Apple OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
REVIEW DATE: 10.25.07
by Edward Mendelson
After three intense days with Apple's Mac OS X Leopard Version 10.5, I have three main things to say about it. First: despite minor problems,
it's by far the best operating system ever written for the vast majority of consumers, with dozens of new features that have real practical value—like truly automated backups, document and spreadsheet preview images in folders, and notes and to-do lists integrated into the mail program. Propeller-heads with IT know-how will no doubt hold up Linux as the better choice, and Vista has its devotees as well (and will probably have more when SP1 is widely available), but,
for the average user, Leopard is the most polished and easiest to use OS I've tested. Second: Leopard still has a generous share of first-version glitches, some of which are merely annoying, and others of which can cause serious problems for anyone upgrading an existing system. Finally, Leopard is extravagantly overdressed for the jobs that it's designed to do. Don't get me wrong, I really like it but the pervasive eye-candy starts out looking dazzling can become distracting.
Let's take these three points in order. The first is by far the most important one.
I found Leopard to be startlingly fast, brilliantly streamlined, and packed with conveniences and innovations. Leopard's rich set of built-in software runs faster than I imagined possible. The rebuilt Finder (the OS X counterpart of Windows Explorer) displays thumbnail or full-size previews of most standard file types—not only graphics images, but also videos, PDF and Word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more. A new Quick Look feature let me page through documents without waiting for them to open in an application. The Cover Flow feature in the Finder lets you flip through preview images of documents the same way iTunes flips through album-covers. I expected this feature to be sluggish, but it isn't. While you're browsing through previews, pressing on the spacebar opens a document in its own application.
The new Spaces feature finally offers a multiple-desktop interface that actually works without getting in my way. The feature looks like the multiple desktop feature that's been available either as an add-on or built-in with all modern operating systems, but it actually sets up multiple groups of application windows (each group is a "space") which jump in and out of the desktop when you choose a "space" from a toolbar icon or by pressing a hotkey—but the dock and background icons remain the same for all groups. I set up four separate application groups—though I could have chosen as many as sixteen—and assigned Mail and a separate RSS reader to one, Safari and Dreamweaver to another, and Preview and Photoshop to a third. It was easy use the keyboard or mouse to switch application groups, drag links from one "space" to another, or view a miniature image of all "spaces" at once.
With Leopard, networking among home or office computers is finally effortless—at least at first glance. After a day or two of testing, things started going wrong. At first, Leopard instantly discovered all the other Windows and Mac machines in my home network and put shortcuts to them in the Finder's sidebar. Furthermore, I found networking settings a pleasure to use, partly because of a new all-in-one interface, partly because Leopard did most of the work for me. But then networking with Windows machines began to turn flaky. Leopard sometimes didn't see my Windows machines until I logged out and in again, and then would instantly connect to one Windows machine but report "Connection failed" with another. I needed to restart the Mac before networking sorted itself out again.
In earlier OS X versions, I always found it hard to find the deeply-buried setting where I could enter the name of my Windows workgroup. In Leopard, I simply entered "workgroup" in the search box of the System Preferences program, and Leopard highlighted the icon where the setting was located, and even opened the correct dialog box for me.
Leopard's built-in backup system, Time Machine, works automatically to create full backups of a system, so, for the first time, I was able to create automatically-updated backups of my whole system without buying complex third-party software. All I needed to do was plug in a USB or Firewire external drive and click OK in a pop-up dialog box to start the automatic backup process. The intuitive interface lets me restore file versions from earlier today or—after I've used Leopard for a while—any time in the past.
This is a completely different system from Vista's "Previous Versions" which are saved (by default) on the same disk with the current version of a file, and can't be rescued if your disk goes south—and Vista's "Previous Versions" can't do anything for you if you need to restore your entire system. (Don't get Vista's new "Previous Versions" feature confused with the "System Restore" feature that Vista inherited from Windows XP: System Restore lets you roll back the operating system to a previous state—if you're lucky, because it often doesn't work as promised—but doesn't restore your documents to an earlier state. You run System Restore by running the System Restore application, while you access the Previous Versions feature by right-clicking on a document icon, choosing Properties, and going to the Previous Versions tab.)
For the past few years, I've found Apple's Mail program to be more flexible than Windows-based mail programs, but also slower than it should be. The new Mail version in Leopard gives me all the speed I want, plus a nifty new Notes feature that lets me create a yellow-pad style note that automatically gets saved to my inbox. I also like the To-Do feature that lets me select some text in a message and create an entry in a To-Do list that links back to the original message.
Other built-in programs in Leopard get features that used to be in third-party software only. I was always frustrated by the fact that OS X's Preview program could open PDF files more quickly than Adobe Acrobat – but then couldn't do much with them. Preview still runs quickly, but now lets me resize images and reorder pages in PDFs. Also, Leopard enhances everyday features like printing by including a print preview in the print dialog. All setup procedures are smoother than ever, and easily available in System Preferences, so you don't have to hunt down obscure setup programs like Directory Access or Internet Connect—which no longer exist and won't be missed by anyone.
