Mac OS X 'Leopard'-related Discussion

[Xero]

If the Dock didn't create a reflection for the icons, then old icons would look perfectly fine. The three prime examples being:

Transmit

Keynote

Trash

These all look fine on the 3D Dock until that reflection is added.

When you are right you are right, but leave it to them not to see the obvious. They say Microsoft went overboard with Aero, Apple went overboard with reflections (coverflow included)

[the evn show]

Coverflow perhaps the only one which really shows that Apple are not completely heartless. Instead of just ripping it off they decided to employee the guy that made it. Yeah I'm happy for him but what about the other developers?

Why should Apple (or any other company) purchase software that they could re-created better or cheaper by themselves?

[Fagutish]

Maybe im being too much of a sensationalist but has anyone else noticed the serious lack of quality thats going into Apple designs recently?

Prime Examples:

Leopard's Dock (making something already pretty cluttered..even more cluttered looking)

The "Plastic" Theme in general (wtf was wrong with 2nd revision Aqua anyway?)

iPod Nano 3g (aka Biggie Smalls)

i probably could cite more (like the iphone headphone jack/ipod 6g video output restrictions) but im just talking about aesthetics right now.

Apple is supposed to make stuff that looks good, works good, and ultimately makes you feel "comfortable" and the leopard interface changes are making customizablity worse (in some cases) and making the entire system define apple's Form over Function binge (if only the form was good enough to make up for the limited of function..)

anyway sorry for the rant but i needed to say it

Edit: spelling

[Quillz]

I disagree, I think Leopard looks very nice, and the Dock is only as cluttered as you make it. On Tiger, my Dock has five permanent icons, everything else is quickly launched with QuickSilver.

And the 3G nano is quite beautiful, you need to see it up close to appreciate it.

[Vice]

Why should Apple (or any other company) purchase software that they could re-created better or cheaper by themselves?

It's unethical to call someone else's idea and product a feature of your own operating system. Why should I pay for Leopard to get features I already have and a GUI I can already recreate?

I wanted to see some compelling features not what we have received. Tiger from Panther was a great step up. The features it had like Spotlight were a big thing. Core Image was huge. I feel that Leopard doesn't offer a big enough step over Tiger to warrant a purchase when some of its biggest features are already available for Free from 3rd party developers.

But as I said above this is a very small part of my issue with Leopard. The majority of my problems with it come from the very poor design choices. The layout is good but the icons, interface colours, the menu bar, the dock and even the folders are very poor and look like something you would see on to be honest an Open Source Linux project that has just made some concept imagery for people to salivate over without actually thinking about the usage.

[Chicane-UK Veteran]

I do see some elements of what Vice is saying. You certainly can't look at a current Leopard desktop and not draw comparisons with Vista. Its perhaps more ironic for Apple to do that given that they've lambasted Microsoft for doing that to them for years.

I can't really say at this point whether i'll like Leopard. They do seem to have gone a bit nuts on the reflections etc but they're all minor GUI tweaks.. frankly i'm only interested in knowing how well the system runs, how functional it is, how well it all works.. i'm slowly finding myself using Windows less and less now that i've finally got a powerful enough Macintosh and i'm enjoying it and if Leopard helps smooth that transition even further then great.

There are some killer features and for me Time Machine is something you'd consider paying like $50 for.. so the the new, refreshed OS is easily worth an additional $79 on top of that.. I still see OSX as one of the best value operating systems on the market. If I could buy a Linux distro with the finish and polish of OSX, i'd pay $129 for it. As it is, there simply is not one out there. And this isn't intended as a dig at Linux as i've been using it now for 10 years.. I love it and I love how far it has come, but it just doesn't have the feel and ease of use that OSX does obviously.

[Quillz]

I think the vastly improved Finder in Leopard alone may warrant a purchase. Yes, there are alternatives like Path Finder, but nothing beats having a powerful Finder built in. And even Path Finder doesn't work as seamlessly as the new Finder does when it comes to browsing local computers on your network. Unlike in Tiger, networked computers literally appear in Finder as if they were local external hard drives.

