So yesterday was the big day. Apple released the upgrade to their operating system, Mac OS X v10.4 “Tiger.” As of 6pm last night, we now have OS X v10.5 “Leopard.” I pre-ordered Leopard about two weeks ago because I would not be available at 6pm on Friday to pick it up due to The Bridge. I mean, I’m not that much of a geek that I’d neglect the more important things to be one of the first in line to buy a new shiny product. The website said that if I pre-ordered, it would be delivered to my house on the 26th. And as a result, even though it was released at 6pm, I got my copy at 9:23am via FedEx. No, I was not waiting at the door, time clock in hand, counting down the minutes ’til Mr FedEx got here. I was at work and received an email from FedEx telling me that it was delivered and the time it was signed for. Very nice. So I came home on lunch and installed it on my MacBook Pro. Later that night, after The Bridge, a leader’s meeting, and some quality diner time, I came back home and installed it on my iMac. I did a clean wipe and install on the MacBook to get rid of all old files and generally tidy up the system I did an upgrade on the iMac as I didn’ t want to risk anything happening to my data on there, even though I over-backup my system.
Anyway, I have it running nicely on both machines. I must say it’s a beautiful system. There are little tweaks and enhancements and modifications all over the place (in fact there are over 300 of them) that add up to a really sweet OS.
I’ve just started using Spaces and I think I’m about to get addicted to them. They’re really sweet and so useful to maintain a clean desktop. It’s pretty easy to get used to the keystrokes to switch between spaces and to move and modify what programs are where in them.
iChat Theater is pretty awesome. The ability to show any file to the person on the other end is so cool and there are other little features included that make it pretty solid. You can now record your video chats directly in iChat. You can drag files over your video and select if you want to just send the person the file or show it in the Theaters. The background replacement is awesome, but you do need to be in front of a solid colored wall for it to work properly.
Time Machine is real nice. I tried it out a bit, and I think it will be a great way to maintain your files. As far as backup goes, I still like Mozy, since it’s off-site. For now I have Time Machine off until I get a dedicated 500Gb drive for it. I don’t want to fill up my media drives with backup data.
The UI is soooo pretty. So sleek and shiny and new. I love it. Cover Flow with Quick Look is a great way to view your files, though I do find myself switching back to some of the more traditional views in some instances. They did fix the problem with how the dock looked on the sides of the screens by making it a non-3D box. The regular dock, on the bottom of the screen is so nice looking, though, that I’, tempted to put it back on the bottom, but I’m so used to it on the side that it frustrates me to have it down there.
The new mail is really nice, though I haven’t yet played with the full extent of it’s capabilities. iCal has some new features, but noticeably has a new sleeker view for your calendar events. Everything looks sleeker and beautiful.
I have found a few little bugs, not necessarily with the OS, but with programs acting funny in the new environment. For example, I use Last.FM and Quicksilver all the time, and so I keep them out of my dock and only in my menu bar. Well, for some reason, the icons show in my dock all the time, and I can’t get them out. Other little apps, like SoundSource don’t work at all in Leopard. They’ve completely disappeared from my menu bar, though they are still on the system. I did have Keychain issues on my MacBook Pro, but I think they were my fault from trying to make the keychain do unnatural things. I’ve reset the Keychain on the MacBook and all seems well now.
So, I’ve been using it for about 24 hours now, and so far so good. Any issues are easily fixable with software updates, and so I’m not worried. Leopard seems pretty solid. I like it. We shall see if anything new develops over the next week or two of use.
And so I leave you with some random tweets I received yesterday all about Leopard. Enjoy:
thopex: “Und n”achste Woche hol ich mir dann den Leopard 🙂 (Note: I have no idea what this means, but the “Leopard” with the smiley at the end made me laugh)
cheapRoc: Happy Leopard day everyone! God bless our mother Apple and all her glory… Jobs be thy name…
thetwin314: OMG, Leopard!
rebelprince: iPhone sized line for Leopard. More cheering. Consumer as celebrity. Thoughts later, this is important.
frak: finally in leopard – w00t
erickyp: I am going to have to say goodbye & when I come back – my twitters will look like a Leopard
Anistar: 2 good things for the day: installing Leopard & Jess is ok… i can breathe
kevindente: Why do I get the feeling I’ll be reading nothing but Leopard reviews for the next week?
bblboy54: Twitter is apparently not able to hand the stress of the Leopard release.
williamhartz.com 