“I’ve been made aware of some great stuff that Steve didn’t talk about in his [WWDC Mac OS X Leopard] keynote address,” Danny Gorog reports for APC Magazine.
Gorog reports, “I can also say for sure that Leopard, when it’s released will beat the pants of Vista in terms of speed and functionality. Windows users should however read this article so you’ll know what to expect on your machines by 2011.”
Gorog’s list includes:
• Attention to detail 1: rounded bottom edges of all drop down menu bars
• Attention to detail 2: location options only appears if you have more than one location set
• Help Menu improvements
• New ‘Get Info’ pane
• iCal improvements
• Stacks are really useful
• Cover Flow in the Finder is really useful, too
• Contextual menu’s “More” selection
• Smarter Airport Menu
• Bind applications to Spaces
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “thereal” for the heads up.]
These are very minor issues. The author makes it out to be a big deal. The refinements are nice, but they are refinements.
Thought I’d never see this again on MDN: A non-iPhone article!
I read this list last night and it’s a very weak list. Why would you waste our time with this, MDN? Almost like you’re desperate for content. Raise the bar.
so he got his 5 minutes of fame. BFD, like we really give 2 shits about what he just said???? I’m suprised MDN even bothered to link this
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-Pi
IT Guy.. Cover flow and stacks are not “refinements”… they are entirely new features.
Microsoft spent a lot of time advertising its less useful window management schemes….as bad as they are.. they are one of the only reasons to “upgrade” to Vista Premium.
I’m really excited, there appear to be a lot of little touches but they seem to be the sort of thing that finishes the jigsaw as it were. We seem to be due for far more system wide consistency and a lot of things to take advantage of that which may not have worked in isolation before.
Seems to be a larger than normal group of trolls out today!
MW: really, as in yes there are more trolls.
Where’s the ZFS and resolution independence?
You guys are missing the main point. Apple has the ability to worry about the little things when Microsoft cannot even get the big stuff right.
well, in Leopard it looks like the Finder still sucks donkeynuts and Spotlight still is a fix for a problem that doesn’t exist the way Apple wants us to believe. Okay, spotlight could be handy at times…if it wouldn’t be such a pain in the arse to use. Now utils like Pathfinder, Quicksilver, Forklift, ABFR or Yojimbo…these are the small things that makes the OS truly superior.
Other ‘important’ things that should be added to such an informative list.
• Leopard will arrive on new disks
• The package it comes in was sealed closed in 2007
• The ‘About this Mac’ window now says ‘Version 10.5’
• Also in this window it now says ‘TM & © 1983-2007….’
I was really looking forward to resolution independance, especially since my next Mac will be the Hi-res 17″ MBP.
Actually Panther had the most exciting new features to me. Tiger is good ( I love that Dictionary), but most of the new features of Tiger simply weren’t breath-taking. Now we have Leopard. I know that other Mac users are excited about graphic icons and Stacks, but I’m not all that excited about that for another $130. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like a troll.
Now quicker response time is fantastic. I would like to see some improvements with syncing cell phones and other devices, and better communications with Windows networks, printers and scanners.
mmmmm donkeynuts
Two words: ad revenue.
Two more words: Use Adblock
MDN Magic Word: figures (as in dollars and cents)
Another interesting feature now present in pre-release versions is that, apparently, you could mouse over a hint of an event in an email, and a popup will ask if you want to create an iCal event. If you choos to, it auto generates it from the text!
Way cool! And can be very helpful. I hope they keep it.
Something from the original article that seems relevant to this comment thread:
“If you’re tempted to post a comment along the lines of, ‘is this all you could come up with: rounded corners?’ consider that people don’t buy European cars simply because they are more reliable than Fords, they buy them because of the better quality body work and trim too.”
I agree that the details collectively make Mac OS X great.
Regarding stacks, I have wondered about the “arcing” effect… Is there a preference to make it arc to the left for left-handed mouse users? Also, what does it look like if the Dock is placed on the left or right side of the screen?
Yeah, but does the Zoom button on Finder windows work correctly?
And will these speed improvements be the same for PPC-based Macs, especially iMacs?
@JESUS,
The headline was 10 things you “DIDN’T” know about Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard. Should have added unless you live under a rock.
Quad Core is spot on.
You’re a Muppet.
If you want to get a quality look at Leopard then go to the August issue of MacLife.
I’ve been using the beta for a while now, and my absolute favorite thing about Leopard is its improved wi-fi support. No more dropped connections, ever. My mac mini used to drop my wifi connection all the time, and about 80% of the time when I would open my PowerBook G4, it wouldn’t automatically connect to my WPA-protected wireless network, I would have to manually select it from the list. Now when I open the PowerBook, it’s instantly, like within half a second, connected to my wireless network, and my Mac Mini never drops its wifi connection at all, ever. Good job Apple!!!
