Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

in-ten-city

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 10, 2007
62
0
So, I've talked with a number of my friends who have installed leopard and asked them how they like it, and in general ive been getting pretty lackluster responses. I hear its slower than the last OS, and doesnt really add much. Is this true? Is it really worth the buy?
 

koobcamuk

macrumors 68040
Oct 23, 2006
3,195
9
So, I've talked with a number of my friends who have installed leopard and asked them how they like it, and in general ive been getting pretty lackluster responses. I hear its slower than the last OS, and doesnt really add much. Is this true? Is it really worth the buy?

It's much faster on everything I have tried it on thus far.

Spaces are really good for me - stacks are OK but not everyone loves it.

Do you use your computer for work or fun? If fun, get it now. If work, wait.
 

Sky Blue

Guest
Jan 8, 2005
6,856
11
Definitely. much much faster on my iBook, and a ton of great stuff (some not so obvious)
 

drawstring

macrumors member
Oct 27, 2007
36
0
i use mine for work (and play)... why do you say "if work, wait?"

i run an MBP, SR 2.2Ghz, 2GB RAM, 120GB HD, 128MB VRAM
 

koobcamuk

macrumors 68040
Oct 23, 2006
3,195
9
i use mine for work (and play)... why do you say "if work, wait?"

i run an MBP, SR 2.2Ghz, 2GB RAM, 120GB HD, 128MB VRAM

MBP will fly.

I say if you work 'wait' because I am assuming that your computer works just fine right now? Then why take a chance? If you need it to work so that you do not lose time on the job, I would wait until 10.5.1 at least. There are a few known conflicts and general things are still being ironed out and discovered. Let other people [myself] be the Guinea pigs and test it. Then get it once 99% of the problems have gone.

This is the advice that I gave to my girlfriend. She wants spaces, but it's not worth taking that chance that she'd have to re-install parallels and have any other problems when she can just get on with work and let me test it all out. :)
 

sportsnut

macrumors regular
Jan 10, 2007
125
0
Michigan
So, I've talked with a number of my friends who have installed leopard and asked them how they like it, and in general ive been getting pretty lackluster responses. I hear its slower than the last OS, and doesnt really add much. Is this true? Is it really worth the buy?

Sarcasm On

Nope, I am too busy enjoying Leopard to stop and try and convince you to spend your money on something that your 'friends' are lackluster about :D

Sarcasm Off
 

tjcampbell

macrumors 6502a
Aug 14, 2006
826
0
Vancouver
I think it's incredible. My MBP runs WAY faster. Safari and Mail are especially snappy and I LOVE spaces because it enables me to multi-task and instantly hide the porn. "See look honey, I'm working... Pages is open and nothing else." :cool:
I bought the family pack and split it with four friends. Well worth it. Cheers, T
 

iKwick7

macrumors 65816
Dec 29, 2004
1,084
32
The Wood of Spots, NJ
Definitely. much much faster on my iBook, and a ton of great stuff (some not so obvious)

Agreed. I am noticing a huge speed increase on my iMac- particularly in iPhoto.

As for the not so obvious stuff- I must say, I absolutely love the fact that you can scroll in a program that is in the background!
 

Veritas&Equitas

macrumors 68000
Oct 31, 2005
1,528
1
Twin Cities, MN
I don't know if you were just trying to get a reaction, but I haven't talked to a soul that says Leopard is actually slower than Tiger.

In every facet I've tried, it's MUCH faster.
 

JKitterman

macrumors member
Oct 10, 2006
60
0
I have noticed an improvement in speed just because of the 64 bit memory. I don't seem to get as much stutters when playing WoW and having other programs open in the background. I haven't tried running VMware or Parallels but I usually ran the VM with large memory assigned. I have 3Gb Ram in an 17' iMac C2duo
 

Persifleur

macrumors member
Jun 1, 2005
66
0
London, UK
I bought the family pack and split it with four friends. Well worth it. Cheers, T

You do realise this is no more legal than if you'd just bought the single license version and distributed it to your friends, right? The 5 computers you install it on have to reside in the same residence.
 

xUKHCx

Administrator emeritus
Jan 15, 2006
12,583
9
The Kop
You do realise this is no more legal than if you'd just bought the single license version and distributed it to your friends, right? The 5 computers you install it on have to reside in the same residence.

