I recently asked about how to upgrade a friend’s G3 from OS 8.6 to OS X 10.3.9. (I didn’t get an answer here, but I got some information elsewhere. I still don’t know if he can upgrade using the discs that I have.) One problem with doing this is that I’ll need to get OS X 10.3.9 off of my iMac before he can legally upgrade with my software. Only my PowerBook G4 is running my copy of 10.4.9, so I can’t put it on the iMac… yet.
In October Apple will release OS X 10.5 Leopard. Is anyone looking forward to it? I looked at the ‘sneak preview’. The mail seems kind of nifty, in that you can choose stationery and easily put your own photos into the template. Not that I’d use it a lot, but I can think of times when it would be nice. iChat apparently has some new features, but I don’t use iChat anyway. I don’t have the time or inclination to chat without a camera, let alone with one. The backdrop feature and effects are cool though. Spaces? Not really sure how I’d use it. Time Machine allows you to find and restore things on your system that you have deleted. That can be very useful. I’ve used something like that before. On a PC I bought in 2001! The Gateway machine had (or mayby still has – I don’t use the PC anymore) Gateway Go-Back, which allowed the user to restore his computer from any date. Apple seems to be a bit behind the times here. (Maybe there’s something like Time Machine already, only not bundled into the OS. I haven’t looked.)
Overall, my impression of Leopard form the sneak peek is that it has some shiny things in it that will appeal to teens and geeks, but which really don’t do much for the average user. What do you think?
It’s not floating my boat. 10.4 is doing just fine on the iMac, but the PowerBook could stand an update as it’s running 10.3, and eBay keeps whining that it doesn’t have a current browser, but that’s the only even remotely compelling reason I’d buy it. The rest, as you say, is just some shiny fluff.
I’m very much looking forward to Time Machine, especially as I just finally bought a big external harddrive for backups and whatnot. Other than that, I haven’t seen anything in 10.5 that I really need. I’m sure there’ll be small improvements that aren’t getting noted yet.
As you sort of say, there has always been backup software that does what Time Machine does, but not as part of the OS. Going by Apple’s track record with random stuff like that being part of OS X, it’ll probably work easily and intuitively with the rest of the OS.
When Apple revealed Leopard last year, they said that there were some “top-secret features” that they were not ready to reveal just yet. Who knows what those will be…
However, out of what is publicly known at the moment, I don’t see anything that would make me rush to upgrade.
I’m a little annoyed with Apple at the moment. I upgraded to 10.4.8 a while back and it totally f***ed my wireless network. So I downgraded to 10.4.7 and am waiting a good while before I upgrade to 10.4.9, let alone Leopard.
Time Machine seems pretty cool, but everything else looks like window dressing that isn’t make-or-break for me.
I thought Leopard is supposed to have the multiple-desktop feature seen in lots of Linux distributions. If so, that would be nice, as I have always hated the way the Mac OS handles windows. It’d be nice if they’d make all corners and sides draggable as well. Why they insist on giving you just one corner, I have no idea.
Yep, that’s the aforementioned “Spaces”… their version of the multiple desktops. I’m a web designer, so I frequently have Photoshop running, several Finder windows, a couple of browsers, and an FTP client running at the same time. Spaces is going to be awesome for me to help me manage it.
Time Machine will also be fantastic, as backing up is not my strong suit. Time Machine will make it easy to do.
There’s also rumors of a uniform interface… more like iTune’s, less of the brushed metal look in Finder. I hope this is true, as that brushed metal is looking quite dated at the moment.
I think Time Machine would be different from the “Gateway Go-Back” feature in that Time Machine is supposed to have a very intuitive graphical interface. Plus it’s integrated into the OS, I have never in all of my years working with PCs seen anything similar, so if it existed, it wasn’t a common thing.
Another nice feature of Leopard will be a more solid version of Bootcamp for those people who will be intending on running Windows as a second OS on their systems. Bootcamp is still in Beta now as far as I know.
I haven’t seen any screenshots of Spaces but it sounds like it will be a very useful feature. Right now when I’m trying to copy and paste between two windows I’m always clicking on the wrong window piece and all of a sudden something like iTunes will pop up and cover my screen when I was trying to paste between my web browser and my e-mail window.
I actually use Spotlight pretty often and there might be some enhancements to the Spolight search.
Yes, I’m definitely looking forward to it. But then I’m one of those suckers that always gets the new Macintosh OS when it comes out.
You may be interested in Uno. Works great, though with some windows, the draggable top of the window is not visually distinct from the window body. That’s been my only complaint, and it’s a tiny one.
Me too. I couldn’t get my HP 3520 printer to work on the AirPort. I thought it might just be too old, so I bought a new 4150 over the weekend. It doesn’t work either. I got an email this morning from HP (who doesn’t support Mac with online chat) with some suggestions, but I won’t be able to try them until the weekend. Considering Apple’s reputation for being easy, I really think they should work on their AirPort printer support.