Leopard: a perfect 10?

Posted by Dennis Sellers Nov 27, 2007 at 5:23am

Mac OS X 10.5 (“Leopard”) has been, to say the least, a controversial release. However, Tom Yager, in reviewing it for Infoworld says it’s a “perfect 10” that “challenges users and developers to explore new and better ways of working.” Not everyone agrees with his prognosis.

Immediately after I bought Leopard, I lived dangerously—probably stupidly—and installed it via a Basic install (in other words, simply updating my system). I only had one problem and when I removed Jax, an US$49.95 iTunes plug-in from JoeSoft Engineeering, that problem disappeared (the folks at JoeSoft are working on an update).

However, I haven’t installed Leopard on my laptop because of reports that it may cause problems with some MacBooks and MacBook Pros, ranging from crashes to reduced battery times. Some developers also aren’t happy with Leopard’s Java support. Mac OS X 10.5 doesn’t support Java 6, and Apple hasn’t said when it might. And there are myriad other issues that have been reported, such as wireless connectivity problems, although I personally haven’t experienced ‘em (except for Safari 3 occasionally “freezing”).

Anyway, Yager loves Leopard. Here’s how his review concludes: “About eleven years ago, I wrote a column (in another publication) in response to letters I had received that called me to task for hailing the arrival of computers that were performance overkill for the majority of users. I wrote that the reason to look forward to the faster personal computer is that it would have the spare firepower and resources to look after itself, to stay out of the user’s way while being a microsecond away from answering any user demand, and to make sure that the user never has to do anything twice. That’s Leopard.”

And how has Mac OS X 10.5 fared in other reviews? Pretty well, overall.

CNET gives it an eight out of 10 and says: “Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is Apple’s first major operating system upgrade since Tiger more than two years ago. The changes include more than 300 new features, which, while not earth-shattering, further streamline the experience of using a Mac.”

Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal says: “t 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.”

David Pogue, writing for The New York Times: “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.”

Ed Baig of USA Today: “I migrated to Leopard from the last OS X version, Tiger, without pain on a MacBook laptop and my own iMac desktop; there’s mercifully none of the software driver and other hassles associated with a Windows operating system upgrade.”

Simson Garfinkel of Technology Review: “Visually stunning, OS 10.5—a.k.a. Leopard—is fast and stable, and it features a consistent set of powerful file-management tools familiar to anyone who has ever used iTunes. And unlike Microsoft Windows, which seems to grind slower with each successive release, OS 10.5 feels faster than 10.4 on the same hardware—provided that you have sufficient memory.”

Jason Snell of Macworld: “So are 300-plus new features worth $129? That answer will vary, because no single user will ever take advantage of all — or maybe even half — of those 300 features. But given the impressive value of Time Machine and improvements to existing programs such as iCal, iChat, Mail, and the Finder, most active Mac users will find more than enough reasons to consider that upgrade cost money well spent. Despite a few interface missteps, particularly when it comes the menu bar and the Dock, Leopard is an upgrade that roars.”

Paul Murphy of ZDNet: “First, the focus on user features led reviewers to miss almost all of the strategic implications. Thus not a single reviewer mentioned the change to Intel as both a key delay driver and a source of increased security concern; nobody mentioned decreased PPC performance as a consequence of x86 oriented kernel and compiler change; nobody mentioned the (apparent and surprising) lack of specific adaptations to the ARM architecture; and, I saw nobody discussing anything they saw in the feature set in relation to its role on the iPhone … What’s going on is that 10.5 is a mixed bag reflecting both short and long term agendas. In the short term it cleans up some x86 issues and offers some new user features raising the bar for Microsoft’s next effort -particularly with respect to time machine because this will be hard for Microsoft to duplicate while Apple’s adoption of ZFS means that all of the compexity here will disappear in the next release.
In the long term, however, what 10,.5 is about is positioning Apple’s application developers to jump to the integrated server/playphone world of the future—that’s why there’s so much Solaris and Java development stuff there.”

Fashmida Y. Rashid of ChannelWeb: “Just as Vista was a substantial upgrade to previous Windows operating systems, Leopard is a major alteration to the Mac OS. Like Vista, it includes updates to the integrated applications and attempted to improve its security features. Initial reports of Leopard have been fairly positive, but for this comparison Channel Test Center focused on usability features. Engineers were enthusiastic about Leopard’s sheer number of features and ability to do things in fewer dialog boxes than Vista. Where there were gaps between Windows and OS X, such as in networking, Leopard has closed them, and where previous versions of OS X did something well, Leopard has jumped ahead and established itself as the king of operating systems.”

As you can see, Leopard is garnering mostly positive reviews. However, there are enough glitches in it that I can’t give it a 10 out of 10. My rating: A 7.5 out of 10.

When it comes to Leopard, what score would you give it?


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