Leopard First Impressions

The internet is buzzing with thoughts and opinions on Leopard. Being the trendy blog that jbomb.net is (and having previewed it last week), I thought it fitting to share my first impressions on Apple’s latest cat.

What I Love

Spaces: I was not that excited for this feature, but already I can see its potential. It is easily one of the most functional additions to OSX. Spaces allows you to have more than one desktop, and keep different windows on each one. For example, you can have your internet browser on one screen, then slide over to your other desktop where you have a presentation you are editing. It helps to keep things organized and maintain an uncluttered workspace.

Compatibility: A new operating system often leaves many of your old programs completely worthless, but so far all my usual programs work wonderfully. I have had a few issues with eyeTV not recognizing the Apple remote, and TextMate does not like the Ctrl+arrow for Spaces. Other than a few similar details here and there, compatibility seems to be very well implemented.

Note: During the time of my writing, elgato actually released an update to eyeTV that corrected its issues with Leopard, and even added a few new Leopard specific features. You can download that here. I was very impressed that they addressed the problems so quickly. This shows the dedication that many OSX software companies have to Leopard, though Adobe is another story.

Finder: The file browsing system on OSX is much more useful and intuitive, though I am still getting used to some things after spending so much time in Tiger. I love the new sidebar that shows available shared computers, and the alternating line colors to make things easier to read. Quick Look is a blast to use, and makes browsing files much easier. I have not used it too much yet, but I know it will become essential in the future. Cover Flow is superfluous and unnecessary, but wow does it look cool.

iCal: iCal is one of my most used applications in OSX. It makes managing a calendar extremely simple, and with Leopard things have drastically improved. Rather than having an item’s information in the sidebar, you now double-click on it and a window pops up with the details. The interface looks much more professional, which is a big step up from Tiger. Apple made an already excellent program even better.

Web Clip: Web Clip is the out-of-left-field feature that carried no excitement for me. However, after using it I was blown away. Web clip naturally lets you take “clips” from websites and put them on your dashboard. You can see in the picture that I took the twitter status entry form from the website, and clipped it to my dashboard. Now I can enter my status without even visiting the site. It is unbelievably easy, and unbelievably cool. I cannot begin to imagine what other great uses I could devise using this.

What Needs Work

Stacks: To be honest I was not anticipating this feature anyway, but it does not function properly. It is really a fancy version of docking a folder, which has around for a while. Also, why can they not be fanned when the dock is on the sidebar?

SMB File Sharing: I know I might be one of the few who uses this feature, but mounting an SMB volume is now simply impossible. I hope this gets fixed in 10.5.1, which will hopefully release soon.

Options: Though Leopard is a big step for OSX in terms of features, it has stepped back in user options. For the casual user this is a benefit, but for power users (such as myself) control is now more difficult. Editing specific firewall options has become a chore that I have still not figured out how to do. An option to change the menu bar back to opaque should have been a no-brainer addition. There are a couple other options that are either missing or have taken a turn for the worse. Luckily the options that have improved far outweigh those that have not.

What I Still Need to Try

I have not had a chance to try out Time Machine or Screen Sharing, two of my most anticipated features. Once I am able to give these a whirl firsthand I will deliver some impressions of those. All in all I would recommend the upgrade to Leopard, but if you wait a few weeks for these small kinks to get worked out you will survive. For once the desire to be on the bleeding edge of an OS update will not burn you.

Leopard is fast, fun, and for the most part fantastic. If anyone has any questions I would be glad to address them. To those who have experienced it for themselves, what do you think?