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Mac OS X Leopard: First Impressions

After using Leopard since Friday afternoon, I hate to say that I'm not overly impressed. While there are tons of things I have yet to try and discover, it just doesn't justify the price and hype for me. Haven't tried Time Machine, or Spaces (no need). Not too impressed with the Finder, although Quick Look is cool, you can't browse multiple pages while you are "quick-looking" a document. Finder only uses 1 view for all folders, 3D dock is a bit distracting, Safari is slow on some sites. I think I'll be writing my own review on this, on both good and bad aspects.
In a nutshell: Should you upgrade? Not if you're happy with Tiger - at least, not yet.
 
You realize

ortuno2k said:
After using Leopard since Friday afternoon, I hate to say that I'm not overly impressed. While there are tons of things I have yet to try and discover, it just doesn't justify the price and hype for me. Haven't tried Time Machine, or Spaces (no need). Not too impressed with the Finder, although Quick Look is cool, you can't browse multiple pages while you are "quick-looking" a document. Finder only uses 1 view for all folders, 3D dock is a bit distracting, Safari is slow on some sites. I think I'll be writing my own review on this, on both good and bad aspects.
In a nutshell: Should you upgrade? Not if you're happy with Tiger - at least, not yet.
Click to expand...

Its a 64bit OS if your CPU can deal.
 
IMO it would run fine on a 2g blackbook.

Thus far I am liking it. I have 2 aps that either don't work or don't work fully, GuitarPort and Guitar Pro. Guitar Pro still runs in Windows under Vmware so I can deal with it. GuitarPort after installing some beta drivers to get it to work just won't let me view some online content. Also my MAMP setup was initially not working since Leopard upgrades Apache and PHP to the newest version and commented out the php module in the httpd.conf file. Every thing else that I use daily works thus far in how I use it including PS3, Lightroom, Firefox, Office, Komodo Edit, EyeTv, VMware Fusion (having a small issue with bridged networking), ect.

Cover flow/Quick Look are great. I have a ton of pics, and while I use lightroom sometimes I just want to quickly look for one in the bowser or flip through a few, so CF/QL is pretty trick for that. Stacks is not bad, like the grid layout the best. Spaces would be nice if I did not have 2 24" displays, though I could still put it to use as I seem to clutter them up at times. Also like the finder layout better. Overall I am pretty happy. Install went well, did a n Archive since I had the space, not that it took much. Does not seem sluggish, no crashes yet. I am sure things will pop up, always do. I lived though using 98, XP and Vista since day one I am pretty sure I can deal with what ever issues Leopard has at first.
 
koobcamuk said:
I was seriously hoping that this would be fixed. I take a lot of screenshots and this would be a very, very cool feature.

Maybe we should make this known to apple...
Click to expand...

A screenshot is NOT a download. So why would it go in the downloads folder??
 
I don't like leopard one bit

Pros
I just installed leopard on my Macbook Pro and 2 gigs of ram.
The OS feels faster.
New PDF icons are kinda cool
New Safari is pretty stable and fast

Cons
All the interface changes, including dock, are so so.
The folders icon looks terrible.
Boot time is slower
Aperture feels slower
Time machine doesn't do network backups over wifi.
Stacks is totally useless
The new dock doesn't look that great
One of the screen savers lags
spaces is useful only if you're use to using virtual desktop (e.g. KDE, Gnome), otherwise useless
transparent menu bar isn't very reader friendly especially if your wall paper is black

I've been a mac user since my 667 Titanium Powerbook I got in 2002. I'm currently a Mac Pro and a Macbook Pro owner and both platforms are on leopard. So far, the OS has not impressed me, if anything it will be a learning curve getting used to it. I advise you to wait a while longer before upgrading. Hope this review helps.
 
I must say that after following this and other threads, the new OS seems a bit disappointing. If there was a rating system, i bet the average right now would be a B- or maybe even a C+ (C+ indicating so so, neither good nor bad). I thought Leopard would get much better user reviews.

I'm glad I waited out on this one, even though I still really want to buy it. Hopefully Apple will take into consideration the user reviews and come up with a nice and heavy update in 6 months or so.
 
After a weekend of playing with Leopard, I gotta say I absolutely love it. Folder icons aside (and I can't wait for Candybar 3 to change those!), the transparent top menu and 3D dock really work to distinguish the OS elements from the applications. Very, VERY nice IMO.

Also, Safari positively SCREAMS. I can't believe I'm putting away my beloved Firefox for it. 😀
 
Great Upgrade

Although initially underwhelmed, I think people's expectations might have been too high. This is a fantastic upgrade.

Have installed smoothly on several machines and every one has had a very good performance increase over Tiger. My own machine feels great. Stable, fast and all the little changes really add up to being something special.

Going back to boot into Tiger feels like a step backwards really, even though it has only been a few days. I really like the cosmetic changes (including the new Dock and stacks*), and everything feels much more refined than Tiger.

* I have created a 'Stacks' folder of different folders in my user area. Fill these with alias to what I need and it all works a treat.
 
Anyone running Leopard on a Core Solo Mini?

I've got a mini core solo with 2gb ram, not sure if I should upgrade...some people reporting its slower on the mini's others say its faster than tiger..
 
I just got my up to date disc today and have used Leopard for a couple of hours.

Visually I am a bit overwhelmed--it's like they didn't decide on Aqua or Metal so they put both in each window--the top is so dark and the bottom so light.

Some of my complaints are the same as others: the transparency is for its own sake only and hinders real world productivity.

The animations are a bit choppy--spaces especially on my brand new Macbook. I still can't figure out how Spaces would be useful to me, so that's moot.


I noticed iTunes has the old close, minimize, maximize buttons still.


Overall I'm overwhelmed.

