Leopard review rodeo

I am what could be called a "power user" in most sense of the word on both Windows (name a version) and Mac OS X 10.4.9 and above and all I have to say is that, in my opinion, Leopard OS X 10.5.1 is by far and away the best end-user operating system that I have ever worked on.

People have complained about a lot of the "new features" in Leopard, but personally I think the new semi-transparent menu bar is visually beautiful when coupled with the right background images (I have not had a single problem reading it) and the Spaces feature is an amazing piece of work if you are a power user like me and want to get a lot of work done with multiple applications and want a clean, uncluttered desktop to work with. Normally, when I am editing websites I have at least one e-mail program running, at least 2 browsers (Firefox and Safari) running, then throw in Dreamweaver, MS Word for content editing and possibly Photoshop for image editing and possibly a file viewer and the Spaces feature instantly becomes a hit. If you then couple that with a little tweaking with Expose, I found a winning combination of clarity and extreme usability in my first two hours of working with Leopard.

Forget that the new "stacks" feature is pretty useless, the ability to manage multiple applications in a full workspace with a killer UI and this OS should be a hit with people (like me) who need a machine that can do a lot of things at once and be fast and easy to use.

Also, I have not had one single problem with Leopard in almost a week of working with it and feel that while Tiger was a very good, very solid OS, Leopard makes my MacBook Pro shine like a diamond. One week of working (seriously) with it, and I can't imagine going back to Tiger. Sure, there is an occasional "wait" icon and running 16 desktops, each with an application, can potentially bog down even a good system, my gut reaction is that it works very well with the current hardware and is only going to get much better with newer hardware to come and is a worthy successor to Tiger. Also, while your machine will slow down with 16 desktops, the bottom line is that you can run 16 desktops, and the machine still works. Period. Try that on Vista - and pray.

For those trying to make a comparison to Vista, all I have to say is that VISTA SUCKS. No one so far that I have read has come out and said so, but when compared to the completeness, stability and compatibility of Windows XP Professional SP2 and all the patches, Vista is a DOG. I tried several basic user tasks under Vista and 6 out of 6 areas failed miserably. First, I tried to get rid of some miserable anti-virus software (unfortunately it was Norton) and couldn't find out how easily. The second area was speed. Even with Vista Basic on a brand new Compaq, Vista took about 5 minutes to load, and about 3 minutes just to get to the desktop, and once I was there, I had to wait another 2 minutes to get to a usable UI or the desktop. If that wasn't bad enough, Vista has hidden and moved nearly EVERYTHING a die-hard Windows fan (mainly because of games and tons of software for the PC...) was used to. Even basic tasks such as joining a domain network was a hassle. The fourth problem I ran into was installing a simple DX7 game under Vista: Worked just fine under XP, but the setup program wouldn't even run on Vista Home Premium. Because the setup program failed on a file on the CD, I tried copying the setup files to the hard drive and then got an error copying the file to the hard drive from a CD. ARE YOU KIDDING????!!! Just to test that the CD wasn't bad, I copied it to the hard drive running Windows XP Pro (RUNNING ON MY MAC!) and it worked perfectly. The final "nail in the coffin" for me and Vista was when I tried to install a second DX7 based game. The install worked OK under Vista, but once the program was launched, everything was wrong. Half the graphics were missing, the control buttons were nowhere to be found and when I tried to run the application in supposed "Windows 95/98" computability mode, the program still failed to run properly.

File copying: Failed.
Speed: Failed.
Software backwards compatibility: Failed.
Removal of annoying software: Failed.

How much do you want? Vista SUCKS and Leopard ROCKS.
I would (without any hesitation) recommend a new Intel based Mac running Leopard and Windows XP Professional as THE VERY BEST computer an "end user" could potentially own. You will get the best gaming experience you can on a PC, you PC apps will run great and all of your serious multimedia and work programs run like a champion on OS X 10.5.1. The other night I copied 35GB of data to an external drive, burned a DVD and watched some web videos, all at the same time, on my Mac.

If PC users out there have any doubts, I have three words for you:
December 11 2007 at 2:25 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

"23. Is it just me or nobody has commented on the death of the beach ball on leopard!!??"

It's just you. What do you mean by "death of the beach ball?" I'm rather getting the bloody BEACHBALL OF DEATH quite frequently now thank you! It's really pissing me off too and it's affecting both my iMac and my Powerbook.

