All about Leopard: gallery, apps, impressions
By Ryan Block 
posted Oct 26th 2007 5:32PM
posted Oct 26th 2007 5:32PM
Read on for a long list of changes, updates, additions, and impressions, and don't forget to check out the gallery.
Note: So we're skipping over Safari since the only major change there (since the beta was released) is Web Clips (which we'll cover).
If there's anything you want to check out that we didn't last night, leave us a comment and we'll see if we can work it in!
Install
- Install was pretty painless. A few clicks and you're off. It took just under an hour (58 minutes, to be exact) to do its thing, despite the installer claiming it would be a 3-4 hour upgrade for our stock MacBook Pro.
- For old school users: installing the barebones OS onto a G4 Power Mac's freshly formated disk took just 20 minutes.
- The install chewed up a good 3.3GB of space on top of what was already there. Apple recommends a solid 9GB, so be prepared if you're constantly low on space like us.
UI
- All menu bar menus are semi-translucent, still searching for a way to change that transparency and/or disable it. We're sure someone will discover a defaults write command for this.
- Menu bar menus also now have curved edges; same as the dock. Oh, and red-yellow-green buttons are a lot more vibrant and colorful.
- But the menu bar itself no longer has the trademark curved top left and right corners. The end of an era, says we.
- Drop shadow on the active window is extremely pronounced. Like, 35px pronounced.
- Launching apps with Spotlight is tremendously easy, they come up instantly, and separately from the rest of the search results. It'll still try searching the index for matching files, though.
- Stacks are nice, but there are a few things that kind of bummed us out. If you keep your dock on the side (like we do) you only get the grid view, not the fan.
- ... Also, depending on which files you have contained in your stack, the dock icon changes from an empty folder to the icon of the "top" file. So as contents of that stack changes, so does its icon, making it visually difficult to keep track of in the dock. (Unfortunately there's no option we've yet seen to just show the folder,and not represent its contents by way of icon.)
- The new dock is ugly. For a nicer, simpler, kinder dock, bring up terminal and punch in defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES, then killall Dock. (Use NO to bring back the ugly.)
- Spaces maps to control + arrow, as well as control + number key to take you to the spaces of your choice. These hot keys are editable.
- Spaces also lets you bind applications to certain spaces, so you always know where they are. You can also bind an app (like, say, iChat) to follow you around regardless of which space you're in.
- If you have multiple browser windows open in different spaces and applications with links, those links open in the space-appropriate window. In other words, if you click a link, it'll open in the browser in your space, not in the browser in another space. Brilliant.
- You can't change the background of individual spaces -- this gets confusing when switching rapidly about.
- When you're in columns view and move left / right, you get a little animation back and forth (instead of the less visually perceptive cursor moving over instantly).
- Why does Cover Flow view require the file browsing on the bottom be in list mode? What's wrong with column mode?
- Use command + y (or just hit space) to Quick Look things. It's like command + o (which simply opens files) except way faster.
- Oh yeah, you now have breadcrumbed folder paths at the bottom of the window (hit view -> show path bar). Friggin finally!
- Finder didn't start discovering Windows machines on the network. We had to first connect to a drive share; only then did Finder drop that server in the Shared group in the locations column.
- Plug in a drive, get prompted to designate it as your Time Machine backup drive. (Remember, TM drives can still store other data, your system just needs to know which it should be backing up to.) Choose not to do that (by hitting cancel) and it will write a hidden file called .com.apple.timemachine.supported (and a ton of other files), and won't ask you again in the future. Us, we'd actually kind of like an "ask again later" button, though.
- Detail: if your drive isn't very large it won't even bother asking if you want to make it a backup drive. We assume it wants a drive at least the size of your primary hard drive.
- Removing your root-level system folder from TM backup gives a strange, somewhat confusing prompt: do you want to exclude all system files (those being what, precisely?) or just the system folder? Sounds like it's asking if you want to exclude the system folder + default apps, or just the system folder. Either way, when we put system + default apps in the Time Machine exclusions, the number of files it backed up went from over a million files down to ~200k.
- If TM fails (and even if it doesn't) there's no clear way to re-initiate another backup -- right click the TM icon in the dock (that is, if you left it there), then hit back up now. Thanks Ronald and onescoop!
- Beware: changing (or even viewing) Time Machine options during a backup has the tendency to unexpectedly kill the backup. Huh?