But it is more morally acceptable.
 

BornAgainMac

macrumors 604
Feb 4, 2004
7,273
5,211
Florida Resident
i use mine for work (and play)... why do you say "if work, wait?"

i run an MBP, SR 2.2Ghz, 2GB RAM, 120GB HD, 128MB VRAM

When I upgraded from Tiger, my network printer setup was gone and my email settings were missing for sending email. It was just a few tweaks to get everything working again. Some users might have required tech support.

It some ways the upgrade worked like a new install. Wallpaper was changed for example. I was surprised since this didn't happen with all the other previous upgrades.

Also some programs like FileMaker Pro don't work correctly anymore. The vendor will force people using older versions to upgrade that had no need to upgrade to the lastest version.

Then there are issues with the Firewall that claim it is less secure.
 

skwij

macrumors 6502
Apr 10, 2006
322
0
Belleville, ON, Canada
Insignifant annoyances here. Spaces, meh, I don't see the need. Stacks, ANNOYING as hell, until I got a way to make the applications stack look like my old Apps alias on the dock. It still needs one more click to get to the app you're wanting if you use the stack on the dock. I miss the right-click option on Stacks. Spotlight would work well as a workaround. I can see me using spotlight more now, for launching apps.

I miss the animated horizontal candycane when booting up. Seeing nothing but the blue screen makes me feel like something's wrong, even though it's not. I'm a visual person. I need to "see" something happening, even if it's just eye candy.

Time Machine alone is worth the upgrade. The other extras are just bonuses, IMO.

Sure some programs don't work, but that's what the desktop running Tiger 10.4.10 is for. Networking has a nice new GUI, that works fine. Flash works fine in both Firefox and Safari.
Safari plugins don't work yet, but will soon.

Again, I'm lucky I have another machine to use for the "must have" apps that aren't working with Leo yet. So far so good, despite the glitches.
 

72930

Retired
May 16, 2006
9,060
4
Its the little things that count, like the awesome new Help...well worth upgrading IMO :)

picture242b44.png
 

Kinetic

macrumors member
Jun 29, 2007
74
0
NC
Worth it for me, but might not be for everyone.

So, I've talked with a number of my friends who have installed leopard and asked them how they like it, and in general ive been getting pretty lackluster responses. I hear its slower than the last OS, and doesnt really add much. Is this true? Is it really worth the buy?

First off, it's DEFINITELY faster. I don't know what you're friends are talking about. Spotlight screams and is finally usable. I haven't had any problems running it so far and Time Machine is WAY cool and actually useful.

It does have some cons for me. Spaces is a miss for me. (I mistakenly thought you could set up separate virtual desktops, like with different icons and wallpaper, but you can't. Also, if you select the Finder icon from the dock, then switch to another space and try and click the icon again to open a new window, it moves back to the original space. Maybe there's something I'm missing.) Stacks is a mixed thing for me. When they stack the icons, it looks so cluttered. I've gotten around it by creating a small .jpg picture that I like and then name it with a space in front of it (like " Apps.jpg") and put that in the folder. That way it shows up first in the stack and my doc looks nicer. I HATE that the Application stack only shows the first level in the folder. Applications like Adobe's products store the application in a subfolder under Applications so when you can only click on the folder in the stack and then it opens up the folder and you have to hunt for the application. Maybe in a future version they'll allow you to drill through folders. For now, the best bet is to create a folder with alias to your used applications and use that as a stack. The reflected dock has grown on me and isn't annoying like I thought it would be.

Even with the drawbacks, it's definitely better than Vista!:p
 

pna

macrumors 6502
May 27, 2005
318
0
You don't even know the number of men that do this now. It's reason enough to upgrade.

Or reason enough to download the other free virtual desktop programs (like Desktop Manager) that work *flawlessly* and have done this for years.

I do appreciate the polish that Apple put into spaces, but honestly, it makes no sense to me that its a compelling feature for people to upgrade, when such excellent, functionally equivalent programs have been available for free, for a long time.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.