The Mac to me was always so great in that you didn't NOTICE the OS. I'm finding I'm noticing it a lot more with Leopard, and am going to sleep on it!

EDIT:
I know I've only used this a couple hours, and I was about to put this to sleep and try to get used to Leopard tomorrow, but as I was closing up shop I noticed the iChat buddy list over the black part of my screen (the Earth horizon picture), and I noticed the horrible gradient the window's shadow made against the black.

I just don't understand how Apple put this out. I think the aesthetics are a mess. I had a bad day. Maybe Leopard will look brighter in the morning.
 
abcdefGARY said:
A few things I noticed:

3.) The blue light for the open applications is really hard to see, as everyone else has said. I really wish they would switch back to arrows, or something more noticeable.
Click to expand...

Not everyone, not nearly, some of us like the new dock just they way it is; so if Apple is planning a change, I hope they allow a choice.
 
Thoughts from an IT Guy

So I waited a few days to make my post here - wanted to give it a fair shakedown first. Also, a little background: I'm the Director of IT for a medium-sized business (about 200 employees total), and by trade I've been a Windows guy. Until recently. I've now seen the light, and my company is in the process of switching to Macs. I will never go back 🙂

I got my Leopard disc on Friday morning last week, and I'm overall really happy with it. I totally agree with what many have said: this is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Except maybe Time Machine. That's changing our world. By deploying a few file servers with huge hard drives connected to gigabit switches, our users can back up with relative speed and ease, as long as you don't count that first initial backup. I cannot relay how helpful it is not to have to restore individual files for users with a trigger-happy finger hovering over the Delete key.

I do hate stacks, with a passion. I would rather have the old Tiger "right-click" menu for my hard drive and home folder directly in my Dock instead of the wimpy stack that makes me open the Finder to open any subfolders. Very annoying, Apple...come on.

But I still have to say: whether this was the huge upgrade we all were hoping for, or just a small improvement on an already great thing, Mac users are still light years (no pun intended on Time Machine or the space theme) ahead of our Windows counterparts, and I certainly am not about to go to Vista because the menu bars aren't as pretty as we hoped.

Oh, and kudos to Apple for being bold enough to make public what we all have felt for years: Representing PCs on the network with a CRT and a Blue Screen Of Death. Way to go!

Overall, Leopard is a job well done. As with previous releases, they'll fix a lot of things quickly with 10.5.1 and 10.5.2. After that, Leopard will become more and more stable, just as Tiger did, over the next year or two as we prepare for 10.6. Apple has a reputation, and I don't think it's in danger because of Leopard. Let's stop complaining about the little grievances and start focusing on how to make the next release of Mac OS X even better. Who knows, maybe it'll even be REVolutionary!
 
Underwhelmed

I have been looking forward to this for a long time like everyone, but I am underwhelmed by Leopard.

The Spaces feature is annoying and confusing to me. I find the shortcut that expands all windows more useful than jumping from space to space.

Cover flow for docs? Okay, I guess. But I have so many nested folders that all I see are folders in cover flow unless I click through. I do like it for media though such as images and movies.

Time Machine...hmm. Not a Star Wars fan. If I accidentally deleted Amy Winehouse, I just want a simple way to retrieve. I don,t need to travel through the galaxy.

What happened to the spotlight upgrade? I thought it would be like the search field that yields visual results on Apple's site. Oh well. Maybe it'll take some getting used to. 🙁
 
Leopard on an 867 15" TiBook

I installed Leopard on an 867MHz 15" PB over the weekend and it is working very well, much faster than with Tiger. This is the minimum requirement for 10.5 and I am happy to say that it installed without a hitch, I have put it through the paces with Toast and PS 7 and burning CDs, everything is faster and smoother than with 10.4x, very happy with the results - not sure why this could not be installed on a lesser machine with equal results?
 
Download stack (I have my dock on the side) - I thought it would be useful, I never had folders on the dock. Useless, most of the things I download not by dragging something from Safari are .dmg files I want to delete! Its awkward dragging from a stack to the Trash.

Apple, get a proper framework for Mail plugins! Mail is so much better than Thunderbird, but without plug-ins, we can't do nearly as much with it.

One good thing - My grandad had been using Mighty Mouse to give him a bigger mouse icon, so I told him to wait to upgrade until Unsanity was ready. Apple now has a slider built in, but get this: they haven't been bother to make a few new icons, so the mouse is just bigger and pixelated...

The new menubar is nice with SOME backgrounds, it really should be optional.
 
I must say that after just trying out leopard for about 5 mins, it's way faster than tiger on my macbook 2,16 1 gb ram. For example when clicking the airport icon in the upper right it took a while for it to pop up in tiger, in leopard it pops up instantly. Wuhey!

Had a few problems with airport in the beginning, with it not being able to find my network. Fixed it though.
 
Leopard is stunning fast on my PB 12" 1.5 GHz 1.25 GB Ram

They did a great improvement in almost all of the system.
I open a 22 MB pdf in a click!! All loaded, and the new integrated side-bar is amazing. Safari is fast as well, like almost all the rest.
I agree with the fact that stacks is useless but you can just not use it.
The new dock is useless as well but it makes everybody see that you're an early Leopard adopter = cool.

I think it's 130 Euro worth for an upgrade.
I feel my Powerbook fast as it has never been and I can wait happy till the next generation of Pro Books (hopefully carbon fiber ones..)

Cheers

Andrea
 
The Bad: A 30 hour + restore with migration assistant of 100GB of data!!! WTF??? Yes, my computer was out of commission for two days.

The Good: Holy crap, does networking finally work! This alone is worth $50 of the price. I can finally connect to shares properly (windows or mac), no infinite spinning balls (so far), and snappy response when initiating the connection. This was a major sore spot in 10.4 and hopefully its passable now.
 
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