I've been using remote desktop-access software for years on Windows machines, but none has been as simple and quick as the one in Leopard. When I access the desktop of another Leopard machine on my network, the remote desktop fills my screen, together with a small picture-in-picture-style image of my own desktop. I can drag files between the remote desktop and the image of my own desktop, while a flashing red light alerts the user of the remote desktop that we're sharing control of the remote user's machine.
My second point—that Leopard has its share of first-version glitches—is worth keeping in mind. There aren't a huge number of them but you might want to wait until Apple releases its first update and more before third-party customization utilities become available.
For example, one of the much-touted new features in Leopard is "Stacks"—spring-loaded icons on the OS X Dock that pop-up to display thumbnail images of recent downloads (now saved by default to a Downloads folder, as in Vista) or of the contents of any other folder you want. You can click on a thumbnail and open the file immediately. This feature looks terrific, and prevents your desktop from getting cluttered with downloads, but Apple should have put more work into it. You open a stack by clicking its icon in the Dock – but the icon isn't a special icon that you can recognize in a glance. It's merely the icon for the first item in the stack. So your Downloads stack doesn't display an icon that shouts "Downloads" (for example, an arrow pointing down to a disk) but simply the icon of the most recently downloaded file. You can force the stacks to list icons in alphabetical order, but this doesn't solve the problem; it simply makes some other arbitrary icon appear instead. This feature could use an overhaul.
Other features work well in some situations but not others. For example, one of the new features in iChat lets you use custom backgrounds in video chats, so you seem to be setting in front of the Eiffel Tower or the surface of the moon. This effect works perfectly when someone demonstrates it in the Apple Store, but may not work as well at home. The wall behind me when I sit at my desk is filled with books, and the mix of colors on the shelves left iChat totally confused when it tried to mask the bookshelf, with the result that random blank rectangles appeared across my face. I didn't appreciate what this did to my looks.
Among other minor glitches, the Cover Flow and thumbnail-preview feature was surprisingly clumsy when listing files on Windows machines, because it didn't recognize many standard file types. For example, Leopard identified both a Windows Address Book export file and a Word 2003 backup file as "Unix executable files" and displayed a generic Unix-file icon for each. This didn't do any harm, but it didn't inspire confidence in Apple's testing procedures. Another, temporary, glitch occurred when Leopard simply stopped showing thumbnail images for newly-created files, and simply showed generic icons instead. I cured this glitch by logging out and logging in again, and it hasn't repeated itself.
One problem that looked more alarming than it actually was occurred when I used Leopard's ability (shared with Vista) to resize disk partitions without shutting down or losing data. After I used the Disk Utility to resize my boot partition from 300 to 200 GB and create a 100 MB partition in the empty space, the Utility displayed a disk map that made the larger partition look as if it were one-fourth the size of the smaller one. This mistake appeared in the graphical map only, not in the numbers that the utility displayed for the size of each disk. Still, it was a scary experience because my data would have been at risk if the operating system was confused about the size of my disks—instead of what was really a glitch in drawing a map.
Unsurprisingly, except for this Disk Utility glitch, Leopard worked almost perfectly on a shiny new iMac that Apple lent me for a week, but some owners of older machines who upgrade to Leopard from the 10.4 "Tiger" version of OS X report problems ranging from software incompatibilities to lockups while upgrading. Many software-compatibility issues seem to be fixable by updating older programs to more-recent versions, and the lockup during an upgrade seems to be caused by a third-party add-in called Application Enhancer; it is easy to remove, but you'll need access to a computer with Internet access to find the solution. If you're thinking of upgrading, I strongly urge you to scan the forums at sites such macrumors.com before you click the OK button in the installer.
My second point—that Leopard has its share of first-version glitches—is worth keeping in mind. There aren't a huge number of them but you might want to wait until Apple releases its first update and more before third-party customization utilities become available.
For example, one of the much-touted new features in Leopard is "Stacks"—spring-loaded icons on the OS X Dock that pop-up to display thumbnail images of recent downloads (now saved by default to a Downloads folder, as in Vista) or of the contents of any other folder you want. You can click on a thumbnail and open the file immediately. This feature looks terrific, and prevents your desktop from getting cluttered with downloads, but Apple should have put more work into it. You open a stack by clicking its icon in the Dock – but the icon isn't a special icon that you can recognize in a glance. It's merely the icon for the first item in the stack. So your Downloads stack doesn't display an icon that shouts "Downloads" (for example, an arrow pointing down to a disk) but simply the icon of the most recently downloaded file. You can force the stacks to list icons in alphabetical order, but this doesn't solve the problem; it simply makes some other arbitrary icon appear instead. This feature could use an overhaul.
