Filed under: OS, Software, WWDC, Apple, Leopard
Hello Tomorrow: The 300+ new features of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
While Steve Jobs introduced ten major features coming in Mac OS X Leopard at last year's WWDC, the entire list of new features has finally been unveiled. We already knew about some of the enhancements coming in apps like Mail and the all-new Spaces and Time Machine, but Jobs today highlighted some significant new features such as an interesting new approach to the Desktop and a (finally!) updated Finder.
This isn't all that's coming in Leopard, however; not by a long shot. In fact, along with a redesigned Apple.com, the company has unveiled the full Leopard features site, elaborating a lot more on most (but likely not all) the new features we'll get to play with in October. The list this time around actually tops over 300+ new features - the most significant upgrade in Mac OS X's history. Included in the list are apps we haven't seen featured on stage, including iCal, Parental Controls, DVD Player, Automator and more.
There's a lot to look through here (and likely much more to discover that Apple hasn't detailed), so we're going to take some time to digest this all. As always, feel free to send us tips as we publish more info on new features as quickly as possible.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Danny said 3:30PM on 6-11-2007
That's a pretty large (although categorised) list. Time to start reading. BRB 36 hours.
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mark said 3:35PM on 6-11-2007
The faster switching in bootcamp sounds very promising. When switching to windows, instead of restarting, OS X just goes into safe sleep. Neat.
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kabura said 3:40PM on 6-11-2007
Very exciting stuff. Definitely looking forward to Leopard. iPhone, eh, not so much. Maybe 2nd gen...or ebay =P
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Nick Burch said 3:41PM on 6-11-2007
1st the cool:
1.) Auto Recogniziation of Dates addresses in MAIL is nice
Then the alarming:
Anyone see anything about Desktop Sharing. This was to be a feature of iCHAT but no mention of it at all now. Any Thoughts?
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JJ Forde said 3:41PM on 6-11-2007
My one question aboust spaces is if an app can span multiple spaces. I like having ichat up all the time and don't want it disappearing if i change spaces.
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JJ Forde said 3:46PM on 6-11-2007
Oh and also does this mean my g4 powerbook now will have photoboth for my external isight or will it be left out...
the DVD player looks amazing and some cool new features.
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Joe said 3:48PM on 6-11-2007
I'm wondering how spaces will handle multiple monitors, especially if the two monitors have different resolutions. I've got a 1440x900 display hooked into my 20" iMac and I'd love it if spaces recognized the two displays together as a single "space." Apple is typically pretty good with accommodating multiple monitors, so I'm hopeful but nervous.
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Patrick said 3:50PM on 6-11-2007
Does anyone know whether or not ZFS will indeed be the next filesystem? I couldn't find anything on the Apple website.
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The Jones Boy said 3:53PM on 6-11-2007
Here's one... how does a 3d dock work left aligned? Answer, it can't - surely?
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EnzoGt14 said 4:00PM on 6-11-2007
Bye Tiger, Hello Leopard! I'm sold. Can't wait to try it out!
Vista Ultimate-$400
Leopard Ultimate-$129
XO
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Tom said 4:07PM on 6-11-2007
Yeah, Desktop Sharing is conspicuously absent -- the iChat page is full of its "fun" new eye-candy features, but there's no mention of the one thing that actually looked kinda useful.
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itguy08 said 4:09PM on 6-11-2007
Love it except for the transparent Menubar. Looks VERY distracting. I hope there's a way to change the transparency to make it all solid.
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Tom said 4:11PM on 6-11-2007
whoops -- looks like the "Share Desktop" functionality has been moved to the new Finder -- called "Share Screen" where you can share desktops with those on your (.Mac?) network.
Not as useful as sharing screens with *anyone* on iChat, but probably a lot more secure.
From the Finder page (http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/features/finder.html):
"By clicking on a connected Mac, you can see and control that computer (if authorized, of course) as if you were sitting in front of it. You can even search all the computers in the house to find what you're looking for."
see:
http://images.apple.com/macosx/leopard/features/images/finder_gallery_backtomymac20070611.jpg
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Wheels said 4:15PM on 6-11-2007
Anybody else feel that Vista just got trounced? I wonder if there are any chairs flying out of the windows of the Microsoft corporate suite in Redmond. If the .0 version is close to bug free, than delaying Leopard was a good thing.
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Chris said 4:15PM on 6-11-2007
Anyone ever stumbled across system requirements for Leopard? I've searched on Apple.com but don't see any listed. I have a PowerPC-based Mac Mini and would rather not buy a new machine if I can avoid it, but the conspicuous absence of the requirements doesn't bode well for my budget...
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jh said 4:18PM on 6-11-2007
Vista? Trounced?
Why? It's ON the desktops right now. It'll have months of penetration more than Leopard will when Leopard releases.. and even on a bad day it'll still outsell Leopard on Leopard's best day.
Worry about your own OS.. not other people's. Last time Apple made fun of Vista, it was talking about how it'd be released before Vista.
The stock shows , though, the stock shows. Investors are losing confidence in Apple's ability to do anything but bash Microsoft.
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Nick Burch said 4:31PM on 6-11-2007
Moving Desktop share to finder is interesting. I can't imagine that they've made it .mac dependent? I don't actually care how you access the feature but increased security makes sense. Do you think there will be some sort of system for connecting to macs other than on your local or .mac network? Maybe exchanging passwords via some sort of secure invite method. It seems strange not to have this in ichat though.
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Pete said 4:45PM on 6-11-2007
Just skimming through so I may have missed someone's comment that may have mentioned brush metal seems to be completely gone. Everything looks like iTunes now. Pretty cool. Very clean (as you would expect.)
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Pete said 4:51PM on 6-11-2007
Also,
"Worry about your own OS.. not other people's. Last time Apple made fun of Vista, it was talking about how it'd be released before Vista." - jh
I think Apple bashed MS for how long it took for Vista came out since their last release. Apple can wait until next year and it still would have a better turnaround timeframe w/ Leopard from Tiger than Vista from XP.
Plus why are you even reading this blog? Sounds like someone is more curious about Leopard than they would let others believe.
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frogbat said 4:55PM on 6-11-2007
re the vista - i don't think by trounced the poster meant sales wise...
some lots of interesting features - i just realised that the icon view thumbnails any sort of media file including docs and movie clips - w00t for that. Seems like xls files are previewed too!
i'm curious to c the spec requirements. Not sure bout the translucent menu bar but the coverflow feature's a nice feature. Now hope they allow more meta tag filters in column view. Waitin for screenshots to be posted for the more mundane stuff like setting up the shares (does it work with smb shares... does the finder hang if an AFP share is disconnected?).
As mentioned elsewhere my 2 major grievances left are the open / save dialogues and printer set up / print dialogues....
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