Leopard coverage roundup

Two and a half years of waiting, and two million plus copies later, Leopard has made its way into many a Mac -- but are all its users completely satisfied? Probably not, but there's still a lot to love. Apple really did a spot-cleaning on OS X this time, and virtually every nook and cranny of the system has been tweaked, tuned, modified -- and in almost all cases improved. You don't need a lengthy review from the likes of us: if you're an Engadget reader and a Mac user, Leopard is a must-have. If you haven't already snagged it (or just wanted to read over some of the news you may have missed) check out our coverage roundup below.

Leopard: impressions, features, hardware, questions, and the BSOD icon
All about Leopard: gallery, apps, impressions
Leopard vs. Vista: feature chart showdown
Mini How-To: Remove the Windows BSOD icon in Leopard, make OS X a little less smug
We've got Leopard, what do you want to know?
Leopard on an 8 year old G4 Power Mac -- can it be done?

Sad Mac
RIP, Classic Mac OS: 1984 - 2007
Getting Leopard's BSOD? Try uninstalling APE.
Apple halts Boot Camp downloads ahead of Leopard's release

Everything else
Apple: 2 million copies of Leopard sold
Leopard reviews coming in, usual suspects agree: it's all gravy
Leopard hacked for Intel PC consumption
Leopard: final features and further upgrade details
Poll: How do you want us to cover Leopard?

Rumble on
Poll: OS war, 2007

Nostalgia
Post-Tiger wishlist from way back in 2005 -- we actually got some of the things we wanted!
Tiger Direct sues Apple over Tiger (and then calls it off)

[cap'n @ Oct 31st 2007 2:28PM]

I'm liking it. Sure, I miss the old Tiger folders... But hey, what ever happened to the new iTunes artwork screensaver they were showing at the Keynote?

[Claus Christensen @ Oct 31st 2007 2:38PM]

The only thing that burns my ass is the fact that Time Machine can not back up to a network drive without having to go Albert Einstein on the reg edit. am I wrong?. Please let me know. also the background for Ichat is cheesy and faulty in quality. I would also like to see if one could share the task/to do list in email, we do a ton of project work and it would be nifty if it could.

On a positive side I have to say Bravo to Apple for only charging $200 to upgrade 5 stations...

[potato @ Oct 31st 2007 2:48PM]

Overall very happy with Leopard. Only two complaints:

- Bring back the old folder icons for the love of all that is holy, please! Anybody know if I can install 3rd party icons?
- Is there a quick hack to make the stack drawing order reverse (i.e. the folder icon gets drawn on top)? The stacks features is awesome, but this is really annoying.

[Neeko @ Oct 31st 2007 2:48PM]

WHO CARES.

[Brad @ Oct 31st 2007 3:03PM]

Amen. At least now we can get back to our regular volume of needlessly Apple-praising posts!

[Sebastien @ Oct 31st 2007 3:22PM]

People that want the fastest and reliable computers do care. Even if you are a windows user leopard is still interesting because it will be the OS you run next to Vista if you want to run Vista on the notebook that is the fastest in running Vista.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136649-page,3-c,notebooks/article.html

[Ruben @ Oct 31st 2007 10:53PM]

@Sebastian

First of all, it won by a single point according to them, and just like poll numbers, theres a margin for error from which you would conclude that it is equal to the Gateway.

Second of all, intel made the parts for the motherboard as well as the processor, so theres nothing apple made in terms of processing hardware. This means that any of this is available on a regular laptop given you pick a similar configuration.

Third of all, PCWorld is as reliable a source of credible information as Fox News is. Not to mention they ran their own benchmark (apparently useful only to them).

Fourth, if your going around promoting that garbage, then you are pretty easy to manipulate and will believe anything you hear without doing your own research, because if you had, you would discover that the score posted by PCWorld is meaningless, and nothing more than ammo for people like you to fire out wildly.

Apple uses the same hardware as a standard PC. Don't think for a second that because Apple has its name on it, its instantly better performing.