I like that last one, bind applications to Spaces. I’ve been hoping for some time that Leopard will support persistence in full screen mode applications. Right now, with third party virtual desktop products, full screen mode apps like iPhoto and iTunes don’t remain persistent when you move away from the desktop they are running on.
Once you have apps running in full screen mode, each on a dedicated ‘Space’ it’s only a matter of time before Apple adds CoverFlow to Spaces for a whole new take on Expose.
erm…….I thought that Tiger was still very much way ahead of Vista? that is why there is no hurry to release Leopard just yet?
If so, why bother to mention a stratospheric product in the same breathe as a mud encrusted hog of a product like V***a?
Trying to suck up to SJ?
I’m still looking for screen resolution independence. If Leopard does not have it I will be disappointed.
To everyone asking about resolution independence in Leopard:
“Resolution Independence
The old assumption that displays are 72dpi has been rendered obsolete by advances in display technology. Macs now ship with displays that sport native resolutions of 100dpi or better. Furthermore, the number of pixels per inch will continue to increase dramatically over the next few years. This will make displays crisper and smoother, but it also means that interfaces that are pixel-based will shrink to the point of being unusable. The solution is to remove the 72dpi assumption that has been the norm. In Leopard, the system, including the Carbon and Cocoa frameworks, will be able to draw user interface elements using a scale factor. This will let the user interface maintain the same physical size while gaining resolution and crispness from high dpi displays.
The introduction of resolution independence may mean that there is work that you’ll need to do in order to make your application look as good as possible. For modern Cocoa and Carbon applications, most of the work will center around raster-based resources. For older applications that use QuickDraw, more work will be required to replace QuickDraw-based calls with Quartz ones.”
http://developer.apple.com/leopard/overview/
cover flow and spaces are great.
most iApps are not included in the beta (just iChat and iTunes), so it’s hard to judge new features like coreanimation etc.
the new iChat is great.
the finder sidebar is a lot better, it shows all networked computers, much more intuitive than the “Connect to server” menu item.
being able to display remote screens is a huge improvement, it’s so much easier to help people with their macs.
spotlight’s can search networked volumes, great !
“spotlight’s can search networked volumes”
That really is a nice improvement.
Tiger is so great that the only annoyances we have is with the details. Remember when ther was hundreds of articles complaing about inconsistent windows? Well that is solved now, and I don’t hear anybody enoying that. Remember, these are 10 out of 300 new features. Apple is too smart to release all of the details until the product is released. So, as Steve would say, stay tuned….
One thing I haven’t seen mention of is if the dock will now allow for spring-loaded folders. That little improvement would be a huge help.
Are you serious? It’s called Stacks, and it was “mentioned” as one of the principle Leopard advances in Steve’s keynote.
I think he is emphasising the SPRING LOADED concept.
So are all folders you drag into the Dock going to be spring loaded in the Dock, or only Stacks?
All folders would be useful.
Coverflow is lame. Wanna pick out one photo from a bunch of files named img12345.jpg? Choose icon view, hit ctrl + j and resize the preview icons to a 128×128. Much, much faster to look through your pics.
Missing attention to detail: the ability to resize windows from any corner. That’s gotta be one of the most requested features, when the hell will they sort it out?
@DJ Rizzo: Explain what Spring Loaded folders from the dock would accomplish that would be useful please?
Stacks do most of what I’d want a spring loaded folder to do from the dock. And frankly I’d rather have it done the way that Stacks does it without popping up a new window, far more useful for finding a file.
I won’t deny that there could be some uses for a pop up window from a folder in the dock, but extra functionality also comes at the cost of usability, adding complexity. Right now I can only see that as a negative, but please educate me if I’m wrong, what would this be helpful for?
@mindpower: “Missing attention to detail: the ability to resize windows from any corner.” Missing to PC users. Long time Mac Users do not miss this functionality. I could see how it could be useful in some cases, but hardly a make or break features. In general I’d say the small size of the tiny resize box in the corner is more of an issue, especially for large screens. That’s not something having more corners with resize boxes would fix, however.
As far as Coverflow not being useful, your example doesn’t really prove that it’s not, it just shows one example of where it’s not optimal. A dedicated program for cataloging and managing photos (like iPhoto or Apeture) would be far more suited to that. I can see myself using Coverflow for some things, but I really want to try it out myself and not depend on what others are saying.