Sep
28
Thursday I had a some hours to spare. So I stole a Macbook 1.83gHz Core solo from the magazine took the latest Leopard image from a co-worker and did a fresh install.
This version is believed to be near ready and only 2 issues were known. I encountered none and the system was really fast and spiffy!
At first sight the installer looks pretty much the same except for the intro movie that says “welcome” in a zillion languages and at the point where it asks to restore from an earlier install or from a Time machine image. Time machine being the new option of-course.
Transparency, eyecandy and … ugly icons
The first thing I noticed was how smooth the layout of Leopard is but how ugly the folder icons. I’m sure you’ve read about it already… And yes, they really are ugly! Boring, blue, stupid….
So it’s a lot of eye candy… At first sight it looks nice and smooth. The folder icons kept hurting my eyes though. They look so cheap… The Dock and menubar are transparent. Which I think is kinda nice. But I also like the dock from 10.4 a lot… Clean and simple. But there is no way back to that unfortunately. So you better like transparency and reflections and all that. Personally I’m not a big fan of transparent windows and stuff so it didn’t really excite me.
In a way I got the impression they tried to make the desktop appear like a cube… Having the Dock icons stand on a flat transparent thing. It makes it look like the desktop has a bit of depth… Maybe in future releases or upgrades they will bring along some form of layered desktop allowing to push programs to the back a bit instead of just stacking them in top of each other like in 10.4 or minimizing them. If this turns out a reality I think it would be totally cool. Imagine having your mail app no longer minimized but in the shades in the back of the desktop…. Anyway… moving on.
Improved Finder
The Finder has a few nice improvements. The interface got a facelift matching the current iTunes look. And has a blue-ish column now at the left side. In there are the usual links we find now in the Finder and a bunch, or few, networked devices like computers and storage devices.
With it you are able to connect to computers real easy. I could connect to my G5 in 2 clicks (as a guest). To login as a registered user of course it takes 3 seconds more because you have to login.
Coverflow for files… One word “verynice”. Ok, that’s a bit of a cheat to use 2 words… Anyway. It looks really good. smooth and easy. I guess I will be using that a lot for my image folders. It works exactly like iTunes Coverflow with the exception of previewing stuff. But I didn’t get that to work… So not much to say there.
Time machine
Time machine looked kinda promising were it not that it insists on using a USB or FireWire drive. I was hoping for support for a network drive but no such thing exists in Time Machine. This was a big disappointment for me. So now you are forced to buy an external disk which looks ugly on your desk. Meanwhile it renders my back-up server useless…
I had no proper hard disk laying around so I didn’t look into it much.
Stacks and Spaces
Stacks are nice… but not what I expected. You cannot just grab, say, 20 files and stuff them into a stack in the Dock. Nooo, if only it were that simple, you have to grab those files. Place them in a folder and then place that folder in the dock where it becomes a stack… The amount of files then automatically decides what layout the stack gets and there are no options offered that I could find. It just does what it does and you cannot change it.
Spaces on the other hand is very intuitive and works really well. A bunch shortcuts for easy access allows to switch from desktop to desktop in the blink of an eye. The interface looks nice. But I didn’t really play with it. My co-worker gave a quick demo and told me about it’s features… Personally I don’t think I’ll need it so I didn’t look into it.
System Preferences
The system preferences application got sort of rebuilt. Many new icons, almost all are re-arranged and the inner looks of each or most icons has changed a lot too. The firewall is no longer under sharing but is not under security. Network preferences received a new interface and is totally user un-friendly…
Final thoughts
To be honest I got bored with the system after as less as 2 hours and reinstalled 10.4 and put the Macbook back into stock. While I’m sure Leopard offers great new features and many many many improvements I was left a bit bummed about the whole thing. “This is it?” was one of my final thoughts… I had expected more although I’m not sure what I was expecting.
I kind of expected a renewed system and not a mere “service pack”. But I have never upgraded from 10.3 to 10.4 either so I am completely new to the whole upgrading thing… I’m sure for many it’s a big step forward.
Arnan, SHRIKEE
www.sothq.net
This is a nice article but it doesn’t look like you really dove into any of the new features. You should have done more with Time Machine and Spaces. You also didn’t mention any of the new features in iChat
Time Machine does indeed support network drives. For instance, you can plug your USB/Firewire into your Airport Extreme and OS X will see it on the network and TM can use it for backups.