What happens is that the system just HANGS. I can't force quite, can't switch apps, can't select or click anything with the mouse. Can't even do a keyboard reset. Have to use the power button. It looks like a kernel panic, but doesn't show the kernel panic screen. Bloody hell. Of all the previous OS X's I've had, THIS is the first one to be so bad that I'm seriously worrying about my workflow and data -- I might just go back to Tiger. Wish I can return the OS and get my money back!!

Is anyone else surprised at how buggy Leopard is? I went to my local Apple store Monday night, credit card in hand, to buy a new 15" MacBook Pro. As I tinkered with the new OS, however, I found at least two-three bugs, replicable on every machine in the store, except for one lone MacBook, which seemed to be running just fine. The most noticeable was that the day/week/month buttons in iCal didn't work (control+1,2,3 did), and the upper-left red 'close' button didn't work in almost every application, requiring, instead, command+Q to quit anything. I was really surprised, as were the employees to whom I showed it. No one seemed to be able to explain the behavior. A few other minor inconsistencies jumped out at me, but after just a few minutes in iCal (see above), I thought, 'whoa, not yet ready for prime time....' I know a lot of people speak ill of Windows Vista, but my first Vista experiences (I got a copy day one) were nowhere near as buggy as my in-store Leopard experience.

I'd like to buy, but holding on -- I think -- until a few of the bugs get worked out....

Is it just me or nobody has commented on the death of the beach ball on leopard!!??

(11) "... this is an operating system rewritten from the ground up for two very different architectures."

No it is not. This an evolution on Tiger, which already supported both architectures. 10.5 is not rewritten from the ground up, afaik.

It's ok. The Mail and iCal changes are minor tweaks; I'm not sure if they even enhanced the programs. I like the new look and time machine is fine, although it's not a huge step up over Super Duper. Overall I'd give it a 3 out of 10 for not really being worth the money. There's no "wow" feature like previous had. That being said, there's the potential to make vast improvements with 10.5.x upgrades (like Notes syncing on an iPhone).

Well, I found funny people who are complaining like hell.
1/ Upgrading an OS on the same machine without a backup : Whaouu, heuuu, let me think about it... No fu**** way !!! All my digital life and work is on my MBP. I can't seriously take that risk. So, I use SuperDuper

2/ Leopard is slow : Sorry but not on my MBP and on my wife's MB. It's a lot more faster, and when I say faster, i say faster. Launching every single app (Apple and not) is faster, Global display is faster. Only CoverFlow in iTunes takes a while to initialize. Mail3 with more than 14000 mails in my mailbox is terribly fast and smooth.

3/ No Improvments, just some GUI touch : I suggest you read this very good (but a little technical) article : http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/1

4/ TimeMachine is ridiculous : Well, I don't know but I can't explain to my wife how to use any other backup software, same thing for my dad. But where TimeMachine is Magic, is that you just have to plug an external hard drive and click ONE button to activate it.
do you read me : JUST ONE BUTTON to activate a full incremental backup system !!
I'm sorry but there's genius in this : simple is beautiful and Apple did a great job on this one.

5/Compatibility with old G4 867Mhz : Do you read this, the most advanced operating system on an old G4 867Mhz and it works... it doesn't rock but it works. (troll and jokes on : Did you try to install Vista on an old Pentium 800Mhz) ... pfff, let's be realistic, computers changes rapidly and we know that. It's hard to tell but I think it's time to go to 64bits architecture folks ;-)

6/ blue screen of death : I made a regular upgrade without any bugs. The only thing I noticed was that my Growl mail notification has been deactivated... but I can live without for the next weeks and Leopard told me during the first launch of Mail3 that it disabled the Growl notification : Thank you and bravo !

So, okay, i've had some bugs (100%cpu with DirectoryService so I had to kill the process, selfclosing Mail (one time)... I don't like Stacks and Webclip doesn't work very well... but on the other hand I've got TimeMachine, Quickview which is fabulous and very usefull and lot lot more improvements
I'm very very happy.

For my part, it's a very good release. If you can wait for the 10.5.1, wait but it's worth the 129€ even with some tiny little bugs ;-)
And as always, make a backup before any upgrade if like me, your life is on your mac.

It's true that I haven't seen comments on how much faster this OS is all around than Tiger was. I have been using Macs exclusively since '90. I agree that this is the best upgrade since X.

@Macworld "Despite a few interface missteps, particularly when it comes to the menu bar", I like it much more then the previous one, it does not distract and looks very slick, designers in apple are awesome! Though it took some time to get used to how dock tracks running app(a few hours :D).
Leopard makes it easier to focus on application u working with and shortens distance between user and data. I like.

I think it's great. I did clean installs on both my MacBook and my MacBook Pro and everything has been smooth.