MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Nov 30, 07 - 05:02 pm Comment from: Arnold Ziffel

My issue with Leopard is the lack of the rounded upper corners on the finder. God, I don't know what I'm gonna do without those pixels!

Nov 30, 07 - 05:07 pm Comment from: Arnold Ziffel

On second thought, maybe it's having extra white pixels that is the issue. Whatever--it makes the entire Leopard experience a downer. Woink (wink and oink combined).

Nov 30, 07 - 05:09 pm Comment from: Jimbo von Winskinheimer

Even worse than the article by Oliver Rist is the fact that others are now quoting his article in trying to make their stand that Leopard sucks. It's up on slashdot. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has published his blog on ZDnet that is quite a hit piece itself, and Gearlog Radio bothers to repost it as well. Funny how everyone is quoting Rist's article as though it were the final say.

Nov 30, 07 - 05:11 pm Comment from: Vlad

Although it's certainly not on the scale of Vista, I have to say, I'm disappointed that while Leopard does add some interesting new features, it also downgrades appearance and functionality in many areas... so it ends up being something of a trade-off, although on the whole it's obviously a significant improvement. It would have been nice to get the good without the bad, but there's always point releases and the next OS to fix some of the mistakes.

For example, whose bright idea was it to mess with the internet controls and actually make them MORE confusing and LESS powerful than in Tiger?

So to summarize, this guy's an idiot, but he has some good points about flaws in leopard that shouldn't be ignored just because his initial claim was ludicrous. This is a trend I see disturbingly often on MDN: The idea that because their conclusion is false (or doesn't follow from the premises), that none of their reasons have merit and none of the points they make have any basis in reality.

Nov 30, 07 - 05:13 pm Comment from: El Guapo

I find Cover Flow pretty useless in the Finder.

Nov 30, 07 - 05:15 pm Comment from: Micro Me

The article is indeed a pile of steaming FUD but, as MDN says....

"Mac OS X Leopard's Stacks' default curving fan is ugly and virtually useless. The optional grid view is better looking, but just as pointless."

I couldn't agree more. Fix it Apple.

Nov 30, 07 - 05:16 pm Comment from: ABQ Peter

there are some weird things that happen with spaces; for example when i have an app like bbedit in one space and i open an attachment from mail that is a bbedit document it stays in the mail space but with bbedit in the upper left and i have to use the cmd-tab and cmd-shift-tab to get to bbedit.

CU is the best litmus test.

Nov 30, 07 - 05:20 pm Comment from: Micro Me

@ El Guapo. I've found Cover Flow useful when searching through albums. But I can't work out why some sets of jpgs are crystal clear in this view, whereas other sets are pixelated to the point of uselessness.

Nov 30, 07 - 05:20 pm Comment from: John

I must say that on my laptop I had a nasty experience--slowing and slowing computing--until I fully wiped my hard drive, reinstalled Leopard, and reimported everything from my (Time Machine) backup.

The process was fairly painless, but it took the better part of 4 hours and previous to that my system was a mess.

On the good side, I haven't had a single crash or much weird behavior at all since then, so at least it solved the problem!

Nov 30, 07 - 05:26 pm Comment from: Bobby Skinner

I have had more problems with this release than any in Apple's past, which is to say, "I had A problem" - The problem surfaced on one machine out of three and was relatively minor. So yes this is Apple's worse release ever and it is far better than any of my best experience with a Microsoft OS

I love leopard, just as I loved Tiger!

FOR ONCE I think MDN is being negative about the wrong thing. I like stacks/grid app-launcher. Maybe not to navigate through layers of folders, but as a quick way to launch an app without taking up dock space is great. Otherwise, its more a temporary work flow feature that you figure out how to suit your needs over time, rather than a true navigation/search fucrtion. Thats the finder.

Nov 30, 07 - 05:32 pm Comment from: Willie G

@ Jimbo...

True, it sucks.. but people hate to admit that they have made the wring choice. All of these Windows Zealots are grasping at anything they can to make themselves look less foolish. They seem to think that contrived pieces of fiction like the referenced article gives their sad cause some sort of merit.