[Sebastien @ Nov 1st 2007 3:02AM]

@ Ruben

Don't start crying now because again was proven Macs are better. And you don't seem to be reliable source for info on computers either. Seems you don't know what you are talking about as not only motherboard and processor are the parts that will make your computer run faster. HD, ram and graphics card also do their contribution to performance. And yeah sure none of them ar made by Apple or designed by Apple. But that's with all notebooks in those tests. None of the manufacturers make those parts. So all manufacturers had a fair chance to win this poll but they failed. Seems only Apple got the balance right to performance.

And commenting PC mag as garbage on engadget is fairly stupid as engdget also makes stupid comparisons. See the Leopard vs Vista poll where all windows users started crying and engaget felt forced to give some more points to Vista because Leopard won too hard. Nonetheless was it very obvious Engadget ain't familiar with macs as some stuff wasn't very clear for them.

Macs run the fastest and Leopard beats Vista with ease. Sorry for the ice cold shower

[Ruben @ Nov 1st 2007 11:03AM]

Actually, The fastest Windows Vista notebook they've tested this year is: http://www.pcworld.com/product/specs/id,30...ooks/specs.html.

Heres some benchs of it running XP against other laptops (since your probably an idiot, running through either OS wont make a difference when both laptops are using the same OS)

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10442_7-6511774-5.html?tag=lnav

http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6484737.html

And theres plenty more where that came from.

Seriously, it wins one benchmark by a single point (negligible) and you get a stiffy over it.

Maybe you need a cold shower to ease the massive hard on you have for apple.

[Ruben @ Nov 1st 2007 11:58AM]

Sorry, those were old benchs. You know what, i dont even care anymore. Im clearly wasting my time on you.

[Jeffrey Hauenstein @ Oct 31st 2007 2:55PM]

Love the new OS, but is anyone else having their bluetooth Mighty Mouse failing to work periodically? I have had to restart 3 times since the upgrade while performing various tasks when the pointer just freezes up, and I have tried newer batteries even though SP stated the batteries were full bars.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated......

[Claus Christensen @ Oct 31st 2007 3:18PM]

That's what it is !!!!!,,,arrrgghh I need to hurry home and dig through the trash. I was sure my mouse had bit the big one.

[JosephMohmed @ Oct 31st 2007 4:29PM]

When I woke up my computer this morning (by clicking) the mouse wasn't working, I just put it back to sleep and woke it up again and it worked fine.

[Jeffrey Hauenstein @ Oct 31st 2007 5:05PM]

OK, will try the sleep, but stupid question.....how do you put the iMac to sleep without the use of your mouse? re you talking about just pressing the power button quickly?

Thanks again!

[John Stracke @ Oct 31st 2007 3:17PM]

"if you're an Engadget reader and a Mac user, Leopard is a must-have." -- unless you use any Java apps, such as NeoOffice (the only form of OpenOffice which runs on OS X). The problem isn't that Apple hasn't released Java 6 yet; the problem is that Java 5 is broken on Leopard.

[bombastinator @ Oct 31st 2007 4:22PM]

actually they have a open office out now for mac. I am finding a lot more wrong that that though. The thing is really really crashy. I've had four kernel panics in 2 days. That may be the java thing, since I had Azureus up, but there is other stuff too. It just feels like it's still kind of beta.

I would suggest to those thinking of buying to hold off till 10.5.1, or at least one more build number. Once they iron the thing out though it is going to be excellent.

[MrFuNKy76 @ Oct 31st 2007 3:17PM]

LEOPARD RULZ!! WINDOZE SUX!

[Constable Odo @ Oct 31st 2007 10:58PM]

You remember the Vista campaign -- The Wow Starts Now?

Yeh, Wow! Vista really does SUCK!

[eh @ Oct 31st 2007 3:29PM]

Leopard works great on PC too ;)

[skikkletybibbit @ Oct 31st 2007 3:53PM]

frankly I'm underwhelmed so far. Some nice gee whiz features, but I'm finding the new folder view options to be more visually appealing while no more functional. Many of the items don't preview in cover flow. I had many folders with icons that were important for quick navigation and they have been replaced by a folder with a piece of paper on top that says "Jpeg". Not to mention that my machine is crashing each time I resume from a sleep. I'm sure there's more to the system that I haven't tapped so far, but the additional fact that many of my programs won't run correctly yet is also raising my doubts about the timing of my upgrade.