[Vice]

I do see some elements of what Vice is saying. You certainly can't look at a current Leopard desktop and not draw comparisons with Vista. Its perhaps more ironic for Apple to do that given that they've lambasted Microsoft for doing that to them for years.

I can't really say at this point whether i'll like Leopard. They do seem to have gone a bit nuts on the reflections etc but they're all minor GUI tweaks.. frankly i'm only interested in knowing how well the system runs, how functional it is, how well it all works.. i'm slowly finding myself using Windows less and less now that i've finally got a powerful enough Macintosh and i'm enjoying it and if Leopard helps smooth that transition even further then great.

There are some killer features and for me Time Machine is something you'd consider paying like $50 for.. so the the new, refreshed OS is easily worth an additional $79 on top of that.. I still see OSX as one of the best value operating systems on the market. If I could buy a Linux distro with the finish and polish of OSX, i'd pay $129 for it. As it is, there simply is not one out there. And this isn't intended as a dig at Linux as i've been using it now for 10 years.. I love it and I love how far it has come, but it just doesn't have the feel and ease of use that OSX does obviously.

You raise some really great points there. Mac OS X is good value for money when you consider the overall package. If your moving from another OS to Leopard that's great. I just cant see myself personally moving from Tiger to Leopard. If I was on Panther or Jaguar sure. Or even had a very old PPC Mac (G4 or lower Desktop or a G3 or lower Laptop) I would consider buying a new Mac after Leopard was released. I have to admit if Leopard runs a lot better then Tiger (For instance I know it has Dual Core optimisations for the first time it scales to more then 4 processors efficiently) then I'll simply have to switch as I have a Dual Core laptop and if the GUI is more responsive (Which I would really welcome) then maybe I can put the rest of my gripes behind.

And yes I agree $125 USD is a great price for Mac OS X especially compared to Windows Ultimate which is like 3x that price and in my opinion comes with the same if not less of a feature set. (Although I say the same about Vista to Tiger).

[Chicane-UK Veteran]

Well I will be buying it regardless. I've wanted a Mac for years and now i've got one I wanna actually enjoy paying for an OS upgrade, and be one of the people queueing at my closest Apple store on release day to see if I can score some freebies ;)

Totally underastand where you're coming from though. Its certainly not like Tiger is a bad system to be basing your upgrade decisions from.. Leopard is a pretty hard sell for someone already happy with their Tiger setup. But if you are, as you say, coming from a few versions back or from outside Mac ownership all together, it is a mighty tempting prospect.

[DrunkenMaster]

I think the vastly improved Finder in Leopard alone may warrant a purchase. Yes, there are alternatives like Path Finder, but nothing beats having a powerful Finder built in. And even Path Finder doesn't work as seamlessly as the new Finder does when it comes to browsing local computers on your network. Unlike in Tiger, networked computers literally appear in Finder as if they were local external hard drives.

I have a feeling that the Finder isn't much improved. I think it will still beach ball of death every so often and is still relatively non-functional compared to Path Finder (which is too big and bloated). I was hoping Apple would make a happy medium between the two. There's at least a few components I'd like to see fixed in the Finder.

IMO, one of the desktops that I see as having the most potential but falls abit on execution is Enlightenment DR17. I think there are some components there that Apple could use. Heck, I was trying it out on my only PC ... PII 300 and a 32 MB ATI card and it flies! If only my iMac G5 could do as much with 3 times the resources ....!

Overall, there's enough in Leopard to have me upgrade to the new OS - it'll make for a nice MP3 server. I'll put it next to my stereo system. I'm not sure about hardware. I'm waiting to see if they're still willing to release a cheaper Mac Pro ... or if I make enough $$$ in the next 6 months to budget for a Mac Pro.

