Hello. Am I the only one who is very disappointed with Leopard? I mean, I paid $130 and waited in line for the 'Leopard Opening' at 6pm, on the Friday it came out. I have been using Mac OS X since BEFORE the $30 'Public Beta" of version 10.0, and I have been using Macs and the Mac OS since System 7, so I consider myself a professional user. I make my living fixing computers. I even had access to the developer edition of 10.5, but chose not to use it, because none of my apps were compatible.
I have had nothing but trouble on the four computers I have installed Mac OS 10.5 'Leopard' on. Here are the computers I have it installed on:
1. My Macbook 2.0ghz Core Duo, with 2GB ram, and an upgraded 100GB hard drive. I did a completely clean install on this computer, as it is my main computer I use daily. I backed everything up, formatted the hard drive, and installed 10.5, and then migrated my documents and applications over, except for Adobe Photoshop, which required a new install.
2. A 1.25Ghz Power PC Mac Mini, with 1GB ram.
3. A 2.16ghz Core 2 Duo 20" iMac, with the original 512mb ram.
4. a 2.16Ghz Core 2 Duo 17" iMac, with the original 512mb ram.
The Mac Mini refused to let me install 10.5 unless I formatted the hard drive. It said that I HAD to partition the drive as GUID. Why GUID? Don't know, thought that was only required for hard drives in Intel Macs. So I backed everything up, formatted the drive, and reimported apps and docs. What a pain! Especially since I was doing it for family, and didn't get paid.
The last two computers, I did an 'Archive and Install".
Here are the problems I have experienced with Leopard so far, and also my comments and concerns.
1. On all 4 computers I installed Leopard on, even the computers with clean installs, various apps (Safari 3, Firefox, Adobe Photoshop CS2, the Finder itself, pretty much every app I use, they all tend to lock up and freeze the computers, as if some background app is hogging all the memory. The Finder freezes up constantly, and CANNOT be force quit.
2. Applications at times will stop launching. I mean, an app I used earlier in the day, will simply NOT START AT ALL. Bouncing Icon, and then the app closes. Trashing prefs for that app does nothing to solve the problem.
3. Parental Controls: Is this the lamest software approach Apple has ever come out with, or what? I have tried the Parental Controls on both Intel iMacs, for my kids, and it just doesn't work like it is supposed to. The preferences panel for Parental Controls seem to make sense, they just DON"T WORK like they are supposed to. For instance, even if I allow my kids to modify the dock, they can't do so. No apps can be added or removed from the dock at all. I was forced to temporarily enable the 'Full Finder' and add Aliases to their games on the desktop! This completely disables the purpose of the dock.
4. Even after updating Kid Pix, sometimes it launches, and sometimes it refuses to. Is this Apple's problem? Probably not, but they use Kid Pix every day, so it IS my problem.
5. The sidebar, I HATE IT! I hate the new look, and I CANNOT 'close-up' the sidebar. It is always there, always! Apple eliminated the option of 'sliding' the sidebar closed, if you don't use it.
6. Heirarchical menus in the dock are gone, in favor of 'Fan' and 'Grid' view, neither of which are of use to my. They seem childish. And if I have 5000 images in a folder.... well, fan, or grid, are not very practical.
7. How hard is it for Apple to make the cursor adjustable? I mean, the ability to change your cursor to whatever you want it to be, the same idea that has been in Windows for as long as I can remember, Windows 95 I think. None of Unsanities apps have been updated, so I can't use Mighty Mouse.
8. The Dock... I know for a fact, that the dock, when put on the left or right side, in the Developer editions, the dock still had the 'Glass Table' look. But when Leopard was released officially, Apple decided to make the dock 'flat' when it is put anywhere but on the bottom of the screen. I think it looked just fine in the developer editions.
9. File Sharing. Don't get me started! What a mess.
10. Safari. ARGHHHH! I hate it. Lack of features and lack of security compared to Firefox. No Flash Block, No Ad Block, No Themes, No nothing, all the things I use in Firefox just aren't available for Safari. I have been using the demo of SAFT, which is 'supposed' to have the ability to block images, ect. It sucks. It doesn't work at all. And no Flash Block. I can't stand Flash animations on web sites. Give me back the web sites of 1995 any day.
11. Time Machine. I don't even now where to begin. I hate it. Is not configurable. It gobbles up hard drive space on my external drive, sometimes it just refuses to work.
12. Apple STILL has not fixed the problem that Mac OS X has had since 10.0.... that is, the inability of windows to retain their view settings. When I go to my hard drive, if I had previously set the view to Icon view, and then set that to the default, and to 'Always show In Icon View' I EXPECT IT TO STAY THAT WAY. But view settings change in an apparently random manner.
No matter how many times I tell the windows to go to Icon, Or List view, they do whatever the hell they want to. Very frustrating.
13. Labels. How hard is it to make the colors of labels adjustable? I don't want Apple's idea of what colors I should use. I want the color picker, to chose my own colors.