I wouldn't worry about it too much... the truth is out there and is finding more and more people every day

Nov 30, 07 - 05:34 pm Comment from: Timbo

I am one of those users that is benefitting mostly from what I don't see. Stacks? Bleh. Spaces? Haven't cracked into it a all. I DO like iChat theatre and the funky iChat backgrounds. No major complaints.

I agree with El Guapo to a point. Nice to use for video folders and even some office files etc. but much easier to use column view. What would be great is having the right hand column display a vertical cover flow with quicklook available. Anyways, for those wanted to enhance QuickLook, here is a nice article with links to two files for better coverflow/quicklook viewing of folders and zip files. I've actually used both a fair bit today.

http://macapper.com/2007/11/30/tip-enhance-quick-look-with-plugins/

Definitely worth it for the Zip file alone. Works and looks great.

I find Spaces way more useful than I thought I would - it especially works well if you assign apps to stay in a particular space.

Nov 30, 07 - 05:53 pm Comment from: MrScrith

I never used that nested folder feature on Tiger, but I do like the stacks thing in Leopard, it could be better (be able to create a stack and add stuff to it directly instead of creating a folder and adding aliases to it) but other then that it's a nice feature to hold all my developer tools in one stack and my media editing tools in another, stuff I don't want to dig around the applications folder for but also don't want taking up space on my dock when not in use.

Nov 30, 07 - 05:58 pm Comment from: James

I agree-stacks is pretty useless. I dislike that the 'Downloads' folder can't be discarded too; and honestly, I've played with spaces a bit and found that it's easier to work the way I did before (virtually every app has a 'hide' keyboard shortcut, and I use that when I leave an app for awhile. Poof! It's gone and out of the way until I need it again via command-tab. With spaces there are too many extra steps involved to do basically the same thing), though I understand everyone has different methods. Time machine though, is brilliant. I love it. So easy to use, so pain free, I think it rocks. It was worth upgrading just for that in my opinion.

Nov 30, 07 - 06:01 pm Comment from: CandTsmac

I have to disagree. Fresh instal of Leopard here on a new Aluminum iMac and this thing crashes every couple days. This is the worst update to OS X in the way of stability. Even if you haven't had any problems, to go saying "we know what we are doing is BS" I've been using Mac since 84, used to work for Apple in Canada and I damn well know what I am doing. But, it still crashes.

It's just like anything in the world. The more complicated it gets the more there is that can go wrong.

I'll be switching back to Tiger tonight and dream of the day 10.5.3 is released. Should be all good then.

Nov 30, 07 - 06:05 pm Comment from: Fred Mertz

James,

I've long used "SpiritedAway" which automatically hides open apps after a period of time that you specify. You can choose to exclude any app you do not want to be hidden automatically. Keeps things nice and clean. It's a tiny app and works perfectly in Leopard, too.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15844

There are alot of things I can complain about in Leopard, BUT who says cover flow is useless?

I haven't been able to stop using it!!! It has speed up my work flow amazingly. I fly through the files, double click the folders, space bar to see it better like video. ITS AMAZING AND TIME SAVING

Nov 30, 07 - 06:08 pm Comment from: Shinobi

MDN

Some of us actually like the stacks feature! Especially in grid mode. I use it quite a bit.

Time machine is the best!
Then Spaces!

Parental Controls however is causing me some grief due to bugs. Its not enforcing the time limits and it also interferes with the other accounts not under Parental Controls and some other stuff.

Everything else is in Leopard is running great. Pretty stable but so far not as stable as tiger.

Nov 30, 07 - 06:12 pm Comment from: Mr. Reeee

I stumbled on that article this morning. What a waste of electrons! I had to laugh, because the poor bastard sounded really quite desperate. Most of the nits he was picking were actually fixable either by looking through different preferences or with 3d party patches and add-ons. Some of the responses were ridiculous, too.

Windows users, whaddaya expect, eh? Some people just can't BUY a clue!

I was all set to write some snappy retort, when I just decided not to waste my time!

I must agree, though, Leopard isn't perfect.

Stacks are kinda dumb.
The Dock... at least Apple let us reskin it. THAT is a great move forward for Apple. It's more important than the feature.
I don't use the Dock much, so I don't care that much.

I have trouble with the general darkness of Leopard. It feels kind of dark and dismal compared to the cheery brightness of Tiger. The text and icons on the Sidebar are too small, too dark and NOT adjustable. The way Tiger's Sidebar scales up and down is brilliant.

