More Leopard Disappointments

[tamvly]

I, too, am disappointed with Leopard. Here's why ...

I suppose that everyone is entitled to his/her own view of the new UI. I find it bland and unappealing. At least the brushed aluminum look was interesting and had the added, if dubious, quality of matching the look of my G5 and laptop.

The new Doc is a gimmick as far as I'm concerned, without any real added value. Let me know when a three-D display is available and I might change my mind. The download folder - ugh. Folder icons in general - ugh.

The new Finder. What's the big deal? Explorer in Windows XP is more refined. Sorry, but as Dave Barry would say - I am not making this up.

Spaces. Kind of interesting so I am exploring. Not well documented (typical for Apple).

Safari continues to be a major contributor to global warming with all of the cpu cycles it uses. OK, blame some of that on web ads and such. But still, does it really take 50% of the system (twin 2.5 GHz PPC) to display ads? Oh, and who decided that Safari should ask the user if he/she REALLY wants to quit if there are two or more windows open. This is really lame and a major UI booboo. Other folks have covered Safari's other inadequacies quite well.

Spotlight. Well, Apple should have warned me that my G5 would be essentially useless for several hours after the installation (more global warming). I suppose I should feel lucky that my MacBook Pro was useless for only about three hours. Frankly, it felt like an old Windows release. Sad. Oh, and then there was the time that Spotlight decided to index my entire firewire external disk for the second time, just for fun. Sigh. Interesting that the Intego Virus program examined all of the files on my desktop machine for viruses in a small percentage of the time that Spotlight took to index them. (Ok, this might be a little unfair)

Calendar. A step backwards on UI. More keystrokes to do the same thing.

Time Machine. Useless for anyone with a significant library of music and who does not have a spare 250MB external disk. I'll back up my own files, thanks. Very poor configurability. Actually, none. Decided to go with another product. For anyone who uses apps that have large binary files it is unusable. Can anyone imagine running, say, an Oracle database with Time Machine turned on? Lunacy.

Firewall. Is there some obscure reason why it is turned off on installation? Maybe it's a hint from Apple. After reading a few articles on firewalls written by knowledgeable people, I went with a third party vendor. Testing onging.

Applications. Excel (2004) refuses to quit properly and so must be forced every time I use it. Worked fine on 10.4. Some other apps I use on a regular basis (e.g. GuitarPro) just don't work. I hesitate to even think about trying to use ProTools, but then again they are always quite far behind.

Oh, I can't fail to mention the two kernel panics that have occurred in the last few days. This is twice the number of panics I've experienced since 10.0. How many years has it been?

And of course there's the rather obnoxious bug in Leopard on the MacBook Pro which basically turns the display level to ABSOLUTE DARK about 50% of the time on a boot of the system - making it look like the black screen of death and that the system is toast. The Apple Genius at my local store was incredulous until I showed her. She looked embarrassed. I think a lot of people are give the Geniuses a workout.

If you need Java 6, roll your own.

I am telling everyone I know to avoid this release like the plague. Clearly an operating system is a complex set of code - I know, I've worked on similar code sets. But just as clearly Leopard is not ready for prime time from a stability standpoint and was rushed to market. And the UI decisions are, IMHO, unfortunate at best.

One man's opinion ...

- robin

 

[suneohair]

I am going to have to disagree and I really don't care to spend time on any of the points. Good luck to you though and I hope it works out.

 

[HLdan]

I am telling everyone I know to avoid this release like the plague. Clearly an operating system is a complex set of code - I know, I've worked on similar code sets. But just as clearly Leopard is not ready for prime time from a stability standpoint and was rushed to market. And the UI decisions are, IMHO, unfortunate at best.

One man's opinion ...

- robin

Well, that's just it, it's YOUR opinion and IMHO your opinion stinks and I do not agree with any of your remarks.

 

[Decrepit]

That's odd that you're having so many problems.

I'm running it on a G4 Mini, and have only found the graphics glitch when using a display at 1920x1200.

I have not had a single issue with Office 2004 since installation. And I've been using it extensively.

I don't use Safari so I can't comment there. I am just used to Firefox, and it does the job.

Spaces has been insane. I'm loving every minute of it. I can't believe that I haven't bogged my Mini down since now I can (and do) run a whole lot more at the same time than I used to in Tiger.

I haven't had a crash or panic that has been Leopard related. I put it that way because my Mini power brick decides to turn off once or twice a month, and has done it for over a year. So I had my power loss this month yesterday. Leopard forgot which drive was the boot drive, but the utils on the Leopard installation DVD fixed it right up.