The good things? Hmm. Really short list...
1. Quick Look
2. Slideshow Mode in Preview
3. Spaces
That's it! For $130, I want my money back!
I have had nothing but trouble on the four computers I have installed Mac OS 10.5 'Leopard' on. Here are the computers I have it installed on:
1. My Macbook 2.0ghz Core Duo, with 2GB ram, and an upgraded 100GB hard drive. I did a completely clean install on this computer, as it is my main computer I use daily. I backed everything up, formatted the hard drive, and installed 10.5, and then migrated my documents and applications over, except for Adobe Photoshop, which required a new install.
2. A 1.25Ghz Power PC Mac Mini, with 1GB ram.
3. A 2.16ghz Core 2 Duo 20" iMac, with the original 512mb ram.
4. a 2.16Ghz Core 2 Duo 17" iMac, with the original 512mb ram.
The Mac Mini refused to let me install 10.5 unless I formatted the hard drive. It said that I HAD to partition the drive as GUID. Why GUID? Don't know, thought that was only required for hard drives in Intel Macs. So I backed everything up, formatted the drive, and reimported apps and docs. What a pain! Especially since I was doing it for family, and didn't get paid.
The last two computers, I did an 'Archive and Install".
Here are the problems I have experienced with Leopard so far, and also my comments and concerns.
1. On all 4 computers I installed Leopard on, even the computers with clean installs, various apps (Safari 3, Firefox, Adobe Photoshop CS2, the Finder itself, pretty much every app I use, they all tend to lock up and freeze the computers, as if some background app is hogging all the memory. The Finder freezes up constantly, and CANNOT be force quit.
2. Applications at times will stop launching. I mean, an app I used earlier in the day, will simply NOT START AT ALL. Bouncing Icon, and then the app closes. Trashing prefs for that app does nothing to solve the problem.
3. Parental Controls: Is this the lamest software approach Apple has ever come out with, or what? I have tried the Parental Controls on both Intel iMacs, for my kids, and it just doesn't work like it is supposed to. The preferences panel for Parental Controls seem to make sense, they just DON"T WORK like they are supposed to. For instance, even if I allow my kids to modify the dock, they can't do so. No apps can be added or removed from the dock at all. I was forced to temporarily enable the 'Full Finder' and add Aliases to their games on the desktop! This completely disables the purpose of the dock.
4. Even after updating Kid Pix, sometimes it launches, and sometimes it refuses to. Is this Apple's problem? Probably not, but they use Kid Pix every day, so it IS my problem.
5. The sidebar, I HATE IT! I hate the new look, and I CANNOT 'close-up' the sidebar. It is always there, always! Apple eliminated the option of 'sliding' the sidebar closed, if you don't use it.
6. Heirarchical menus in the dock are gone, in favor of 'Fan' and 'Grid' view, neither of which are of use to my. They seem childish. And if I have 5000 images in a folder.... well, fan, or grid, are not very practical.
7. How hard is it for Apple to make the cursor adjustable? I mean, the ability to change your cursor to whatever you want it to be, the same idea that has been in Windows for as long as I can remember, Windows 95 I think. None of Unsanities apps have been updated, so I can't use Mighty Mouse.
8. The Dock... I know for a fact, that the dock, when put on the left or right side, in the Developer editions, the dock still had the 'Glass Table' look. But when Leopard was released officially, Apple decided to make the dock 'flat' when it is put anywhere but on the bottom of the screen. I think it looked just fine in the developer editions.
9. File Sharing. Don't get me started! What a mess.
10. Safari. ARGHHHH! I hate it. Lack of features and lack of security compared to Firefox. No Flash Block, No Ad Block, No Themes, No nothing, all the things I use in Firefox just aren't available for Safari. I have been using the demo of SAFT, which is 'supposed' to have the ability to block images, ect. It sucks. It doesn't work at all. And no Flash Block. I can't stand Flash animations on web sites. Give me back the web sites of 1995 any day.
11. Time Machine. I don't even now where to begin. I hate it. Is not configurable. It gobbles up hard drive space on my external drive, sometimes it just refuses to work.
12. Apple STILL has not fixed the problem that Mac OS X has had since 10.0.... that is, the inability of windows to retain their view settings. When I go to my hard drive, if I had previously set the view to Icon view, and then set that to the default, and to 'Always show In Icon View' I EXPECT IT TO STAY THAT WAY. But view settings change in an apparently random manner.
No matter how many times I tell the windows to go to Icon, Or List view, they do whatever the hell they want to. Very frustrating.
13. Labels. How hard is it to make the colors of labels adjustable? I don't want Apple's idea of what colors I should use. I want the color picker, to chose my own colors.
The good things? Hmm. Really short list...
1. Quick Look
2. Slideshow Mode in Preview
3. Spaces
That's it! For $130, I want my money back!
