Group Review: Mac OSX Leopard
Mac OSX Leopard doesn’t officially hit the streets until tomorrow, but that didn’t stop some of the mainstream media from reviewing Apple’s latest operating system.
The Wall Street Journal: I did notice a few drawbacks, but they were minor. The menu bar is now translucent, which can make it hard to see the items it contains if your desktop picture has dark areas at the top. The new folder icons are dull and flat and less attractive than Vista’s or their predecessors on the Mac. While Time Machine can perform backups over a network, the backup destination can only be a hard disk connected to a Mac running Leopard. And, on the Web, I ran into one site where the fonts on part of the page were illegible, a problem Apple says is known and rare and that I expect it will fix … Leopard isn’t a must-have for current Mac owners, but it adds a lot of value.
The New York Times: Time Machine keeps multiple backups of everything … Time Machine updates its mirror of your main drive every hour, although you can also trigger updates on demand. At day’s end, Time Machine replaces those hourly backups with a single daily backup; at the end of the month, those are replaced by a single month-end backup … If disaster strikes … you enter Time Machine’s recovery mode … You can now scroll backward through time until the window looks as it did before the unfortunate event.
USA Today: I migrated to Leopard from the last OS X version, Tiger, without pain on a MacBook laptop and my own iMac desktop; there’s mercifully none of the software driver and other hassles associated with a Windows operating system upgrade … Really slick video conferencing through iChat has been part of OS X for several years. Leopard makes it more fun and useful. The fun part comes from dozens of Photo Booth special effects … Leopard includes more than 30 stationery templates in its Mail program, covering baby announcements, party invitations and more. An integrated photo browser makes it easy to drag your own pictures onto template place holders.
The critics agree that upgrading to Leopard is a good thing, although it seems you wouldn’t be missing much if you choose to stick with Tiger. It can be compared to a car. Last year’s model doesn’t have the audio-in jack, the 15 extra horse power, the sleeker steering wheel, and the nicer tail lights, but it’s still the same car.
For this writer, the switch to Leopard will happen mainly because of Time Machine and Spaces, Leopard’s virtual desktop program. Most everything else in Leopard seems gimmicky or merely visual, and you can get some of Leopard’s "perks" in Tiger with third-party software. Unfortunately, the one thing you can’t add to Tiger anymore is Bootcamp. If you need or want to run Windows on your Mac, you will have to upgrade as Bootcamp on Tiger will expire with Leopard’s release.
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October 25th, 2007
[...] Danny Mendez wrote an interesting post today on Group Review: Mac OSX LeopardHere’s a quick excerptIt can be compared to a car. Last year’s model doesn’t have the audio-in jack, the 15 extra horse power, the sleeker steering wheel, and the nicer tail lights, but it’s still the same car. For this writer, the switch to Leopard will … [...]
October 25th, 2007
[...] Danny Mendez added an interesting post on Group Review: Mac OSX LeopardHere’s a small excerpt [...]
October 25th, 2007
[...] Danny Mendez wrote an interesting post today on Group Review: Mac OSX LeopardHere’s a quick excerptUSA Today: I migrated to Leopard from the last OS X version, Tiger, without pain on a MacBook laptop and my own iMac desktop; there’s mercifully none of the software driver and other hassles associated with a Windows operating system … [...]