- TM can include external non-TM drives in its backup routines. (By default your TM drive isn't backed up to itself, so if you want to redundancy for all the other data on your TM disk, you might have some futzing to do.)
- Expect a Mail database upgrade when you start it up the first time. Updating the DB on our machine took under 5 minutes, and we have a LOT of mail. (Mail.app has a tendency of chugging big time -- sometimes minutes just to switch folders -- on our larger mailboxes).
- As it turns out, Mail is DEFINITELY faster in a lot of our folders containing thousands of messages. No more grinding email along for us!
- Mail columns are actually a lot better about sticking in place and keeping their proper width now, no more musical columns when you initiate a search.
- The data detectors work pretty well, but phone numbers formatted with dots (333.555.1212) don't pick up. This is instantly one of those how-did-we-live-without-it features.
- When creating a to-do from text selected in an email, that to-do is bound (and shows a link to) that email, for reference. This is a big time saver.
- Wow, not bad at all -- might finally actually be a suitable replacement for Adium. Still, no Yahoo IM support, nor any of the other standards.
- The AIM chatroom auto-join feature is outstanding. When you shut down, lose your connection, or start up, you're right back in.
- We're still trying to figure out whether you can combine multiple accounts' buddy lists into a single list. [Answer: nope, it's not possible, sorry folks. If you're like us and have multiple AIM accounts you just have to deal with multiple buddy lists. Whatev, Apple.] Why the hell would we want all those multiple lists floating around? (Chax no longer works in Leopard, so we're a little distraught.)
- You can use the new version of iChat to visually share documents / files non-Leopard users, but instead of putting up iChat Theater, iChat just replaces the video stream of you with a video stream of whatever file you're showing. That is, when it's not crashing.
- Screen sharing works really well. Fighting for the mouse is always fun, too.
- By the way, where do all the Quick Look plugins go? Damned if we know!
- Network settings are much more simply laid out, especially when it comes to managing multiple connections and their settings. Looks like Apple realized that a lot of people have more than two network connections.
- As we mentioned, the Bluetooth settings are also redesigned and much faster and easier to use. Bonus: automatic Bluetooth key suggestions when pairing with new devices.
- Parental settings are far more advanced, now include log monitoring (chat, browsing, etc.), site filtering, and all the standard stuff like schedules. Takeaway: it's actually useful now!
- Leopard supports A2DP! Seriously, it actually works. A bajillion nerds just ordered a copy.
- ZOMG: the keyboard manager differentiates between different keyboards' modifier keys. No longer do you need to swap the option and command keys every time you use an external PC keyboard. This alone is reason enough for us to switch.
- Everything is clickable in Web Clips, so you can, say, grab the top headline on Engadget and click it when you see something you want open in a browser.
- Automator UI recording is a great concept, but we're not entirely sure it's there yet. If you're using keyboard commands watch out, because if you switch windows or interact with your system during playback you might screw up Automator's recorded action.
- Those new greenscreen-esque backdrops in iChat and Photo Booth? Could be done a little better.
- The real time / autocomplete in the dictionary is great. Having access to all Apple / tech terms and Wikipedia: even better.
- Thank god Apple finally updated its Terminal, we had long considered it, um, terminal. (Ahem.) Our favorite part: term themes.
- Yeah, Cover Flow works for fonts, as well. Just browse to your system font folder and see what we mean.
- Unfortunately, the to-do creator (launched from your context menu) doesn't work system wide, just in Mail.
- The grammar checker could use a little, um, checking. Typing in totally high-larious phrases like "I can has cheeseburger?" (spelled properly intentionally) don't set off any alarms -- in fact, neither did "Somebody set up us the bomb." "All your base are belong to us" did the trick, though.
GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOARRRRRRRRRRRRRR
The word is "meow"!!
Cool stuff! Thanks for covering this documentation. :)
I manage a MAC lab in my office consisting of 1 top of the line G5 (aluminum casing + superdrive + dual core CPU + top ram memory) attached to a server attached to 40 EMac's.
I am going to get Leopard for free from the department of Education but it doesn't excite me at all.
I like running Internet Explorer more than Firefox or Safari and it feels as if IE is intenetionally left to run poorly on these computers. I have to use programs such as Kidpix, Word, Student Writing Center and Filemaker pro with Pre-K through 5 and I never cease having the feeling that the MAc is the most unintuitive system a student could possibly be using.
The program never dominates the whole screen and kids keep falling out of the program they are using cause they don't have the prowess to not click trouble points. And those STUPID "sperm" shaped mice have some sort of locking mechanism that locks up when young children use them. No where near as easy as using a Windows PC.
