Mac OS X Leopard

Mac OS X Leopard came out in Late 2007, and there’s been many upgrades to it ever since. It is now at 10.5.6, and it seems appropriate to give a review of Leopard in general.

Leopard introduces a new look to Mac OS X, finally changing the look that came out with the original release of Mac OS X. A large number of new looks have been added to Leopard, such as the reflective 3D dock and the transparent menubar. Also, the new OS has a unified theme, unlike before when there was a combination of metal, white, and grey colors.

The new 3D dock is of much debate amongst Mac OS X users. Many users are familiar with Tiger’s old 2D dock and prefer it over the 3D one, and have complained a lot to Apple about bringing it back. However, it remains a 3D dock. 

New features of the dock include stacks, and, as of Mac OS X 10.5.3, list view. In Tiger, you could drag a folder to the right side of the dock and when you right click on that, it pops up a list with whatever is inside the stack. This feature was introduced after many complaints about the lack of the list view.

The transparent menu bar was also extremely unpopular, and Apple release an option to make it non transparent in 10.5.2. Other than the menubar and dock, the red yellow and green buttons which are used to close, minimize, and maximize/expand windows have shadows now, and look slightly different from Tiger’s version.

Although flashy, Leopard introduces many problems in Mac OS X. Unlike Tiger, which is stable and has little problems, Leopard has many problems including Airport issues, graphics issues, heat issues, and many more. Unlike the traditional pattern of Mac OS X releases, which are usually better than the previous generation, Tiger is definitely a much more stable operating system than Leopard. 

However, despite it’s drawbacks, Leopard includes many new features that are very worthwhile. And although it is not as stable as Tiger, it is still much better off than Windows XP and Windows Vista, and getting the blue screen of death while running Parallels sure was fun.

Time Machine is a major new feature of Leopard; it involves backing up your entire system and then doing periodic backups every hour as long as you have an external hard drive connected to your Mac. I have used Time Machine several times now; it has helped me save a file that I thought was useless and deleted. Also, it makes doing repairs at the Apple Store much easier, as you constantly have backups of your system and do not have to backup your system just to go make a repair. 

At first, laptops were very irritating to use Time Machine if you move around a lot; you don’t want an external hard drive tying your Mac down to your desk. The result of that problem was Time Capsule, a combo of an Airport Extreme and a hard drive of 500GB or 1TB. Time Capsule wireless backs up your Mac, and although the initial backup can take hours, backups after that are much shorter. That, along with wireless printing, can really help you take your Mac anyhwere and still have access to an external hard drive and printer. This is useful for families who have multiple laptops but only one printer. 

Along with Time Machine, Spaces was released for Mac OS X Leopard, and it is a feature that I do not use much, but some people find very useful. What it does is create virtual desktops on your computer, so that you can switch between them and have your desktop uncluttered. While this feature helps to unclutter your screen, I find it a hassle to switch between spaces all the time, and hiding applications or minimizing windows is a much easier way to tidy up your desktop.

Some things about Leopard are very bad. Stability is a big thing for some people, especially for larger corporations who want to have stable computers. Not everyone needs the new flashy features of Leopard, and you might prefer Tiger over Leopard. Unfortunately, it is rather difficult to get a Mac with Tiger these days; you have to buy an old Mac. Tiger will not install on the newer Macs, which is made complicated because there was never a universal binary of Tiger. 

However, for users switching to Mac from Windows, Leopard will seem like an excellent operating system that is both stable and has a lot of features. Most people switching to Mac are switching from old PCs that are dying out, and find the Mac OS X very quick and stable. 

So if you want Tiger, you’ll have to go through quite a bit of trouble. But Leopard is an excellent OS that is stable enough for use, and has many features you may like. If you are switching to Mac, definitely get Leopard. Apple says that Snow Leopard’s release will increase stability and performance, so perhaps you should wait for that. Otherwise, get a Mac!

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