5-user family version, Apple should at least provide a couple of copies of the DVD. Not to encourage piracy - but part of my family is away at University and I don’t trust the Post Office with my only copy of the DVD. Finally figured out how to make a working copy - but took too long!
- Stacks is just an ugly gimic.

Still better than Vista though!!

Got it, installed it. Wonderful. Whilst this is not an amazing leap to what is already a great OS, it is a good upgrade and well worth having. I love Time Machine and it just enhances the user experience. Thanks Apple!

I’d like to test Mac as you all did already. Unfotunately I am still a Windows user because Mac computers are very expensive in our area.