The thing is, as with EVERY release of Mac OS X, Leopard is a work in progress. Things will change, refine and solidify over time. The next Leopard update will improve things. As developers release Leopard compatibility patches and new versions for Leopard things will improve further.

We certainly KNOW we won't have to wait a YEAR or more for a Windows-esque Service Pack to fix things in Leopard.

Leopard has a different group and permission setup than Tiger, and the updater does not convert the Ti;ger setup to the Leopard setup. The result can be a lot of crashes. That's the experience I had. The solution, until Apple comes out with a fix, is erase and install.

I think this accounts for most if not all of the problems.

"Our Macs have crashed exactly zero times since we installed Leopard on the night of its release. But, of course, we know what we're doing."

You're sounding an awful lot like the local Windows IT guy (see: "Nick Burns"). Macs are supposed to be above having to "know what you're doing" or risk hosing your machine. That's half the reason for abandoning Windows.

How hard would it be for Apple to test some of the most popular "haxies" and other programs, and then put checks in the Leopard installer that will warn if the known-incompatible ones are installed, and offer to switch to "archive and install" mode (or just do it for you)?

I know that working around 3rd-party misbehavior is a very Microsoftian thing to do, but it might be worth it for at least the "80% case" of common issues.

P.S. Upgraded to Leopard last week and have had virtually no problems with it. And I for one kind of like the new visual appearance (though I will admit I have my Dock on the side). But yes, Stacks has some problems. Mainly that they look like a mess in the dock (a bunch of icons just pasted on top of each other)

Nov 30, 07 - 06:19 pm Comment from: Tommy Boy

I just wish I could reverse sort (or better yet select Sort By name/kind/date ascending/descending) in Column View.

Nov 30, 07 - 06:20 pm Comment from: Zune Tang®

If by "FUD-slinger" MDN means "Truth-teller" then the MDN MAC zealots are finally on to something. And what's this "equate" stuff? Vista has no equal and it is leaps and bounds ahead of Apple's overpriced, only hyped by hippy fanboys and game-challenged train wreck Poopertino call an OS. OS X Leopard (I call it Pussy) might someday grow up to be Vista's distant cousin, but don't count on it. Redmond is at the top of their game. Nice try, Apple.

Your potential. Our passion™

After erase and install, run the disk utility (it will take a long time the first time) or install the applications afresh.

The installation disk has a utility that corrects permissions on a user's home folder, but it does not correct groups.

Nov 30, 07 - 06:32 pm Comment from: Macintosh

I don't mind Stacks. It's nice to have a change once in a while. Cover Flow in the finder is something that I don't absolutely need, but I use it once in a while for fun.

The thing about Cover Flow is that you may not find it useful, but if that's the case... Don't use it! I'm sure there are plenty of people that would find it very useful for their particular tasks... That's why there are four view options.

Nov 30, 07 - 06:33 pm Comment from: Babakool

Here's the third party solution to the Stacks vs. hierarchical dock issue:

http://www.brockerhoff.net/quay/

Nov 30, 07 - 06:33 pm Comment from: ron

Give him a "polite" email.

Nov 30, 07 - 06:38 pm Comment from: Macintosh

I'm thinking Stacks was introduced to make it simpler, especially for people new to Mac. The older folder system may have been better for advanced users, but it kinda reminds me of the Windows Start Menu... Column expanding into another column...

Nov 30, 07 - 06:47 pm Comment from: elmo

I like stacks, but only in grid mode. I put a bunch of application alias's in separate folders in the dock. Gives me more space on the dock. I would like to adjust the size of the icons though.

Nov 30, 07 - 06:56 pm Comment from: Brau

While this article is obvious flame-bait, don't forget the gist is directed to say "Tiger rocks", something to which I applaud and can't disagree.

Leopard is in no way comparable to Vista but has caused a larger than normal amount of crashes, lock-ups, drop-outs, and incompatibilities than Mac users have become accustomed to. Tiger went through the same growing pains. For this reason I have bought a copy of Leopard but have not installed it as it is clear from many forums it is not completely stable yet. I do believe Apple has pushed it out the door a bit early hopping to capitalize on the debacle surrounding Vista, but any Mac newbie would find using it, even with these faults, a major improvement over Windows.