Though I use em at work, I keep my house MAC FREE.
I have the equiptment to illegaly reproduce Leopard CD's but unlike Vista, Mac doesn't make my heartbeat skip at all.
Having come from exactly that kind of environment, I can feel your pain, however, it isn't necessarily the mac's fault. Ever stop to consider the fact that EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE SUCKS ASS?! I cannot BEGIN to tell you the wasted HOURS I've spent fighting with KidPix, Renaissance Learning, and God knows WHAT else because these idjits still write this stuff like it's 68K code! They expect school districts to still be running Mac Classics or LC machines for God's sake, and freak the hell out when you present them with a properly spec'd, well designed, and functional modern lab with high end equipment. That's not even to MENTION trying to run all this crap on OS X. These applications are built for OS 7, sometimes OS 8, rarely for OS 9, and almost never for OS X.
So, the long and short of it is this: before ranting off about how suck ass your Mac lab is (and I've worked with the original Bondi blue bubble backs all the way up through eMacs, G3A1s, G3 BW, G4s of all types, and now into Intel iMacs), try placing some of that frustration and vengeful anger (rightfully earned, I might add) where it belongs: on the software vendors who are making your life hell.
This has nothing to do with the hardware underneath. The software sucks just as bad on PCs. Especially in a K-6 environment.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that, no full screen. Macs suck.
1. "Mac" is not an acronym. Don't write it in all caps.
2. While I prefer Firefox, Safari, Camino, Opera, and just about any other browser to Internet Explorer, the fact remains that Internet Explorer runs poorly because Microsoft stopped developing it for Mac. If you're angry at anybody, be angry at Microsoft.
3. I grew up using KidPix, ClarisWorks, and all sorts of Mac programs in elementary school, and I don't remember having trouble with a single one. Maybe the students' trouble stems from the person managing the Mac lab obviously not know how to use the machines?
4. Sperm-shaped mice? Really? Talk about grasping at straws...
I have no problem with people being pro-Windows. Hell, I prefer using a PC to a Mac because I play games. However, if you're going to argue against the Mac OS, at least try to make some intelligent arguments. As it is, you're just embarrassing yourself. *shakes head*
I agree the MacOS regardless of generation allows an endless clutter and applications are easy to click out of or have palettes get lost behind other applications.
Using Cocktail enables the user to hid the desktop which is a help but it does nothing to make the operating system intuitive. For intensive work I use XP as each application dominates the screen. It's also faster on the Apple hardware than the bloated horrible Leopard. I loaded this horrible version today. Nothing much went wrong but it's ugly, in your face and a pretty pointless upgrade in terms of increased ease of use. Indeed it's less intuitive than the other OSX versions.
Horrible. The packaging looked like a kid's idea of cool for a new version of Linux desktop. So fed up living in Job's play room. Wouldn't mind if he ever did a days work on a Mac. He's a salesman... a great one but that's it. Leopard is like the new iMac, ugly and kind of rubbish you'd get from a 3rd rate company trying to break into the OS wars.
dick, can ya make me a few of those leopard Cd's
DickHardknocks... you are a miracle worker. You can produce leopard CDs! How do you fit 3.5 GB on a CD?
This guy's a real mental giant.
He complains that a 6 year old version of IE sucks, because he refuses to run anything else. IE for the Mac has ALWAYS sucked. He's simply a troll for saying he "prefers to run it." Nobody prefers IE for the Mac.
He calls the Mac the most unintuitive system you could use (cough), and can't figure out how to fullscreen an app. By the way, Windows programs' propensity to run fullscreen all the time is part of what makes it such a PITA for a real user to use. It's funny, when I use Windows I do the same thing, run all my apps fullscreen, but on the Mac I never do. Just a learned culture thing I guess. Full screen really makes it a pain to multitask though.
It's pretty impressive in this day and age that he, *gasp*, has the capability to COPY A DVD!
All signs point to a 10 year-old troll. Improper capitalization of Mac, being impressed by unimpressive technology (DVD burning), bitching about sperm shaped mice, and he keeps his home Mac-free.
Translation: His parents won't buy him a new computer so he is stuck on Windows 2000. When he goes into his elementary school, he can't figure out how to fullscreen apps, so he complains. He gets lots in the UI and complains that it is unintuitive. He has never used another browser so he "prefers" IE.
