Apple's Leopard Arrives With Over 300 New Features (10/26/07

[DudeAsInCool]

You can check them out HERE in advance.

[NelsonG]

i wanna try it! :)

[DudeAsInCool]

Info World raves about Leopard:

Apple's announcement of the impending delivery of OS X Leopard (release 10.5 of Mac and Xserve operating systems) marks the public debut of an engineering achievement that dwarfs iPhone, iPod, Windows, and Linux.

Read More

[DudeAsInCool]

Take the Guided Tour

[DudeAsInCool]

David Pogue at the NYTimes takes a look at Leopard - here are a few excerpts:

• Time Machine keeps multiple backups of everything — programs, settings, files, photos, even the operating system itself — on a second hard drive (or another Leopard Mac on the network). The need for a second drive is a drag, but it’s a necessary evil. Besides, hard drives are cheap; you can buy an internal 250-gigabyte one for $75.

• Quick Look lets you tap the Space bar to view the contents of a document’s icon at full size, right at the desktop, without having to open the program that created it. It works with most common file types — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, HTML, Apple’s iWork suite, text files, photos, music, movies, fonts and so on — and it’s fantastic.

• Another is called Spaces, which gives you up to 16 full-size virtual monitors. You can park the windows of a different program, activity or project on each one — e-mail and chat on Screen 1, Photoshop on Screen 2 — and switch among all these “external monitors” at will. An ingenious map view lets you drag these virtual screens around in space, and even drag open windows between screens.

• A more polished Boot Camp lets you restart current Mac models in Windows. Screen sharing, over the network or the Internet, lets gurus assist newbies from afar. Web Clips lets you capture a rectangular region of any Web page and save it as a self-updating fixture on your desktop — great for best-seller lists, top headlines or most-watched video sections. The Dictionary program can now search Wikipedia.

• The iChat text/voice/video chat program now lets you use a photo or a movie as a backdrop when you’re videoconferencing — like a blue-screen effect but without the blue screen. It also lets you display documents, presentations or movies to your videoconferencing buddies.

¶ And invisibility mode lets you see who else is online, but they can’t see — or bother — you.

• Leopard is powerful, polished and carefully conceived. Happy surprises, and very few disappointments, lie around every corner. This Leopard has more than 300 new spots — and most of them are bright ones."

Read the full review HERE

[Shawn]

300 new features?

Tonight Microsoft dines in hell!

[DudeAsInCool]

Walt Mossberg of the Wallstreet Journal takes a look at Leopard - here are some of the key features he reviewed:

'On Friday evening, Apple will release yet another new version of OS X, called Leopard, to replace the current version, known as Tiger. I've been testing Leopard, and while it is an evolutionary, not a revolutionary, release, I believe it builds on Apple's quality advantage over Windows. In my view, Leopard is better and faster than Vista, with a set of new features that make Macs even easier to use.

Leopard will come preinstalled on all new Macs. It can also be purchased for $129 as an upgrade to existing Macs that, depending on configuration, can be as many as six years old. Unlike Vista, which is sold in four noncorporate upgrade versions ranging from a $100 stripped-down "basic" edition to a $259 deluxe "ultimate" edition, there's only one version of Leopard. It includes all the features, from those aimed at novices to those aimed at power users.

For me, the marquee features in Leopard are a new function called Time Machine that automatically backs up your entire computer in the background; two new methods, called Cover Flow and Quick Look, for rapidly viewing the contents of files without opening any programs; and new techniques that allow you to access the files in, and to remotely control, other computers on your network or connected over the Internet with a few clicks and no technical expertise.

Plus, Apple's free software for running Windows on a Mac, called Boot Camp, which was formerly an add-on users had to download and install, is now built right into the operating system. And, in my tests, the third-party Fusion program for running Windows and Mac programs simultaneously continued to work fine in Leopard.

File management: Apple's Finder, the equivalent of Explorer in Windows, now offers two new ways to quickly see what your files contain. You can still view them as icons or lists. But you can also use Cover Flow, the same system Apple uses in iTunes and on the iPhone to display album covers for music.

Time Machine: This built-in feature will continuously back up all of the contents of your Mac to either an external hard drive directly connected to the computer, or to a hard disk connected to another Mac running Leopard that's on your network.

Shared computers: In Leopard, any computer that has been set to be shared on your network shows up on the left side of every Finder window.

Remote control: For any Mac in your shared-computers list for which you have permission, you can take over the screen by simply clicking on a button called "Share Screen."

Stacks displays the files in folders in the dock.

iChat: Apple now allows you to use its instant messaging program with Google Talk as well as AOL's AIM service, and you can set up a video chat in which you can present a slide show or display a document.

Spaces: In order to cut down desktop clutter, Leopard lets you set up as many as 16 different desktops that can run simultaneously, with different programs open in each. You switch among these desktops by using keyboard commands or a menu.

Read the full review

[DudeAsInCool]

Gizmodo is doing a live blog as it takes a look at Leopard - you can check it out HERE.

And there is more info at Engadget

[DudeAsInCool]

CNet's Editors give Leopard and 8.0:

The good: Elegant backup via Time Machine; Finder offers powerful navigation tweaks; novel workspace customization through Spaces' virtual desktops; integration with Web data and applications; Cover Flow visualizes file browsing; iChat Theater offers green-screen backgrounds and lets users access each others' desktops; Bootcamp included.

The bad: Some new features, such as geotagging, aren't obvious to find; users with older Macs can't run Leopard.

The bottom line: The grace of Leopard's interface enhancements makes productivity more pleasurable with a Mac, as more than 300 functional and fun features top off this update.

Read the full review HERE

[DudeAsInCool]

CNet's Editors give Leopard and 8.0:

The good: Elegant backup via Time Machine; Finder offers powerful navigation tweaks; novel workspace customization through Spaces' virtual desktops; integration with Web data and applications; Cover Flow visualizes file browsing; iChat Theater offers green-screen backgrounds and lets users access each others' desktops; Bootcamp included.

The bad: Some new features, such as geotagging, aren't obvious to find; users with older Macs can't run Leopard.

The bottom line: The grace of Leopard's interface enhancements makes productivity more pleasurable with a Mac, as more than 300 functional and fun features top off this update.

Read the full review HERE

[DudeAsInCool]

Apple Insider takes a look at Safari:

"Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has two audiences: those who already own a Mac and are interested in upgrading their experience, and new buyers investigating a Mac purchase. This review series is designed primarily toward Mac users looking to upgrade but includes notes of interest to new Mac buyers as well. This segment provides a 2-page introduction to Leopard's overall features and an introduction of the desktop, with real world usage notes about its peculiarities so you can decide if Leopard (and the Mac) is right for you."

Read the full review right HERE.

[DudeAsInCool]

PC Mag:

'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, 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.'

Read More

Check Out Screen Shots Of Safari In Action