Just some of my experiences with it on an older machine.

 

[Me1000]

ok seriously, spotlight indexing is a one time thing, you cant expect it to scan all your files after the install in seconds!

Time machine... just exclude your iTunes library, or you iPhoto library.

Safari, my CPU is running at 15% (both cores) that is with digg spy open, iTunes playing music, a bit torrent download, mail checking every minute, and messenger...

Excel... Thank you MS...

Kernel panics... check your hardware, I have only had one kernel panic in my life, that was on running Tiger (many moths ago, during a shutdown)

UI, much better than the brushed metal

Java makes me cry!

Turn the glass off in the dock, it makes it much better IMO (even better than tiger's)

The new finder is amazing, improvements all around, especially with network machines and quicklook!
The explorer in XP cant compete with the leopard finder IMO, But Vista's explorer is very nice!

Change your Icons if you dont like them,



That is my opinion...

 

[sammich]

Time Machine...Very poor configurability. Actually, none. Decided to go with another product.

That's your choice. Remember the saying: if you having nothing good to say, then don't say it? Unless of course it beneficial to someone in anyway. All of your dislikes have been mentioned in already numerous threads about Leopard gripes, vent your spleen over there.

For anyone who uses apps that have large binary files it is unusable. Can anyone imagine running, say, an Oracle database with Time Machine turned on? Lunacy.

Okay, if it'll make it less tough on you, i'm sure if you looked in the preferences for Time Machine, you'll discover that you can actually DISABLE TM backups for directories.

TheRegister

 

[jwkay]

Oh, and who decided that Safari should ask the user if he/she REALLY wants to quit if there are two or more windows open. This is really lame and a major UI booboo.

Take a look in Safari preferences under Tabs and turn off "Confirm when closing multiple pages". That'll solve your problem.

 

[Big-TDI-Guy]

I agree with the OP on a few of these issues. I got drawn back to Apple by a freak exposure to 10.4.4 - and it sucked me right in.

If Leopard were my "freak exposure" - doubtful I would have switched back at all.

There are some UI issues that have taken a step in a wrong direction. In Tiger, icons were designed to look DIFFERENT - which was great, because it's been proven that the human brain can discern between colors and shapes faster than text. Things had a set place - so you can remember where they go.

Leopard removed those from it's icon set. I know you can get your own icons - but why did they ditch what worked? Who thought nearly identical icons would be better to work with? Don't most people at Apple have to drive to work? Ever notice how road signs have different shapes and colors? To get your attention quickly! Everybody start taking the train to work since Tiger?

Stacks - changes every time something is added to my applications, or is downloaded. It has slowed down (significantly) my access to certain folders - because they keep changing their appearance. Is there a work around? Yeah - but who thought this was a good idea at Apple?

Nestled folders were also killed off - too bad, because that actually worked - why no option to keep it?

Spotlight - I remember being taught to Bullet and Organize data for reports to make it easier to understand and follow. Tigers Spotlight did this, and with a simple click or two, sorted it any way you wanted. Now the bullets are gone, and it takes several clicks to achieve any useful sorting.

Finder windows have amnesia. Why can't they remember how I want them to appear? Consistently having to change the layout of windows is an efficient way of doing things?

I've had Leopard since launch - and I'm aware it's 10.5 - but I genuinely hope things are sorted out by 10.5.4. Because it truly isn't as efficient to work with.

 

[ChrisA]

Time Machine. Useless for anyone with a significant library of music and who does not have a spare 250MB external disk. I'll back up my own files,

Firewall. Is there some obscure reason why it is turned off on installation? Maybe it's a hint from Apple. After reading a few articles on firewalls written by knowledgeable people, I went with a third party vendor. Testing onging.

Yes one does need a large external disk for backups. But these are cheap now. I just paid $109 for a 500GB disk. The smaller ones are even cheaper. What ever software yo have you need about the same media
Tell TM to exclude directories that you are backing up using other methods.

When you do your own backups are you doing incrementals? This confuses most Mac users. What Tm makes easy in restoring from incremental backups

Yes there is a reason why the fire wall is turned off. It's because turnning it on would do no good. If there is no process listening to port 21 then blockingo or not blocking port 21 in a fire wall makes no differance

About the third party firewall. Is it really? I think what it is, is a
replacement configuration window. The fire wall itself is insde the kernel.

 

[tamvly]

mea culpa and more ...

