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Unix, Linux, & Macintosh
PC Magazine Review: Mac OS X Leopard Version 10.5

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Graham Massey

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:33 am

VP - Operations

Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Posts: 20994
Location: Johannesburg

Apple OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

After three intense days with Apple's Mac OS X Leopard Version 10.5, I have three main things to say about it. First: despite minor problems, it's by far the best operating system ever written for the vast majority of consumers, with dozens of new features that have real practical value—like truly automated backups, preview images in folders, and notes and to-do lists integrated into the mail program. Propeller-heads with IT know-how will no doubt hold up Linux as the better choice, and Vista has its devotees as well(and will probably have more when SP1 is widely available), but, for the average user, Leopard is the most polished and easiest to use OS I've tested. Second: Leopard still has a generous share of first-version glitches, some of which are merely annoying, and others of which can cause serious problems for anyone upgrading an existing system. Finally, Leopard is extravagantly overdressed for the jobs that it's designed to do. Don't get me wrong, I really like it but the pervasive eye-candy starts out looking dazzling can become distracting.

Let's take these three points in order. The first is by far the most important one. I found Leopard to be startlingly fast, brilliantly streamlined, and packed with conveniences and innovations. Leopard's rich set of built-in software runs faster than I imagined possible. The rebuilt Finder (the OS X counterpart of Windows Explorer) displays thumbnail or full-size previews of most standard file types—not only graphics images, but also videos, PDF and Word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more. A new Quick Look feature let me page through documents without waiting for them to open in an application. The Cover Flow feature in the Finder lets you flip through preview images of documents the same way iTunes flips through album-covers. I expected this feature to be sluggish, but it isn't. While you're browsing through previews, pressing on the spacebar opens a document in its own application.