Other features work well in some situations but not others. For example, one of the new features in iChat lets you use custom backgrounds in video chats, so you seem to be setting in front of the Eiffel Tower or the surface of the moon. This effect works perfectly when someone demonstrates it in the Apple Store, but may not work as well at home. The wall behind me when I sit at my desk is filled with books, and the mix of colors on the shelves left iChat totally confused when it tried to mask the bookshelf, with the result that random blank rectangles appeared across my face. I didn't appreciate what this did to my looks.
Among other minor glitches, the Cover Flow and thumbnail-preview feature was surprisingly clumsy when listing files on Windows machines, because it didn't recognize many standard file types. For example, Leopard identified both a Windows Address Book export file and a Word 2003 backup file as "Unix executable files" and displayed a generic Unix-file icon for each. This didn't do any harm, but it didn't inspire confidence in Apple's testing procedures. Another, temporary, glitch occurred when Leopard simply stopped showing thumbnail images for newly-created files, and simply showed generic icons instead. I cured this glitch by logging out and logging in again, and it hasn't repeated itself.
One problem that looked more alarming than it actually was occurred when I used Leopard's ability (shared with Vista) to resize disk partitions without shutting down or losing data. After I used the Disk Utility to resize my boot partition from 300 to 200 GB and create a 100 MB partition in the empty space, the Utility displayed a disk map that made the larger partition look as if it were one-fourth the size of the smaller one. This mistake appeared in the graphical map only, not in the numbers that the utility displayed for the size of each disk. Still, it was a scary experience because my data would have been at risk if the operating system was confused about the size of my disks—instead of what was really a glitch in drawing a map.
Unsurprisingly, except for this Disk Utility glitch, Leopard worked almost perfectly on a shiny new iMac that Apple lent me for a week, but some owners of older machines who upgrade to Leopard from the 10.4 "Tiger" version of OS X report problems ranging from software incompatibilities to lockups while upgrading. Many software-compatibility issues seem to be fixable by updating older programs to more-recent versions, and the lockup during an upgrade seems to be caused by a third-party add-in called Application Enhancer; it is easy to remove, but you'll need access to a computer with Internet access to find the solution. If you're thinking of upgrading, I strongly urge you to scan the forums at sites such macrumors.com before you click the OK button in the installer.
Regarding my third point—Leopard's excess eye-candy—your opinion may differ from mine, but I think it is just little too much flash. Apple seems to load OS X with graphics effects for the same reason it ships its computers with the screens set to maximum brightness—because it's easier to sell bright-looking objects. Back at home, the excess brightness gives me a headache, and the glut of graphic effects are distracting when I'm trying to get anything done. I found Leopard's new reflecting-glass 3D Dock fun to look at for five minutes, but Leopard didn't offer me the option to get a less distracting no-glass 2D dock—unless I moved the dock to the side of the screen, where it automatically switched to the more sober 2D display. Fortunately, expert users have found a way to toggle the 3D reflective effects by running a terminal command, and a quick visit to macosxhints.com led me to some foolproof Applescripts that gave me the less-distracting dock I wanted.
There's a similar 3-D reflective effect in the Finder's Cover Flow preview display. Apple insists that this doesn't affect performance, and, as far as I can tell, Apple seems to be right. None the less, I would prefer to turn off the distracting mirror-images that appear on the "shelf" below preview images, but there doesn't seem to be any way to achieve this—at least not yet.
If you're in the market for a new machine, it's time to look seriously at a Mac, especially now that all Macs can run Windows along with OS X through the built-in Boot Camp feature that lets you install Windows and Leopard in separate partitions. Even better, third-party software from Parallels or Vmware make it possible to run a Windows program in a window on the OS X desktop. It's even possible to set up OS X so that Word documents automatically open in the Windows version of Microsoft Word. I'm going to wait until early 2008 before buying a new Mac, however, because I want to use the Mac-native version of Microsoft Office in its forthcoming 2008 version, and because I want to restrain my Leopard-envy until Apple releases an update or two.
If you're thinking of upgrading an existing Mac, I would definitely plan on doing exactly that, but, again, I plan to wait until early next year. If, like me, you still use one or two "Classic" applications on a Power PC-based Mac ("Classic" has never worked on newer Intel Macs), be warned that Leopard won't let you run Classic applications even on Power PC machines. My advice to potential upgraders is to find a cheap, bootable external hard disk (you probably already have one) and install Leopard on it, and use it to boot your existing Mac. I did this with my two-year-old Mac, and I've been able to experiment with my existing applications to find any incompatibilities so that I don't get any nasty surprises after an upgrade.
Leopard again raises the question of whether to switch from Windows to a Mac. I've found Vista to be a major disappointment that tends to look worse the more I use it. I still use Windows XP for getting serious work done in long, complicated documents. But OS X is easier to manage and maintain and I vastly prefer OS X to Windows for Web-browsing, mail, and especially for any task that involves graphics, music, or video. Leopard performs all such tasks even better than previous versions did—and
Leopard is the only OS on the planet that works effortlessly and intuitively in today's world of networked computers and peripherals. Leopard is far from perfect, but it's better than any alternative, and
it's getting harder and harder to find good reasons to use anything else.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2207556,00.asp
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