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Anyone else struggling for a reason upgrade to Leopard?

groove-agent

groove-agent

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jan 13, 2006
2,087
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I felt that Tiger was a far better upgrade than Leopard: spotlight (revolutionary - can't live without it), dashboard, expose.

So let's see - what does Leopard have:
Time Machine - which is cool, if you have a dedicated external drive - i just back up manually
New Desktop - I'm not a big fan
Coverflow in Finder - ok, that might be useful looking through documents, but not revolutionary
Spaces - might be useful if you often have a lot of windows open and can group them in logical categories
iChat - does anyone actual use iChat? Everyone i know uses MSN.
Mail - Entourage still kills Mail/iCal - the note thing seems like an afterthought than proper integration
Boot Camp - I guess if they lock us out of the beta, then it might be worth it. It seems strange to have to upgrade to leopard just to use an app i've been using in tiger for months
 
groove-agent said:
It seems strange to have to upgrade to leopard just to use an app i've been using in tiger for months
Click to expand...
What you don't realize is that a lot of the new apps have new calls in the framework of OS X. Without that other apps can't access it's information, which is why everything in OS X works with everything else. It's not just written into the code of the app. It's at the OS level.

Other than that, you're going to be missing out on all the apps that will make use of Core Animation. Let me tell you, it's going to be a lot of apps.

Also, there is the networking that actually works correctly and doesn't hang or get laggy (at least I hear). That in itself is worth it for me.

One more thing, if you thought Spotlight was revolutionary (which it was) Leopard is going to support boolean searches finally (AND, OR, NOT, etc). This will really help narrow down searches and find things you couldn't find before.

[Edit] After reading everyone else's responses, how could I forget QuickLook! That is also worth paying for. Talk about a productivity booster!
 
Exposé was not a Tiger-only feature, Macs got it in 10.3 :)

Don't forget Stacks, my new favourite feature...Core Animation will make tons of apps cooler, and there are plenty of other aesthetic niceties, not to mention under-the-hood improvements (rounded menu options etc.)

Quick Look seems like it will be fantastic, no more opening 50 documents...
 
i like the stacks and back to my mac. other than that i'm not bothered. i also don't know anyone who doesn't use msn so ichat is never opened.
 
shecky said:
and i stick to your comment being irrelevant and useless. thanks.
Click to expand...
Unless Apple made specific changes to what boot partitions are acceptable you will still be able to pick Windows as a boot partition.

You don't even need Boot Camp in order to install Windows. The drivers are nice though.

Then again Ubuntu 7.04 works just fine as well without Boot Camp.
 
Eidorian said:
Unless Apple made specific changes to what boot partitions are acceptable you will still be able to pick Windows as a boot partition.

You don't even need Boot Camp in order to install Windows. The drivers are nice though.
Click to expand...

thank you. thats an answer that was actually helpful. and what you say makes total sense to me; so thats indicative good news. :)
 
I'm actually on the fence with Leopard at this point. I need a new HDD for my Macbook (down to 11 free gigs), and that kind of outweighs a need for Leopard right now. Maybe some time in a couple of months I'll think about it again, but it's not a priority for me right now.
 
Tmemachine alone is totally worth it. Sure, I used to do manual backups as well. However, miss a few days and you might be rather SOL. (Especially if you are working on a major project like I was when I had a drive die)

Timemachine hourly snapshots will make you sleep very well at night. There is very little for you to do ... plug in a drive and let it do its thing.
 
Tabbed Finder?

Probably the best feature I was hoping for is tabbed Finder windows. It was a rumour, but never happened by the looks of it (like safari). That would have been really useful.
 
Well if it was ALL about features, I would be on the fence.

But its not. There is a TON of under-the-hood work that was done.

Maybe I can explain it this way:

10.0 = public BETA
10.1 = fixes in the pubic BETA
10.2 = Ok... its faster now, yay!
10.3 = Owwww, feature, look what we are learning to do!
10.4 = Ok, we are really getting good as this whole OS X thing :)
10.5 = Ok, we know what we are doing and have learned what we can do and have become good at it. Now less fix the last of the lose ends and polish this baby up!

So the way I see 10.5 is that its a "mature" version of OS X. Tiger was nice but there were a few interface inconstancies and problems (lost mount volume hang). But with 10.5 Apple took the time to polish all the UI up and tidy up while bringing in some great new features.

This, I feel, is also why it took so long to get Leopard out. The other releases almost HAD to get out in a hurry. Think of it as the adolescent years of 1 to 16 where a lot is learned and Leopard is now OS X in its late teens and development has slowed but now we are seeing what we can REALLY do.
 
To those who say no one uses iChat...

I use iChat all the time since most of my family use it or AIM as well. Let me tell you, when I spent 7 weeks in Israel right after proposing to my girlfriend (now wife), being able to video chat was such a great thing. Also my parents and brother are in NJ/NY while my wife and I and her family are in MA so being able to to video chat with people who are far away is really great. Finally, the new version will have some nice new features. I'm not talking about the silly background nonsense, I'm talking about collaboration on work and screen sharing for teaching, tech support, and letting my parents choose what wedding pictures they want. The pics are stored on my computer. Just my 2cents.
 
groove-agent said:
I felt that Tiger was a far better upgrade than Leopard: spotlight (revolutionary - can't live without it), dashboard, expose.

So let's see - what does Leopard have:
Time Machine - which is cool, if you have a dedicated external drive - i just back up manually
New Desktop - I'm not a big fan
Coverflow in Finder - ok, that might be useful looking through documents, but not revolutionary
Spaces - might be useful if you often have a lot of windows open and can group them in logical categories
iChat - does anyone actual use iChat? Everyone i know uses MSN.
Mail - Entourage still kills Mail/iCal - the note thing seems like an afterthought than proper integration
Boot Camp - I guess if they lock us out of the beta, then it might be worth it. It seems strange to have to upgrade to leopard just to use an app i've been using in tiger for months
Click to expand...

History repeats itself once again. Why do people always moan there isn't enough in an OS X update to justify buying it? All the stuff you now take for granted in Panther and Tiger was given short shrift those versions launched. Trust me in a week or two you won't be able to do w/o coverflow, spaces, quick look, or time machine. Are they mind blowing improvements, no, but they will greatly improve your productivity and that is the hallmark of a good update. Personally I can do without some of the eye candy like the new dock, but you don't need to justify buying 10.5. It's well worth the price.
 
I was actually thinking the same thing that it seemed a little overhyped. they're really aren't 300 great features. There are like 4, but they really are GREAT. after watching that leopard tour i really think everyone should upgrade to this because this release unlike anyother offers so many ways to connect. I want everyone i know to have it because then more features become available to me. It's so easy to connect with people and share files it's really amazing. I mean imagine if you had a question on how to do something in a specific program. You could even connect with people on macrumors and they could show you how to do it. I can video chat with my family in Italy, which i could do before, but now i can trouble shoot their computers, and even watch a movie with them at the same time. how crazy is that. I think that alone is going to sell so many copies of this.

BTW is it me or does the menubar look thinner in leopard. because i swear it does.
 
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