[billav @ Oct 31st 2007 3:53PM]

The volume buttons respond instantly now, instead of the slight delay I was experiencing under Tiger. Well worth the $129. :)

[Brian @ Oct 31st 2007 4:16PM]

For the life of me, I CAN NOT SHARE AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE!

In tiger, I had to use sharepoints. In leopard, sharepoints don't work!

The external drive is mounted on the G5 and I am able to access it, so no problems with the drive itself. I see that it is 'shared' under SystemPreferences>sharing, but I can not see it through my macbook, macbook pro, or PC!

I AM however, able to share a drive that is INSIDE the G5. Just not one connected externally.

This is one MAJOR flaw! I figured they'd make sharing and 'map network drive' much easier in leopard.

[jollyllama @ Oct 31st 2007 4:52PM]

That's wierd, works fine for me on all my computers.

[Quix @ Oct 31st 2007 4:40PM]

I'm loving Leopard so far. There's a vast assortment of tweaks, additions, improvements, and optimizations that I wasn't previously aware of from all my pre-release reading over the months. I haven't even started using any of the "big" new features (Spaces, Time Machine, iChat, etc.) but the all the little ones I'm enjoying right now were well worth my $$$. Heck, the two-click remote screen sharing with all the Macs on my home network was worth the price of admission.

Kudos, Apple. Now how about window resizing on all sides? It that simply a technical challenge that's insurmountable for you?

[John M @ Oct 31st 2007 6:23PM]

I have a problem with Leopard. I have 2 macs. An iMc G5 with 1gb of Ram and a newer intel Macbook which also has 1gb of Ram. When I use Photobooth to shoot video snapshots on the macbook they work flawlessly. However, on the G5 they are extremely laggy and the audio and video dont synch up at all. Is this an issue with the G5 or is there settings I can change. I did archive and install on both machines. Should I do a clean install on the G5? If I do will my time machine backup still be good or will it write over it with the fresh data? I dont want to install clean if that doesnt fix the problem. I know the imac G5 cant do the new features the intel macs can in photobooth but im hoping that my videosnapshot can at least be like normal video. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Sam @ Oct 31st 2007 6:24PM]

well, from what I've been reading (yes i read beyond engadget *gasp*) is that leopard security isn't 'all it can be'. Most of the stuff that Leopard has is either worse than Vista's security, or Vista has security gains where Leopard has nothing. Its kinda interesting, isn't it? Vista having better security in Leopard but, alas, no advertising, no boasting. Its just there. And it works.

[Andrew Fong @ Oct 31st 2007 6:32PM]

You should probably add this one under Sad Mac: http://www.tuaw.com/2007/10/29/leopard-should-you-upgrade/

I know, it's TUAW, not Engadget, but you're the same company anyway.

[mavi161 @ Oct 31st 2007 7:14PM]

for me, in 10.5, my sonica usb hardware stopped working. to fix it you can use the older drivers (1.0.3) from the m-audio website and it will work again. just an fyi for those who need it.

[webon @ Oct 31st 2007 9:01PM]

I dont like mac, that said I dont understand why people get overly angry criticizing Engadget for being fanbois, I like the way they get all excited bout apple, its your blog guys keep it up!

[Ethan @ Oct 31st 2007 10:46PM]

I'd upgrade, but I want some use out of tiger, seeing as I bought it just before leopard would've been 5 quid, before I would've got a free iPod, too. It's just the difference between a good offer and a fantastic one, though, although the necessity of timing forced by my arrival at university still pisses me off. And not much pisses me off.

[mayhem85 @ Oct 31st 2007 11:46PM]

i cant believe that the only 20 people in the world that have a mac have all commented on this page... wow what a small world eh?

[Jimmy Onibs @ Nov 1st 2007 8:57AM]

BSOD, compatibility issues with latest Java 1.6, and the list goes on. I wonder why these issues didn't turn into additional 300+ features during development of Leopard?

is that 2million plus an overstatement? Many people are buying back because of its market share or because of the eye candy? I'd still rather shoot for Ubuntu and save my benjamins.