I managed Mac systems for a Children's Hospital for 6 years through the Classic days and OS X. We had tons of edutainment titles running on machines plus specialized apps for developmentally disabled kids to work on motor skills and such. I managed over 2000 Mac systems on my own including our whole Research Division which was almost exclusively Mac with a few smatterings of SGI and Sun workstations. Even with that number of systems I had very little issues keeping them all happy, so much so that I could just walk around and visit with my users.
Eventually they had me helping out on the PC side (most running XP) where we had 1 tech for every 200 systems and they were so swamped with calls and issues that they couldn't keep up. PCs ended up sucking up so much of my time that I felt I couldn't give the Mac users the personal care I was before and it was not nearly as enjoyable spending my dat running from one Windows box to another trying to keep up with the support queue. So I left and took a job developing VoIP solutions on UNIX and Linux for a telecom and now I work in a movie FX studio as a compositing supervisor (we are all Mac after they got sick of issues with Windows too), and we don't even have IT staff, I just do it myself because being Mac it is easy and stable.
I run a MacPro/G5 cluster used for a local newspaper and i agree with you on some points. Seriously though, saying that windows is easier to use than OSX? I know windows pretty well, i have been running it since 95 and keep a cluster of windows 2000 machines running as well, and i can tell you this, windows is most definitely not as easy to use, or as easy to keep running at its peak potential. It gets so cluttered with trash from malware to trojans and i got pretty sick of cleaning them up (before i discovered cleanup! - miracle program) yet still, they get pretty junked out. Vista? Do not tell me that is intuitive - the network interface is a load of stinking crap that requires about 30 minutes to get around to solving any problem with it (enough to make you puke) compared to apples compartmentalized systematic structure that allows you to easily access any portion.
Finally - any jackass who uses a version of IE on anything but windows (and even then...) deserves to have any right to comment on the internet revoked. Despite its improvements - IE 7 still sucks compared to firefox among the plethora of other excellent browsers.
Get real moron.
relax guys, this is eiter a joke that didn't really work or a troll.
giveaways:
- senseless yet inflammatory comments. even Dvorak hasn't thought of complaining about Macs because IE sucks. I mean... come on.
- porn star name in an educational setting. you BETTER be trolling, man. and it's not particularly funny.
Yup, you run a lab, you must be an expert!
I work with people like you. Handed jobs you were not fit to run, obviously. There is a guy where I work in charge of the entire graphics department and he knows less than anyone else about Adobe products, Macs (or even windows for that matter) is terrible at graphics & design, knows almost zero in Illustrator & InDesign and basically sucks all around. But he has friends in all the right places and promoted to these positions by people like him, due to office politics, and nothing to do with skill what so ever.
Anyone who is going to blame the computer for old software clearly is unqualified to have such a position. Unintuitive OS? Really? OK...
So Dick, who do you know at your workplace? I wonder how many qualified people got passed over forr your job because your a brownie hound? You MUST work in a school department.
Besides keeping your home Mac free, I bet you keep it intelligence free too.
Your poor kids...
either that or you are an MS employee, or just a troll.
Oh, and super smart ot admit to piracy on the internet. Yeah, your sharp! We should all heed your superior advice.
DickinaBox, you have many things to LEARN.
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2007/10/leopard-screenshots-52.jpg
WTFBBQ?!?!?
Yeah, I said the backdrops didn't work so well, and I meant it!
I love how Apple hid that flaw in their demo video a while ago by having the guy against a white backdrop...
The background color doesn't really matter, it's more of a lighting issue (especially with lighter colors). You need even lighting amongst the entire backdrop. Basically any properly lighted wall works well, you just need to make sure you aren't casting shadows, cause they'll ruin the image.
Spacebar also triggers Quicklook. Even faster than cmd + y.
I wish they would have added themes to the system preferences like they did with Appearances in Classic. It would have been nice to have 4 different system themes going in all 4 spaces.
WOO I'm excited. . . I don't think the dock is ugly though, I like it.
While I like the new style of the dock, I like the non-3D version that's shown being used even better. Looks more...nifty, I guess
POTATOES!
Kerrs Pink or Golden Wonders?
idaho
Did they fix any of the inconsistencies? I haven't used a Mac for a few months, but a bunch of apps had different appearances (background skin, button/icon style), keyboard shortcuts (finder vs mail, etc) and drag and drop support (try dragging a file different places). Seemed they were ignoring the best aspects of the NeXT underpinnings and one shop sourcing.