[.Neo]

Also about Apple locking down stuff in the OS. It's my opinion that they shouldn't be locking down anything. Anything in the OS can be used incorrectly to create an unstable environment if your going to sell me Milk let me see the Cow it came from.

In that case use Linux. Apple offers an OS that is secure and can't be compromised by any random 3rd party application that likes to use system frameworks beyond their original purpose.

Like I said earlier Mac OS X Leopard will have enough public frameworks that can be used for advanced animations for user interfaces without hacking into critical system processes.

[Vice]

I already use Linux but thanks for the advice.

[.Neo]

Sure, no problem.

[iSimx]

If the Dock didn't create a reflection for the icons, then old icons would look perfectly fine. The three prime examples being:

Transmit

Keynote

Trash

These all look fine on the 3D Dock until that reflection is added.

ahh - now that you've pointed that out, thats really annoying. Do you think they will be changing that?? surely they can't leave it like that??

[.Neo]

Not sure if they'll fix it in those two or three weeks. :/

[Rudy]

Not sure if they'll fix it in those two or three weeks. :/

im starting to get the feeling it will be like vista and will end up being a "work in progress"

[.Neo]

im starting to get the feeling it will be like vista and will end up being a "work in progress"

I honestly can't be too bothered about the Dock reflection. Overal the Finder and applications look great and polished.

[iSimx]

^ but usually apple has been known for detail and thats what makes it a great looking product. Paying attention to detail.

[.Neo]

^ but usually apple has been known for detail and thats what makes it a great looking product. Paying attention to detail.

And they did. Basically every icon has updated 16x16, 32x32, 256x256 and 512x512 pixel states where they paid great attention to detail. Basically all applications have been redesigned to share the same Unified look and window layout. The overal UI is much more polished and consistant than Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger has been the past 2,5 years.

[iSimx]

^ agree and looking forward very much so to getting it.

[Xero]

The Leopard UI is more consistent, but not more polished, it looks far "cheaper" than Tiger did. Now Neo will most definitely disagree with me and some others will too, but comparing them side by side you will notice the difference in quality. Granted its not a train wreck or anything, but it definitely shows someone different is working on its GUI this time around. As for the statement regarding it being like Vista, thats a bit much, Leopard will be a prime OS as far as functionality and programs go, its GUI will be the work in progress imo. I like the direction they are going but they didn't quite make it yet and it certainly shows. Only downside is Apple has never really updated the theme of a Mac OS release, so don't count on it changing much until 10.6, but its very obvious whoever is doing the new work isn't as critical for every fine detail as the previous designer was. Pixel perfectionists will be upset by this, but the average person won't. I just hope they finish the resolution independence as that was one feature I was really looking forward to.

Btw the new nano is quite nice in person, in pictures especially dead on, it looks terrible, like a big crappy photoshop bevel, in your hand its quite different.

And simxx17, welcome to the team in October, I'm picking myself up a nice fully loaded 24" iMac once Leopard is released. Coming from Windows your going to love the Mac OS, best OS I've ever used, Linux might be more advanced (as they would say) but Mac OS is far far more user friendly. Just remember to make your "shortname" with capitals as you can't change it (easily), and you see it in every finder window, just a little pet peeve of mine.

[iSimx]

^^ thanks alot! ;) and I'll take your advice!

[Fagutish]

i dont know about resolution independence coming in a patch update... its not very often a 10.x.x update brings features in..

that being said i dont use the resolution independence features of vista so i dont really care but just my feeling is that this feature might not be coming

[xfodder]

vista doesn't have resolution independent features as far as i know, and i auto-hide my dock and rarely use it so im not really muffed with it ... using spotlight to launch apps is easy, so the dock has been kinda useless for me since 10.4

will i upgrade to leopard? heck yes ... at least we don't have a vista on our hands. if anything is left 'unpolished' its probably because of the time it took to make os x resolution independent.

[crazzyyfool]

MacScoop are now reporting that Leopard 9A559 is infact Final Candidate.