There are so many things to say about Leopard, but “Mac OS X 10.5 is the best operating system I’ve ever used” sums it all. Its quality, usability and polishing are really outstanding, let alone the numerous fixes, updates and new features available.
Talking about these new features, Time Machine, Spaces and Quick Look justify the upgrade by themselves. They are sleek and damn useful. In addition, many, MANY things have been revamped/bettered in Leopard, and they are all striking: the Dock is now sexier than ever with its new glossy-transparent-3D look, the Finder lets you browse your files à la Cover Flow, Mail.app has now To-dos and notes built in, along with your RSS feeds, iCal now displays the right date on your dock, iChat is way better and comes with its lot of improvements (new chat effects, videos as backgrounds, AIM compatibility, file/desktop sharing) etc. It’s really huge, and I invite you to check this page to discover what’s new.
Small things I already love
- Leopard makes things way faster and handles the RAM much better than Tiger ever did
- Web Clip rocks, and I assume we’ll be able to sync it with the iPhone anytime soon
- Cover Flow works great and is quite handy sometimes
- Mail.app’s upgrade is a blessing, I really works great now
- The Finder can now display the full path (View > Show Path Bar)
- Stacks are really handy
- Time Machine is damn sexy and handy.. but I would LOVE to be able to choose a network drive -Amazon S3 anyone?- as my backup destination)
- The built-in screen capture utility has been improved and now displays the size in pixel (Command+Shift+4)
- Compatibility is really fine, I had no problem with any of my apps
- Safari 3 is an excellent browser (and I won’t use Camino until they implement movable tabs)
- The “Network” System Preference panel has been improved, and it’s great!
Things that annoy me (to be updated)
- They are too much confirmation dialogs now. Let’s say you download and install a new application, you’ll be asked if you are really sure to launch it… à la Windows (!)
- I would love to be able to customize the stack icons
- I preferred the “old” Front Row style and animations
- JungleDisk wasn’t displayed once started… to do so, you’ll have to go to the Finder Preferences and tick “Connected servers”
- I would love to be able to go back to the old-style dock (as a Dock configuration option)
Things you should know
- Mac OS X Leopard is “by far the best operating system ever written” (read PCMag’s review)
- Apple sells 2 million copies of Mac OS X Leopard in first weekend (read the full story)
- Removing the BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) icon that Leopard gives to networked Windows computers is possible, here is how!
- Installing Leopard on your PC: step-by-step guide right here.