If TM fails (and even if it doesn't) there's no clear way to re-initiate another backup -- you just have to wait another hour. Or, if you're clever, you jump into the options, then hit done (don't change anything); your next backup begins in two minutes...
No need to mess around with the options. Just right click the Time Machine dock icon or your Time Machine drive in the Finder's sidebar and select Backup Now.
What a dissapointing day...
I have made phone calls to my local apple store over the past week asking about 10.5 being bundled if I buy a new iMac on the 26th.
They confirmed Yes, no problem - I que up for 2 hours behind all the people who are just in the que to get a free t-shirt!!! to be told at the counter that I cannot have my 4 gig of RAM fitted due to no Genius being available. - I asked if I could buy the RAM and fit it myself (15 years Mac user, would be no probs)...
Yes that would be OK but I would have to pay the extra 180 to cover the 2 512 chips that are already in the machine!!!
WHAT!, I have waited all week to buy the mac to avoid being held up for the OS (UK postal strike) to be told at the store that it would cost me twice as much for the (wasted) RAM than it would to have bought the iMac from PC WORLD (pah!) and had the OS shipped by pigeon.
I was told I could Phone the store in the morning (27th) and book a personal shopper appointment for the next available time.
Hell with that, I jumped onto the net on the nearest mackbook in the store and booked it for 9am.
I've ALWAYS had great service from a 'box shifter' apple reseller and thought it would be time to pay a bit of apple loyalty back direct to the store...
maybe I should Think Differently next time!
Oh well another day wont harm I suppose.
Maybe you should "Post Different."
I had an OS X install and a Vista install on 1 harddrive, partitioned into 2 paritions (used bootcamp in tiger to partition it).
Tried to install Leopard, and after it gets through the ridiculously long Disk Check, it says it cant install it on the volume. So then I said, ok fine... Archive it, and do a fresh install. I click continue... nothing. It said it cant do it. That the drive needs to be formatted or something.
Ok.. Fine... who cares.. I reboot, go into OS X, backup the few files I need, restart the install. I went into the Disk Utlity from the Leopard disc, clicked on the Macintosh Volume, clicked Erase using the Mac OS Extended Journaling, clicked erase.. it erased it, started the install, Nope.. Cant install on this volume. It needs to be formatted using Disk Utitlity.
Went back into Disk Utility... messing around in here... saw somehting saying it needed a Mount Point.. so I figured... ehh.. Ill just format the entire harddrive, even my vista install. Ill just reinstall Vista using the new Bootcamp. So I formatted the whole drive. Restarted the install. Same thing. Cant install on this volume. The drive must be repartitioned as a GUID Parition Table using Disk Utility. Im in Disk Utility, cant find anything that says that, im clicking the DRIVE and formatting it, im clicking the 1 volume within the drive, formatting that.. nothing.
I call Apple support, "Sorry, we're not taking calls right now casue we're preparing for the new launch"
LAME.
Now I have NO Operating Systems. Nice. Right now, im trying to do another format on the drive, this time telling it to do a ZERO write or something.... 1 hour 3 minutes remaining... and about every 5 minutes it goes down a minute. I started it about 20 minutes ago and its at 57 minutes remaining.
I hope everyone elses install goes smoother than mine.
Im on a MAC PRO.
In Disk Utility, Click on Partition, and you will see an "Options" button on the bottom. Click there,and select GUID Partition Table.
Good Luck
Making you missed something because of your panting or sweating. Take a deep breath, maybe call a friend or your shrink for some reassurance.
I like the 3D dock... It's not ugly it's something new...
you can make time machine back up again by right clicking the time machine icon and selecting 'back up now'
Did anyone notice the Apple Tablet support in Leopard?
Go to System Preferences -> Displays
Do you see the rotate drop down box?
I want my Apple Tablet NOW!
There's nothing new about the Display rotation popup. It's been there for years.
It's not for a tablet, it's for regular pivoting LCD displays.
You guys are such apple freaks. Holy shit, there is nothing amazing about this "update". There is nothing worth buying this "OS" for. Time machine? learn to take care of your computer and not delete shit. It's not hard. Such a joke guy, just wow.
I couldn't agree more. I don't see what is so special about it.
Seriously, do some more research.
Time Machine is amazing for students like me. If I edit a paper but need the previous draft to show the teacher I can use Time Machine, get the old draft. Problem solved. It may not be useful to you but some people need it.
