New Cat Prowling
It’s finally (about) time for Apple’s OS X Leopard to be released. After many months of screenshots showing new or modified features, changes from early builds until now, Leopard is supposedly ready for release. Of course, Apple did say October, and in their usual style, will wait until the last moment they can, yet still be October. Word on the street is October 26th, the last Friday of the month.There are a few questions now for many mac users:
Will you go out and buy it when it releases?Is your system fast enough? (As long as it’s 867mhz or higher with 512MB of ram, you should be safe).Will your software work? (There have been mixed messages on Adobe’s CS3 compatibility).Do you even care about Leopard, or are you happy with Tiger?Did Apple hit all the major improvements users were looking for?Did they screw up a good thing?
Some people have identified that it is not “WOW”ing them enough compared to Tiger. I would argue that Apple isn’t trying to be Microsoft, and pack “flair” into their OS. You have to remember, Microsoft took several years to go past XP, which is arguably their best client system to date. Not only were they looking to add functionality and make the system better, they were caught in trying to sell users on upgrading (most people are happy with XP). Their new system has a significantly increased hardware requirement level, which means that most users need new machines, etc. They had to really impress people to make a move, and I think they were forced into the “WOW” mode as they wrapped up Vista development. I think the issue was exacerbated by the fact that several core features to be offered in Vista were cut, such as the WinFS file system. In the end, Vista has many new features, some flair, some function.Apple looked at Tiger, much like Microsoft looked at XP, and asked themselves (and users), “How do we make this thing better?”. It’s only been about two years since the initial release of Tiger, which is their best yet. Based on that feedback, they created Leopard. I don’t think Apple felt quite as compelled as Microsoft to WOW with potentially unnecessary features (especially not at the cost of performance). It’s not their only income stream (maybe not even their primary).Personally, I will be buying it, sometime shortly after release. I am a geek, and I like to play with the latest software.
I wish Apple had a “TechNet Direct” type solution like Microsoft, that allows tech people to pay for access to their whole enterprise suite of software products (for testing, not production). TechNet has been really valuable for learning and experimenting with Microsoft software.
I have been watching as Apple Insider has been writing the “Road to OS X Leopard” articles that talk about what’s new, why changes were made, product comparisions, and more. The articles are short reads, with some good info (and some excessive anti-Windows bias at times).
I know it’s an Apple “fanboy” site, but there isn’t any real value in calling the Vista Start Menu “absurd”, it’s just a different approach.
My systems, like most Mac owners I know, will be able to handle Leopard just fine. I have no idea if all of my software will be compatible, but I would guess that a few items will need updating. What I would really like to know is, what “secret” features that Steve Jobs referenced have yet to be seen? Or have the leaks of screenshots given us the whole story? Maybe we won’t know for another two and a half weeks.