I don't know why anyone, including Mac Daily News even bothers to comment on it. If he really did have that many crashes, it's only because he's futzing with the System or (I suspect), he's using cheap non-standard RAM. Of course, there is also the possibility that he's lying through his teeth.

Who cares?

I've been running Leopard on an ancient PowerBook and a brand new iMac since it came out. It's stable.

Just ignore him. He'll go away. Or Daniel Eran will get him!

John Davis

You're sounding an awful lot like the local Windows IT guy (see: "Nick Burns"). Macs are supposed to be above having to "know what you're doing" or risk hosing your machine. That's half the reason for abandoning Windows.

Hmm I'm 50/50 with you on this. While no OS install process is completely foolproof, Apple does need to brush up installer to make it as foolproof as possible.

That said, Installer needs these:

1. FULL system check before installing. Disk check, permissions fix, full memory check, full hardware test (ok maybe skip the screen/pixel tests), compatible hardware check.

2. ONLY do a fresh system install, don't try to "upgrade" it like MS does.

3. Leave the haxies behind. Give the user the option to move over other existing items (accounts, preferences, mail, fonts, etc).

4. Have the system do a first-startup self-check to make sure install was complete and successful. Methinks half the problems are from mid-install power-downs and untrapped install errors.


#1 and #4 might take a good amount of install time, but since it's something you generally do ONCE, isn't it worth doing right?

MDN's take on Stacks and Leopard is like living in Indiana. Life is so great here that the only thing we can find to complain about is having to observe daylight savings time.

Actually there is one other thing to complain about. It is nearly a 3 hour drive to the nearest Apple store in Indianapolis.

Is this article really any better than the one it's referencing?

The Rist article is over-the-top and doesn't represent the experience the majority of users I've spoken to or read about have had. However, this MDN response is really just spreading FUD in the other direction.

Why does it always have to be Windows is better or OS X is better?

They both have their place, and they both have their fans and their detractors. This being Mac Daily News, I would expect it to defend Leopard. If it was Windows Daily News, it would probably defend Windows Vista.

Some of the issues he brings up are valid. I have had problems with accessing my Windows based network with Leopard, but a reboot always solves it. I don't like it and it might be something to do with my particular network setup, but it worked without issues under Tiger.

That's not enough to make me dislike it though - there are far more things to like in my case.

Instead of bickering back and forth, I'd like to see the tech community at large put their time and effort into more productive things, and let people make the choice they want without having to defend it.

Evel Knievel R.I.P.

I agree. The stacks are ugly and useless. The grid? Just as bad. I don't want to have to hunt for an icon, which the grid forces me to do.

Can't wait for a hack/fix/pref for this.

Nov 30, 07 - 07:51 pm Comment from: alansky

Leopard's miserable "stacks" feature gives new meaning to the phrase "worse than useless." What was Apple thinking???

Nov 30, 07 - 07:51 pm Comment from: neomonkey

I don't mind Stacks, but Cover Flow is not quite there yet. Some images show up pixellated, and some are truncated. One thing I found out not to do, try to view a folder of images on a CD using Cover Flow. The SuperDrive went spastic, took a restart to stop it.

So far Leopard's stable on my G5, but sluggish on my G4 Powerbook, so I stick with Tiger there (dual boot). It's only .1 though, give it time. I didn't even install Tiger until it was .4

This is this start of 10.5.x.

When Tiger came there where many similar issues...

Point being - it got POLISHED as updates came.



EXPECT Leopard to glow as time goes on.

I do.

Sorry, the criticism is deserved. Leopard promised a lot more than it delivered and delivered a lot of extras that are a waste of time.

Nov 30, 07 - 08:11 pm Comment from: Hg Wells

You negative Windoze cultists are all the same! Posting all this negative stuff on a Mac enthusiast site! And, clearly, someone has hacked into MDN and left a Take™ that MDN would never post! Climate Change? Is that what's causing these polar shifts?

Personally, my favorite new Leopard feature is Quick Look. Time Machine (mostly) works, too. Lots of smaller features, including new Mail features and others elsewhere, I already miss when I have to use Tiger on other computers. I know Apple needs to fix a variety of features and stability issues. But, overall, I would be unhappy if I had to give up Leopard. By the time all tweaks are done, this will be a dynamite OS. Even as it sits, it already is.