I never saw the point of Time Machine either. I have never, once in my life, ever accidentally deleted files. I dont let me kids play with my computer, I dont allow write access if its shared.... so whats the point. BUT, SAM has a point. I never once though of "Versioning". There has been countless times I accidentally "FTP'd" an old version OVER my more recent version... I take it with TimeMachine ill now be able to revert back to a previous version. How often does it back up? Did i read somewhere ever 2 minutes? Is this going to slow down performance?
What exactly is Time Machine? Is it like Windows Shadow Copy?
Wow! Leopard is so darn great. It truly rocks the world. If the almighty needed to use an OS, He would choose Leopard. Leopard is more than an upgrade, it's an ubergrade. No superlative even comes close to describing the wonder and awe that Leopard is.
Leopard is the cat and Vista is the mouse. This cat will tear the mouse from limb to limb and devour it as a snack. And probably spit it out due to the nasty Vista taste. Leopard is great, superb, excellent. The creme de la creme. The cat's meow. Total MacErotica. The ultimate shizzle on a spizzle.
Shout it out from on high. Leopard is the frickin' frackin' best OS there is. You gotta beef with that? Too darn bad. Have a plate of Leopard droppings. It's on the house. Peace.
@Cscamp20
Yes, Time Machine is like shadow copy, but with a more extravagent interface and the requirement of a second hard drive.
That actually didn't sound very exciting at all. I was set on buying a mac in the next few months, at least partly because of leopard but now I'm not so sure.
It sounded like it just had everything we all expected it to, except that everything worked just a little bit worse than we all thought. And its sad to see that Apple is continuing the whole "Steve's way or the highway" philosophy and not allowing much customization or control over any of these features. Maybe I was naive to think that that might change somewhat in leopard.
Part of me wants to believe Leopard is great, the other part of me knows that engadget is a bunch of Apple fanboys and would say its great no matter what...
Probably not worth dignifying this with a response but we're very fair and even-handed with our editorial. We may write about Apple a lot (hey, there's a lot of news there to follow), but never are we unfair about our take.
Sure ryan. Everyone knows that Engadget is an unbiased, completely fair blog. *smiles and nods*]
Get Grip!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's obvious Engadget bashes Apple as much as they praise them,
practically every other Apple related article is written in a
sarcastic fashion. The reason they say Leopard is good, is because it
is, why the fuck do all the Win. and Lin. have a problem with that?
Look if Windows was better I'd be still using it, but that's simply
not the case.P.S. most Mac users were Windows users. OS X is more
elegant and all round just a nicer experience to use, that's why
people like it.
Personally, I don't think it's bad to praise about any good/great product. And APPLE does produce some excellent products. However what bothers me really is the unnecessary comparison of other products with APPLE's, with such a tone that, every other product in the planet is a dust compared to APPLE's.
I wonder what do they get for such a passionate blogging. I feel very bad for Thinksecret though as they are being suued for something(?) when their real intention was to increase the awareness of APPLE's products.
Dude, if engadget is unbiased then it has to report more exciting news abt apple. You know why? Cos apple products fu*ing are more exciting!
(I used Windows exclusively all my life, till 06. So don't throw bloody fanboy labels at me.)
michael, you know that "sarcasm" was completely unnecessary don't you?
Good to finally see Ryan address this issue.
Seriously sick of hearing all of the whining revolving apple products, if you aren't interested in the article don't read them, and don't go and post a comment claiming some crazy thing about engadget being biased.
The inability to change individual backgrounds of the Spaces is a bummer for me. I use virtuedesktops, and seeing the wrong picture on your desktop is an immediate indicator you're in the wrong area...perhaps this will be changed in a future update?
I got a group of 4 dead/stuck white pixels in the bottom left corner on my lovely couple months old mbr =( My day is ruined and even the 10.5 launch can't make it better...
DID YOU SOMEHOW MISS THE FACT THAT MENU BAR MENUS ALSO NOW HAVE CURVED EDGES?!??!???!?!?! SAME AS THE DOCK. OH! AND RED-YELLOW-GREEN BUTTONS ARE A LOT MORE VIBRANT AND COLORFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please, please do not use all caps.
wow, that's a bummer that you can't change background in each of the spaces. kinda makes sense that you should be able to.
Spaces does what for us? I just was at the Apple store and all I could get out of the young sales guy is that it looks cool. So I asked is it faster? easier? shorter? fewer key strokes? NO!!! does the machine run faster? NO. So what does it do that Expose does not do?