Mea culpa. Yes, indeed, Time Machine is configurable to the extent that you can exclude folders. But I am hesitant to use it and rely on it based on the overall robustness of 10.5. I'll wait for a few point releases and other more adventuresome folks.

I was also interested to note that a critical review of Apple seems to bring out the worst in some people. Replies to the contrary, this release is the least stable - for me - of any Mac OS X so far. All one has to do is look at the list of problems that people have experienced just on this forum. I think that speaks for itself. For those of you who haven't had a kernel panic or a laptop that appeared to go into never-never land, good for you.

- r

 

[lugesm]

I, too, am disappointed with Leopard. Here's why ...


Applications. Excel (2004) refuses to quit properly and so must be forced every time I use it. Worked fine on 10.4.

I am experiencing the same problem with MS Excel. Not a big deal, but somewhat annoying.

As Operating Systems (both Mac & Windows) grow more complex one thing is certain: All new releases are likely to be more buggy than the previous release. Sad, but true.

 

[Sky Blue]

Oh, and who decided that Safari should ask the user if he/she REALLY wants to quit if there are two or more windows open. This is really lame and a major UI booboo.

You could...just.. untick the option for this...

 

[MKnight]

Oh, and who decided that Safari should ask the user if he/she REALLY wants to quit if there are two or more windows open. This is really lame and a major UI booboo.

Who are you to decide what a proper UI is? Like someone else said, turn that option off if you do not need it. Most tabbed browsers have this exact same prompt and for many people, I'm sure they find it useful.

 

[DesignerOnMac]

People usually post issues and not how happy they are.....

Mea culpa. Yes, indeed, Time Machine is configurable to the extent that you can exclude folders. But I am hesitant to use it and rely on it based on the overall robustness of 10.5. I'll wait for a few point releases and other more adventuresome folks.

I was also interested to note that a critical review of Apple seems to bring out the worst in some people. Replies to the contrary, this release is the least stable - for me - of any Mac OS X so far. All one has to do is look at the list of problems that people have experienced just on this forum. I think that speaks for itself. For those of you who haven't had a kernel panic or a laptop that appeared to go into never-never land, good for you.

- r

Got a new imac 24" 2.8 extreme last Thursday! Was worried about what I get for problems. Guess what? NO ISSUES!

No monitor issues, no dead pixels, no issues after installing Leopard. Very very stable for me! And Safari still works great for me even though people bitch about spinning beach balls and not being able to access sites.

Eye candy is eye candy..was true with Panther, Tiger and Leopard....it is the other 300 plus features that make Leo worth buying.....or as another poster will say, YMMV!!

 

[dr_lha]

I was also interested to note that a critical review of Apple seems to bring out the worst in some people. Replies to the contrary, this release is the least stable - for me - of any Mac OS X so far. All one has to do is look at the list of problems that people have experienced just on this forum. I think that speaks for itself. For those of you who haven't had a kernel panic or a laptop that appeared to go into never-never land, good for you.

You can't use people posting to the forum as a measure of how stable something is. People only post to a forum when they have problems, so it doesn't reveal the many people having no issues.

I'm not going to claim Leopard is issue free, but I've not had any kernel panics, and I've been running it since launch on three machines: A 12" PB, A C2D MBP and a Core Solo mini. I would suggest that people getting a lot of kernel panics are suffering from one of 2 things: Flaky hardware or flaky applications that interact badly with Leopard (i.e. hacks).

IMHO Leopard has been an extremely stable release of Mac OS X, especially compared to Tiger 10.4.0 which was a basket case. FYI I started using Mac OS X in the Jaguar years and my 12" PB has been updated from Jaguar -> Panther -> Tiger -> Leopard.

 

[elistan]

Time Machine. Useless for anyone with a significant library of music and who does not have a spare 250MB external disk. I'll back up my own files, thanks. Very poor configurability. Actually, none. Decided to go with another product. For anyone who uses apps that have large binary files it is unusable. Can anyone imagine running, say, an Oracle database with Time Machine turned on? Lunacy.

Well, ANY backup solution is useless unless the user has a storage location. You imply you don't have a disk to use for Time Machine backups, so I wonder what you're using with your third-party solution? If you prefer to back up to CDs or DVDs and keep them all organized manually, yeah, Time Machine isn't the tool for that. But there's probably so few people who actually back up that way - or if they do, could do a proper restore if needed - that it's not Apple's intent to offer a solution for them. Apple wants to help out the average home user who never even considered backups before. Connecting up a second drive and clicking the big on button, then using the restore interface when needed, is exactly what nearly every other Mac used needed.

