Mac OS X Leopard, The Monday Morning After
I had to do it. I have been looking forward to the new version of OS X for some time, and I as pretty excited on Friday when a shiny copy showed up with the FedEx man. I couldn't wait to throw it into my laptop and get started playing with the new features and seeing how it works. To start, I want to say that the upgrade is great, and Apple has again made Microsoft look pretty low-end when you compare Vista to Leopard. After all, Vista just released earlier this year, and from I can tell during the small amount of time I have spent playing with Vista, took most of its feature cues from OS X version of old. That being said, and ubiquitous to all operating system upgrades, I had some anxiety moments over the weekend as the bugs started to surface. All in all, nothing too big, and for the most part expected for a new product. However, here are my experiences.
The first thing that I did was install Leopard onto my Intel MacBook Pro, which went fine. It is not a fast installation, although if I remember my Windows days it did not consume an entire work day. In fact, the install went very smooth and besides taking an hour or two, everything went fine. As I pulled the DVD out of my laptop, I was already playing with Cover Flow and the new Finder. My smile was intact as I placed the disk into my dual G5 PowerPC tower, which is a few years old, but has plenty under the hood. After waiting for the install, my computer restarted to display a blue screen, and nothing else. Subsequent restarts (a bunch of them) ended up the same way, and I have to admit to having that moment of "what have I done" as I imagined not being able to get at my music, files and other junk that lives on that computer.
My initial thought was that maybe it was a compatibility problem. Oops. I checked the box, and sure enough, my machine meets the compatibility requirements. Then I thought that maybe it was related to the second hard drive I had put into that computer months ago, but that wouldn't really make sense. So I hit Google and some Apple discussion forums to see what I am missing. Apparently I was not alone, and there were a TON of people that had the same installation problems. After digging through a few posts, I found someone that had solved their issue by re-booting from the disk (hold the E key down while booting) and then choosing the "Archive and Install" option. As I waited for the second installation to finish, I was doubtful, but then it worked. Nice work, and I imagine that Friday and Saturday were not happy days to be working the Apple tech support phone lines. Either way, the install did finally work on both computers, and I am happy so far.
I have seen some reviews already that tear the system up, or complain about how the features are exactly what they expected. I don't have that here because I'm not silly enough to have expectations about something that I have never tried. Why would anyone? The iPhone is an elegant piece of machinery, yet there seem to be a lot of people that had expectations that it didn't meet. It makes me wonder where people get these ideas, and why they would make assumptions about a product that nobody has seen yet.
My review is this. There are some great things, and some not-so-great things. Nothing (so far) jumps out as a problem, although I did experience a browser crash once this weekend. The transparent menu at the top should be removed, as it is kind of annoying and I can't imagine that any processing power is worth a visual effect that (to me) isn't all that appealing. Maybe I'll just have to get used to it. Interestingly, on my Intel machine the top menu is transparent, but on my PowerPC tower it is normal (white and not transparent at all), which makes me wonder if such as feature requires a faster processor or something.
Quick Look and Cover Flow are both really cool, although they will probably be much cooler for other professionals. Someone that does a lot of document work, or PDF work, or even someone that does a ton of graphics work would really appreciate how you can easily browse files and preview things before committing to opening an application. However, for me it is not terribly useful on a daily basis, but a cool feature none-the-less.
The new dock does not really affect me, as I haev it oriented on the right side where the new visual bling is not displayed. I do like stacks, and so far I use it to hold a folder that I am currently working with, so that I can access things quickly and easily without having to use Expose or click open a Finder window. I imagine that I will find other ways to use it, but I hesitate to complain about or praise a feature that I haven't fully explored. All in all, a great usability idea and one that will probably be built upon. There will be a similar feature in the next version of Windows, which I imagine will be hitting the stores sometime in 2015. Just kidding.
I have yet to play with Time Machine very much, but the idea of such a things is hugely attractive to me. In fact, I need to dust-off the old backup drive and plan to have it hooked up all the time, as that is how Time Machine prefers things. The idea of an on-the-fly backup is a great one, and something I imagine will become a staple of businesses that are mac-based. I can think of a few times in my career where the places that I worked could really have benefited from something like Time Machine. I do want to echo a complaint from some other review I found today, regarding that Time Machine interface. While I think the interface is incredible. It's slick, it's unique, it's inuitive... it's Apple. The problem that another user pointed out is one that I agree with. Perhaps there could be another simpler, more to-the-point way of recovering files. When my heart rate is through the roof and all I really want is my lost file back, I'm not really in the mood (or have the patience) to be entertained by an admittedly addictive interface. Or maybe it is a good thing, adding to the relaxing experience that is recovering lost files gracefully. Either way, I'll have to report back on this one once it has come in handy for me. Perhaps when the moment occurs, I'll really like the experience.
Anyway, I'll try and post more as I get to using it more. All in all I'd say that Microsoft is going to have a tough time pitching Vista to people with Leopard out there as an alternative. In fact it's a little weird to even compare the two. That's how much better (in nearly every capacity) OS X is, in my opinion.