I suppose you can hot key from window to window - that is faster perhaps. (the sales person needs to learn about that hot keying- thanks engadget - telling us about control + number) But with the mouse it certainly isn't faster. I guess if you are hot keying, it hides your video game at work fast when the boss walks by. Since I am the boss, I don't think I like that feature. Let's not spread that feature around guys if you want bosses to buy this for their company.
Expose = find / navigate your windows.
Spaces = organize your windows into virtual desktops.
Spaces is just an Apple word for virtual desktops. You're "virtually" creating X number of additional desktops for you to function in. This way you can have your mail, internet, music, and browsing desktops separate from each other, so you'll have 5 windows on each, as opposed to 30 windows on one. Just use it for a while, it will all become clear....
Dude, if engadget is unbiased then it has to report more exciting news abt apple. You know why? Cos apple products fu*ing are more exciting!
(I used Windows exclusively all my life, till 06. So don't throw bloody fanboy labels at me.)
Speaking of Spaces and Command+number shortcut, how does it work in Safari? Do bookmarks in Bookmarks Bar lost that privileged combination? How can they be now chosen?
I'd assume since Spaces is a full blown app (right?) it would need to be selected for the shortcuts to work.
I wish iChat could work with Windows Live IM or Y! IM.
I never liked AIM (or AOL for that matter) and since many people around the world use WLM or Y! Messenger, support for that in iChat would be nice.
In the mean time, I'm going to stick with my Sony Vaio and IM all the friends I want.
And no, I don't want any alternative like Adium, aMSN, or whatever. I want the real thing.
Adium is the real thing.
And real friends don't let their friends use Y! IM. Switch to Jabber.
So, has anyone found out yet if Leopard now natively supports play-back of Blu-Ray media?
I'm really looking forward to this as I'm planning on purchasing a new Mac very soon, and I am also planning on upgrading said Mac to have an internal Blu-Ray drive.
I'm pretty sure you can't do that unless there is software support for it from Apple, which there isn't, yet.
OK - We don't want you in our gang!
Anyone know what the build number is on this release? Go to Apple menu > About This Mac and then click the 10.5 text. It will show the build number.
Time Machine question:
Can you store other data on your TM drive, or is it a dedicated TM drive once you initialize it?
Yep, a Time Machine drive, once inizialized, is also just a regular external hard drive. It is NOT limited to just Time Machine.
Hopefully that will help you.
Um.. I have 4 montiors, 2x 30" Monitors and 2x 20" montiors.. How is Spaces going to work for me? (not that i need spaces)
Sorry, another question...
In spaces.. can I specify a certain window to be on ALL my spaces.. like what if I want iChat to be on every window... or maybe a certain web browser... can I tell it to lock it self so its on every space?
Yep!
"Windows is better than Mac. Mac can do this better than Linux. Linux is the best. Linux is better than Mac. Windows sells more then Linux and Mac combined. Mac is faster than Windows and Linux put together".
WTF people...while we are at it...blue is the best color ever, red is not the dominant color because I don't like red and yes, gray is better than white and black put together.
Make sense?
Resolution independence much? Try out the CTRL-scroll zoom, would ya guys?
For Quicklook you just have to press the Spacebar (rather than comman+Y) and it's an awesome feature
Question for the cool cats wearing their new T-shirts (I wish I had one, seriously):
Awesome feature you mentioned up there was "the keyboard manager differentiates between different keyboards' modifier keys. No longer do you need to swap the option and command keys every time you use an external PC keyboard"
Any clue if this can apply over a networked KVM switch?
And can they do anything about my ALWAYS forgetting that I'm back on a MacBook Pro when I get home form work and make me stop hitting the fn key like it's gonna open a friggin tab?
Thanks folks.
What did you expect? The EASIEST OS of all time, with like a brain-link so you didn't have to do anything? Just had to think it and it appeared on the screen.
Honestly people, what DID you expect? All you windows fanboys go around saying this OS has nothing new, but you fail to realize that your own OS had nothing new other than a fancy new interface and 100 new problems. Almost 75% of the people I know who use PCs DIDNT upgrade because they thought the OS was such a failure. If I asked that same question to any mac user, it would probably be around 5-10%. Before you go off saying that an OS isn't worth getting, why don't you look at your own, jesus christ.
As far as I can tell, they're doing the best thing they can possibly do: Improving where it's needed, and LEAVING THE REST THE WAY IT IS BECAUSE IT DIDN'T NEED TO BE FIXED.