Regarding the large iTunes library - I don't see why that would cause trouble with Time Machine. Again, we already established that a destination for the backups is required no matter what backup tool you use, so beyond that, a large music library is absolutely no issue with Time Machine. It gets backed up once, then any changes (new albums purchased/ripped, etc.) get backed up as well. Keep in mind that once a file is backed up, it's never backed up again unless it changes. Which probably doesn't happen very often with music files.

I'll grant you that certain large files don't lend themselves to a file-level backup tool like Time Machine. VM files, databases and mail archives (depending on what mail app you use) are the most common examples, I think. So yeah, you wouldn't want Time Machine to back up your 10gb VM that changes every day, nor your 5GB sales DB that changes every few minutes. But you can exclude those files within Time Machine and use a more appropriate tool. (Or for VMs, depending on your platform you can make use of undo/differencing disks that's excluded from Time Machine, so that the base VM disk only gets changes written to it when you decide to.)

 

[lugesm]

I am experiencing the same problem with MS Excel. Not a big deal, but somewhat annoying.

Received an auto update from MS for Office 2004 this AM, and the problem with Excel/Leopard appears to have been solved.

OOOPS.... jumped the gun. Further testing reveals that the problem is still there. On some spreadsheets I have to FORCE QUIT the MS Excel program. Dang ! ! !

 

[CavemanUK]

Mea culpa. Yes, indeed, Time Machine is configurable to the extent that you can exclude folders. But I am hesitant to use it and rely on it based on the overall robustness of 10.5. I'll wait for a few point releases and other more adventuresome folks.

I was also interested to note that a critical review of Apple seems to bring out the worst in some people. Replies to the contrary, this release is the least stable - for me - of any Mac OS X so far. All one has to do is look at the list of problems that people have experienced just on this forum. I think that speaks for itself. For those of you who haven't had a kernel panic or a laptop that appeared to go into never-never land, good for you.

- r

Is it fair for me to state that people who arent experiencing problems are probably NOT going to post so this forum doesnt really reflect the true percentage of people experiencing these issues against those who are not?

I know that answer doesnt help you and at the end of the day it sucks that yours doesnt work. But posts in forums dont mean its a severe problem for everyone.

All I can say is that if your experiencing problems and its convenient, go down to your local apple store and play hell!

 

[Alloye]

Replies to the contrary, this release is the least stable - for me - of any Mac OS X so far. All one has to do is look at the list of problems that people have experienced just on this forum. I think that speaks for itself.

Please keep in mind that the adoption rate for 10.5.0 is far greater than that of any prior version of OS X. Apple sold two million copies of Leopard in one weekend vs. five weeks for Tiger. That certainly increases the likelihood that more problems will be discovered in a shorter period of time.

Also, some of the "problems" reported here are mere nitpicks over eye-candy and/or strong opinions concerning the implementation of certain features. That's not to say there aren't any real issues. In fact, I'm 100% sure there are. But that alone doesn't support the conclusion that Leopard is inherently less stable than prior 10.x.0 releases since for some people - myself included - the opposite is true.

 

[mrdean2]

Time Machine Backups

Let's not forget that when you use Time Machine for backing up your system it only does a full backup once. After that point it only backs up changes/additions/deletions that have been made since the initial full-scale backup. Each progressive backup takes far less disk space on the external drive.

 

[tamvly]

apologia

I reread my original post ... and discovered to my chagrin that it was a bit too sarcastic. So I understand why a few people objected. Next time I'll stick more to the facts and eliminate the editorial stuff.

That being said ... I continue to think that Leopard is too buggy for general release. I installed the .1 release today in hope that the kernel panics on the G5 and the "black screen of death" on my MBP go away. Time will tell. Actually, given the number of posts and types of bugs I've seen reported by others, I feel relatively lucky that I have been mostly unscathed, notwithstanding the time it's taken to track down some of the more bizarre behaviors.

The posts on Time Machine have left me nervous at best. Clearly, it's a complicated endeavor. I plan on waiting for a long while to implement this and will continue to rely on manual backups that have always worked in the past. Perhaps I'm one of the few who consistently backs up my data; at least once a week.

I continue to believe that, with the exception of Mail, I see no performance improvements with Leopard, just the opposite. The G5 in particular seems more sluggish. I have no benchmarks to back this up, just anecdotal evidence.

To those of you who have experienced minor problems, or not at all .. terrific.

And to the person who thought my opinions stink ... de gustibus non est disputandum.

- robin