Haven't caught the return of the real Zune Tang® before today. Happy to see it back! (Or her, as the case my be.)

And, wow!, obviously I missed the unchecked-by-default change in notifications at some recent article I failed to read! Wow! Life is good again!

I think the author was trying to state that Leopard has some very frustrating flaws, but he states them in a less than eloquent manner...

I'm certainly frustrated that 95% of the time that I switch locations (which I do frequently and always worked flawlessly in Tiger), my machine freezes and needs to be restarted... This is really frustrating as I'm a Mac tech and my major client has a wireless network for employees to use for personal web browsing and a wired network for company use... There are limits on the wired network, so I frequently use the wireless network, but then need to get on the wired network...

I, also, don't like some of the appearance changes, but they don't really affect my work... Stacks would work better if all applications were packages (not in folders), but even Apple breaks that rule with iWorks... The transparency of the menu is kind of odd looking and I don't like the new dock on the bottom at all, but I keep mine on the right (and I don't like the new look on that version as well either, but it's much better than the bottom dock).

Nov 30, 07 - 08:29 pm Comment from: Arnold Ziffel

Just need to clarify--I think Leopard's great. Haven't had a single crash running on two Macs, one a G5 and the other a MBP.

Have to use XP at work, and not only is my company not going to "upgrade" to Vista, it is ditching Windows and moving to Linux.

Nov 30, 07 - 08:37 pm Comment from: Rip Ragged

Nitpicking Mr. Rist's post on its merits is rather a waste, as it has none. The article is a turdburger.

Actually, the article was more about how Tiger was much more stable and user friendly than Leoptard. I happen to agree with the guy. He was making the analogy to Vista in that Apple should own up to the flaws in Leoptard.

I made the mistake of buying Leopard the week it shipped. After 21 years of owning a Mac I should have known better, but I bought it anyway. The search features are much better, however, I hate the translucent menu bar, and the stacks feature. I see little that justifies the upgrade. Rist was right. Tiger was a much better upgrade. I guess we will be waiting for 10.6 now to fix Leopard. If some folks think that the Rist article is fear, uncertainty, and doubt, well too bad. Also, it is time to bury this crappy phrase FUD. It has nothing to do with reality. People are entitled to an opinion. It may not be what someone wants to hear, but it is a different viewpoint. There are many people that think Leopard is not all that great. It will be ok for folks not to like Leopard. There will be a tomorrow.

In the meantime, hopefully Apple will fix the flaws in Leopard. The biggest fear I have is that Apple becomes as arrogant as Microsoft and denies the flaws, and then calls the flaws a "feature". Let us all hope that Apple keeps making neat stuff.

Nov 30, 07 - 09:24 pm Comment from: Steve516

IMHO Stacks works nicely for some things, and to be able to have a bit more control over it would be nice. Like the arc fan thing is gay. Just make it go straight up thank you. And the fact that the download folder keeps changing makes it hard to find quickly (sometimes). And make the hierarchical navigation an option too. I think there is a lot more that can be done with it, and combined with all the old features, it could be really powerful.

The problem is, in Tiger I had alias' of all my important folders in the dock. Now, the stack thing makes it a PITA to get to what I want... I have to make more clicks (just clicking on the "Show In Finder" button is an extra step from before).

Ok, enough ranting.

I agree... coverflow in the finder is not a favorite for me... but not a problem like stacks is LOL.

Nov 30, 07 - 09:28 pm Comment from: UltraVisitor

Hey, I like Stacks! I can't stand those unsightly Adobe CS3 icons, and Stacks nicely helped me reclaim my dock space (before I had an adobe folder in the dock, and it was annoying to have to control click it or open a finder window.) The Downloads stack has also worked very well for me.

Since everyone airing my grievances with Leopard, I'll throw in my two cents. The only problems I've had with Leopard is third party software not working right after the update. VLC player crashes sometimes and no longer supports the Apple Remote, and my Wacom Tablet drivers are screwy. But their isn't much Apple can do about it, 3rd party vendors need to make their software Leopard compatible.

It's a good thing every program I need for school and work is Leopard compatible, or else I would have really regretted the update.