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Apple Releases Leopard 9A466 (WWDC Build) to ADC Members

It has some nice features.

Network System Preferences has been greatly improved.

Software Updates are a lot better. It logs you out when installing to stop all those awful bugs, when people where editing files with software update was installing.

Printing is also a LOT better.

Among other things Leopard is going to be good :)
 
I hate the 3D Dock. It takes up too much space. They have a big gap under the icons just to show the reflection. If you shrink the dock, due to the size of the gap, the icons become too small even though the dock is about the size you want it to be. Also, because it is "3D"... it looks a lot more cluttered and messy than the 2D dock.

I haven't found a way to turn off the translucent menu bar either. If you have a busy background, then it becomes very hard to read the text on the menu bar.

New Finder is a good improvement in terms of UI and network drives.

Boot time is 2-3 times longer than Tiger (17" MacBook Pro CD with 2GB RAM), but I suspect this is probably due to logging.

It's a good improvement over 9A410, but still far from finished IMO.
 
nomore said:
I hate the 3D Dock. It takes up too much space. They have a big gap under the icons just to show the reflection. If you shrink the dock, due to the size of the gap, the icons become too small even though the dock is about the size you want it to be. Also, because it is "3D"... it looks a lot more cluttered and messy than the 2D dock.

I haven't found a way to turn off the translucent menu bar either. If you have a busy background, then it becomes very hard to read the text on the menu bar.

New Finder is a good improvement in terms of UI and network drives.

Boot time is 2-3 times longer than Tiger (17" MacBook Pro CD with 2GB RAM), but I suspect this is probably due to logging.

It's a good improvement over 9A410, but still far from finished IMO.
Click to expand...

Nice to see the improvements so far. I'm looking forward to it.

Because I'm on a macbook, I don't have much real estate to play with so I hide the dock. If it can still be hidden then the qualms with the 3D are a non-issue for me.
 
Not close to ready, imo:-(

Tons of permissions issues, which I was unable to repair from the install disk. These in turn affected the keychain in ways that could drive one crazy (constantly asking for permission.) Similar permission problems with stuff like FontExplorer. LittleSnitch doesn't work and Apple's implementation of a firewall is not nearly as good.

FrontRow is improved, it is black like ATV now, and it can actually see Video_ts files, but no art. Similarly for DIVX (must install own codecs.) Vista's MCE front-end UI still makes FronRow look a bit primitive, even if it's too busy. Apple is missing an opportunity here, imo. Video quality is improved, but still not as good as that of the better codecs available for Windows. FrontRow crashed a few times during the time I played with it.

The dock is..., whatever. I actually like seeing network drives mounted on the desktop - Leopard has removed this. Search functions are better.

Overall, I like the look, but I have my doubts Leopard will be ready and bug-free by October.
 
nomore said:
I hate the 3D Dock. It takes up too much space. They have a big gap under the icons just to show the reflection. If you shrink the dock, due to the size of the gap, the icons become too small even though the dock is about the size you want it to be. Also, because it is "3D"... it looks a lot more cluttered and messy than the 2D dock.

I haven't found a way to turn off the translucent menu bar either. If you have a busy background, then it becomes very hard to read the text on the menu bar.
IMO.
Click to expand...

Please file bugs on this, I am. Its the only way they will listen...
 
heffeque said:
ARGH! I hope not! :eek: :(
Click to expand...

Yea, the improvements in usability are huge, but the graphics are.... blah. Its very grey... I just find myself booting into tiger and appreciating how much 'happier' everything looks compared to leopard which is a bit drab. (As screen shots can attest to)
 
oogje said:
I think logging into the window manager as root is fraught with problems. There are things happening there that aren't immediately obvious and that's not a good thing when you're root. One minor example is littering the file system with root owned .DS_Store files which will bite you later.
Click to expand...

It's not for the faint of heart, yes. But the .DS_Store files, if they didn't exist already, are created with appropriate group and permissions.

I mention the GUI only as an example, since I use sudo 99.9% of the time. (I had to enable the root user for the LaCie install.) If you know what you're doing and are comfortable with the potential consequences, there's no problem with root.

So on a single-user machine, there's no more danger with su root than sudo. If someone hacks my machine, I assume they're going to swab the logs anyway. And sudo doesn't protect the clumsy, who carelessly typed "sudo rm -rf * \(Mac\ OS\ 9\)" in the days before Mac OS X had a clean install option.
 
Fukui said:
the graphics are.... blah. Its very grey... I just find myself booting into tiger and appreciating how much 'happier' everything looks
Click to expand...

I love it. It's so neutral. The interface is finally is second to why we use computers: to get stuff done. Edward Tufte says that an OS should get out of your way and that's exactly what 10.5 does.

Except for Time Machine.

And it's a huge contrast to the darker, shiny eye candy on steroids that is Vista.
 
Capn_Moho said:
I love it. It's so neutral. The interface is finally is second to why we use computers: to get stuff done. Edward Tufte says that an OS should get out of your way and that's exactly what 10.5 does.

Except for Time Machine.

And it's a huge contrast to the darker, shiny eye candy on steroids that is Vista.
Click to expand...

Right, well, I don't mind the subtleness, I just don't like how its so gloomy. If it were a little brighter, then I wouldn't have a complaint.....except for that menu bar.....
 
Fukui said:
Right, well, I don't mind the subtleness, I just don't like how its so gloomy. If it were a little brighter, then I wouldn't have a complaint.....except for that menu bar.....
Click to expand...