I am by no means a mac fanboy. In fact, I use my PC more than my mac. But the fact that almost everybody that has posted saying this OS "sucks" or "isn't worth it" needs to realize that an OS upgrade isn't always like the OS 9 to OS X upgrade... It's not going to be life-changing. It isn't going to make the computer 10x better than it was previously. Apple is, as we say, only Human.
>.
Oh sorry, did I get that right! nothing new in Leopard!. No way, now there is support to A2DP! Finally a Mac can understand bluetooth; welcome to 2004. Oh, did I forget to mention that Windows media center come for free in windows will all the bells and whistles of a DVR and remote viewing. Just wait for Mac OS 10.9 maybe and another 130 USD every couple years maybe you will be there one day.
Like you said I am no apple(windows) fanboy either. I am actually planning on buying a MBP simply for the design!
@ zingo75
I think you are confused about Bluetooth. Mac OS X has supported Bluetooth for quite some time, certainly before 2004. With Leopard, Apple has added integrated A2DP support. Neither Windows XP or Vista come with integrated A2DP support - third party drivers are required.
There are always going to be legitimate complaints about either operating system, but Bluetooth support on Mac OS X has never really been one of them. In my experience, it has always surpassed the out-of-the-box Bluetooth support on Windows.
How does Spaces work with multiple monitors? I've been wondering this for ages.
Like this: http://www.engadget.com/photos/all-about-leopard-interface-gallery/459640/
Two monitors there.
Will I finally get the USB Webcam support I so desperately need, from Leopard? I Must have it.
there's an ichat plugin for that (if you need the support for ichat): http://www.ecamm.com/mac/ichatusbcam/
Leopard is finally available. Great.
Time to buy my iMac. Wait... Why does it still say it comes with OS X 10.4 Tiger? Will iMacs now ship with Leopard pre-installed or come with the upgrade DVD?
what about the games, can we play the games? you know the PC games? can we play the PC gams on a mac? say for instance Quake Wars on Leopard? or maybe Crysis when it comes out? if I pay that much for a computer will I be able to play games on it?
Yup. Two words: Boot Camp.
Play games on a Mac? It ain't no freakin' toy. It's a productivity and money-making computer. You want to play games, get an X-Box or PS3.
You don't understand how FRIKIN AWESOME AUTOFS IS FOR ME!!!! HOLY MOTHER OF CPAP!!!!!!!!!!!
Thats worth it right there...that and I got it for 10$ cause I bough an imac 2 months ago!!!! Don't know how that worked...but hey, I am not complaining!
What I want to know, can I know playback HD DVDs with using my XBOX 360 HD DVD Player connected to the Mac with Leopard?
I want to know if Time Machine backs up your Windows stuff too if you're using Boot Camp on your Mac, or if it only backs up your Leopard stuff. Because if your HDD fails, then it's not just Leopard that's gone.
Anyone wanna hook me up with a link to that desktop background?
Nvm I got it.
I just got it today, I love it. I waited outside of the Marin Apple Store (I was wearing the Purple/gray striped hoodie)
Anyway, the line moved quickly once the store opened. I got a 2 free shirts, got one in line and another one in a bag. I got Leopard and I got the new Apple Keyboard because my old iMac G3 keyboard just wasn't cutting it. I loved this keyboard, exactly like my Macbooks keyboard.
Anyway, Spaces works great on Dual display. Time Machine is still backing up my stuff (70 GB). Its really nice, I love it and it is way easier to use. And Stacks are awesome, its easier for me to keep my folders organized and being able to get to my school work.
Front row is very nice. I used to hate it because it was slow and useless. Now it feels more like Apple TV and its faster.
Gripe:
Audio files and video files (.mp3,.aiff,.m4a, .mov. avi for example) can no longer be scrubbed through in column view preview pane without pressing the spacebar to get the full preview. Only a play and stop function.. Just add the scrubber back where it used to be! I don't want to open it in a new window and scrub it from there my mouse then has to move to the middle of the screen. This is an example of removing functionality when they could have left it and augmented it!
BTW if you have a gripe like i did consider using this feedback page at Apple so they actually do something about it!
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
are they shipping the new os with the macbook pro now?http://www.poppik.com/Apple-MacBook-Pro-MA895LL-A-15-Notebook-PC-2-2-GHz-Intel-Core-2-Duo-2-GB-RAM-120-GB-Hard-Drive-DVD-CD-SuperDrive-Apple-128320.aspx