October 26, 2007, 12:44 PM — The fifth major update to Mac OS X, Leopard, contains such a mountain of features
-- more
than 300 by Apple's count -- that it's difficult to boil this $129 operating
system release down to a few easy bullet points. Leopard is, at once, a major
alteration to the Mac interface, a sweeping update to numerous included productivity
programs, a serious attempt to improve Mac OS security, and a vast collection
of tweaks and fixes scattered throughout every nook and cranny of the operating
system.
As with every OS X update since version 10.1, there's no single feature in
Leopard that will force Mac users to upgrade immediately. Instead, it's the
sheer deluge of new features that's likely to persuade most active Mac users
to upgrade, especially since this is the longest gap between OS X upgrades --
two and a half years -- since the product was introduced. Sure, some items on
Apple's list of 300 features might seem inconsequential, but if even a handful
of them hit you where you live, that will be more than enough motivation for
you to upgrade.
A new look
Apple trumpets the interface changes in Leopard as "stunning" and
"eye-opening," but in reality the changes are a mixed bag.
First, the good stuff: After years of experimenting with different looks for
windows, sidebars, and other interface elements, Apple seems to have settled
on a fairly consistent interface. The color scheme is largely monochromatic
-- shades of gray with slight gradients. Apple has improved the contrast between
the frontmost window and the rest of them by increasing the top window's drop
shadow and dramatically lightening the color of inactive windows. The Leopard
Finder's new sidebar, clearly modeled after the iTunes Source List, is better
organized and more usable than its Tiger counterpart.
Unfortunately, some of the changes are not as successful. The Mac's trademark
menu bar, which spans the top of the screen, has been made semi-transparent.
When the desktop is set to display an image with both light and dark areas,
the see-through menu bar is visually striking. Unfortunately, that aesthetic
choice comes at too steep a price: the areas of light and dark behind the menu
bar can severely decrease the readability of menu items.
Apple has modified the Dock, OS X's built-in program launcher, so that the
Dock's icons appear to sit on a reflective glass tray when the Dock is positioned
on the bottom of the screen. (Someone must've pointed out to Apple that the
metaphor broke down when the Dock is placed on the sides of the screen; in those
orientations, the Dock's background is a simple half-transparent gray.) A pleasant
glowing light appears next to the icons of currently-running programs, although
the light is a bit too subtle when the Dock is positioned at the bottom of the
screen.
Unfortunately, the Dock's new Stacks feature is a mess, replacing a utilitarian
approach to stashing folders in the Dock (click to open the folder, click and
hold to see a list of the folder's contents) with a snazzy but generally less
useful pop-up window featuring a stack or grid of icons. A potential feature
touted during earlier demonstrations of Leopard -- the ability to drag an arbitrary
collection of items into the dock to make a temporary stack -- apparently didn't
make it to the final version.
Time Machine
The most important new feature added in Leopard is undoubtedly Time Machine,
Apple's attempt to encourage the vast majority of users who never, ever routinely
back up their data to change their ways. Time Machine automatically backs up
a Mac's files to a separate hard drive (internal or external, though external
is certainly safer and more convenient) or a network volume being shared by
another Mac running Leopard. Attaching a drive and assigning it as a Time Machine
backup volume is incredibly easy, and once you've set it up, you can essentially
forget all about it.
