Leopard goes on sale today—and early reviews are good
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Oct 26, 2007 at 2:04am
Mac OS X 10.5 (“Leopard”) goes on sale today at 6 pm at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. Apple says it has over 300 new features, all for US$129. Reviews from those who received advance previews have ranged from good to great.
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.”
Telegraph: “Leopard represents evolution rather than revolution. Given that its predecessor, Tiger, was widely considered to be one of the most stable and cutting-edge operating systems, is there a good reason to upgrade? It depends what you’re looking for: if you’re a Mac devotee, you’ve probably already placed your pre-order; if you’re a disgruntled Windows user or looking to buy a new computer, Apple’s machines are worth a look, especially with Leopard pre-installed. You can buy one safe in the knowledge that you can dual-boot Vista or XP on your laptop while experimenting with the look and feel of a very different operating system. If you own a Mac and are running an older operating system, there’s no need to rush to upgrade if your computer is working smoothly. Leopard’s new features are compelling and largely a success, but you won’t miss out if you wait a while to make the leap.”
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. Leopard was pre-installed on an iMac that Apple provided for testing.”
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.”
Pocket-lint: “So should you upgrade? At £80 there is plenty here to justify the expense and unlike going from Windows to Vista the experience isn’t anywhere near as bad or confusing … In the couple of days we’ve been playing with the new OS we’ve had no issues with any applications not working and noticed a minor speed increase in applications opening, which is always nice, and more emphasis on warning you something is about to happen in the same way as Vista does. It’s not as forced on you and you can easily turn it off, but its clear Apple are trying to make it easier for new users.”
On Saturday morning we’ll be running photos from various Leopard launch parties.
John Says:
My comment is more of a frown. I ordered one media set and 15 licenses this week directly from Apple Higher Ed. I got notice today (Sat) that my 15 licenses shipped, but that my DVD media with the software won’t ship until November 5th! I have to wait another week and a half?
Posted on October 27, 2007
Rick Says:
1. The default download folder is a good idea, but if you don’t like it, you can change it back to the Desktop of whereever you like from the Safari preferences menu item.
2. Certain applications with weird installs will always have problems with upgrades like this (the Cisco VPN is a classic example). You’ll likely have to reinstall to get it to work. I’d hold off on drivers like Wacom until you know that it is Leopard ready from the vendor.
3. If you don’t want Time Machine to back up a certain part of your hard drive, you can specify it in the Time Machine system preference. So if you need a secure delete that won’t come back, just keep those files in your specific folders that Time Machine will ignore.
Posted on October 27, 2007
Article Information
Comment on this Article Print this Article Email this Article Digg This
Contributor
Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
Mostly Good, Some Not So Says:
The lady from FedEx dropped my copy off about 11am, so I have had some time with the new setup. A few quick hits I haven’t seen elsewhere.
1-The OS feels faster than 10.4 on both desktop and laptop Intel Macs. I haven’t messed with any PPCs yet.
2-If you are using ClamX AV software, part or all of it will disappear with an upgrade installation. My iMac lost the scanning engine and the laptop lost the entire app. Wacom tablet drivers also pull a Houdini.
3-I HATE the default download folder. It’s the answer to the question nobody I know was asking and adds steps to my workflow. I have yet to see/hear any tips as to how to turn it off. Note to Apple- let me default downloads to the desktop if I choose to. The translucent menu bar is very distracting and the new folders are Microsoft Cheeze Whiz ugly. I guess I will have to buy a 3rd party app to undo Apple’s tasteless changes to something that wasn’t broken.
4-Time Machine is a no-go for the time being. Until I can make a file truly delete- it’s an insecure system. With Time Machine a secure empty trash file can easily be restored. Otherwise, with TM, you have no true secure removal of files from your system. This is quite a faux pas for users in healthcare, legal and other arenas that need true privacy protection for their files.
Posted on October 26, 2007