I see your point. I might have liked it even more if they had made it the shade of Tiger's mail. And I'm not sure about the menu bar either.
 
Capn_Moho said:
I see your point. I might have liked it even more if they had made it the shade of Tiger's mail. And I'm not sure about the menu bar either.
Click to expand...

Yea, mail was perfect in that regard.... I wonder why it is that whatever iTunes ends up doing UI-wise, the rest of iLife, then the OS follows...
 
patseguin said:
Anyone daring enough to run it as main OS?
Click to expand...

I did. Mainly because I had been meaning to reinstall the OS on my Intel iMac forever (had an years-old drive image transfered on it.)

Too many problems for daily use, in my experience. Some essential to me apps don't work. Permissions are screwed up (run Disk Utility and it keeps telling you that it can't correct dev permissions because access is denied.) This screws up Keychain. FontExplorer will not start (with a permissions message.) And so on.

My personal hope was that I can switch to the new FronRow from Vista MCE for my HT, but after seeing it, I don't think it's going to cut it. It improves on the initial FronRow, but it's still way too limited ("simple" is good, but this is more like "stripped".) Amazing that Apple wants to be in the living room, but doesn't provide (direct) input for stuff like subtitles. We do watch movies with subtitles sometimes, you know. And hey, most of us use universal remotes, so no need to be so faithful to, and limited by, the little Apple remote:)

Anyway, I just installed Tiger back as the daily OS.
 
Just out of curiosity have any of the above people actually downloaded it "legally" from the ADC site and been a real developer and read the seed notes?

If so you should know about what the known problems are.
 
iMeowbot said:
Right, and if you are an sudoer you can simply use sudo sh, no need to give the account a password.
Click to expand...

Or even better, just sudo -s.

I have to agree that enabling the root user is never, ever necessary. Having it completely disabled is one of the few things Mac OS X got right with respect to default user privileges. If only they'd handled administrator privileges as well...

It doesn't matter if you're the most experienced guru on the planet - everyone mistypes or clicks on the wrong thing by accident from time to time. Running stuff as root is asking for trouble. Even when I need to get a shell via sudo, I get in, do my business, and get out. Anything more is not only asking for trouble, it's living life on the edge. Fine if you like it that way, but please don't encourage others to do the same who may not know any better. :rolleyes:

Back to Leopard...
 
macUser2007 said:
Amazing that Apple wants to be in the living room, but doesn't provide (direct) input for stuff like subtitles. We do watch movies with subtitles sometimes, you know.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's frustrating that FrontRow doesn't handle ripped VIDEO_TS folders from DVDs. This would solve the subtitle problem and many others. I did have some pretty good success with DVDAssist (easily found with google), but it hasn't compelled me to get the Mac mini I was thinking about for a HTPC yet. I was kinda hoping Leopard's FrontRow would include this feature, but definitely not holding my breath. It's really too bad.

If Apple wants to dominate in the living room, they need to give us iTunes for movies. Not just the video features iTunes has now, but the ability to rip DVDs, keeping all menus, subtitles, etc intact, plus a nice FrontRow interface to it all. I doubt that'll ever happen, though. Unlike in music, where ripping CDs is accepted as legal exercise of fair use rights, ripping DVDs is muddled by the encryption and US law. Steve Jobs has already made comments to the effect that he doesn't see movies the same way as music, which is utterly ridiculous and only pandering the movie studios who have the law on their side (and Disney who owns Jobs' other company!).

Too bad.

And hey, most of us use universal remotes, so no need to be so faithful to, and limited by, the little Apple remote:)
Click to expand...

Right, that's exactly what learning remotes are for. Mine picked up the Apple remote's codes without any trouble.
 
I'm curious about third part apps that use brushed metal. What do they look like in Leopard? I have played with some brushed metal apps in Interface Builder to aqua-ify them, but some come out looking horrible. Will developers have to redo their UIs or will they continue to be brushed metal in Leopard?
 
zorneatsham said:
I'm curious about third part apps that use brushed metal. What do they look like in Leopard? I have played with some brushed metal apps in Interface Builder to aqua-ify them, but some come out looking horrible. Will developers have to redo their UIs or will they continue to be brushed metal in Leopard?
Click to expand...

There is only one UI. Everything looks like iTunes 7.3.
 
Peace said:
Just out of curiosity have any of the above people actually downloaded it "legally" from the ADC site and been a real developer and read the seed notes?
Click to expand...

Don't know about them, but I downloaded it legally. Didn't read the notes though. For those wondering, it's awesome. But very buggy. Very buggy.
 
bankshot said:
....Right, that's exactly what learning remotes are for. Mine picked up the Apple remote's codes without any trouble.
Click to expand...

Hm, the idea is that in the damned Vista MCE, I can change aspect ratio, turn on/off subtitles or closed captioning, replay/skip, jump to my photos, etc., without navigating 5-deep into various menus, but just by touching one button on my universal remote. Some of the stuff is not on the MS Vista remote, but the key combos are available and mapped out in every major universal remote brand. Kind of makes it all seem just like a regular stand-alone DVD player..., just much better.

Now that they've got in our pocket (with the iPhone, I mean:), Apple should try to get into the living room in a more serious way.

Unfortunately, Leopard so far doesn't look like it's going to make it there. Hope I am wrong, but I guess I've seen the future:)
 
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