Editorial

Posted on 1 Nov 2007 at 14:51

 

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Leopard's definitely got its dark spots but they fade into insignificance when you consider the highlights.

Leopard. It's been a very mixed bag in the MacUser office. How was it for you?

Between us, we've installed it on five machines - a MacBook, an iMac G5, two Mac Minis and a PowerBook - and flip-flopped between upgrades and start-from-scratch installations, with different results on each one. Of my two machines, the upgraded MacBook took it without any complaint at all, but the iMac, on which I erased the drive and started a fresh, is less enamoured with the big cat. Nothing major; just a few inconsistencies, like the fact that messages in Mail display their proper subject lines in the inbox and title bar, but are rendered in phonetic Cyrillic in the message itself.

And what's with the transparency of the menu bar? Or, more accurately, the lack of it. On the MacBook I can clearly see the Desktop background peeping through, but on the iMac it's still a nice solid grey. Hooray.

But these issues aside, Leopard remains a stunning update. From Spaces, which gives me a second, third and fourth virtual monitor when I'm working on my lap on the train, to the stacks in the Dock that have finally forced me to reorganise my Documents folder and keep my downloads in one place rather than scattered all over my Desktop, it's already paying dividends in terms of increased productivity, a better-managed hard drive and a more pleasant, inspiring environment in which to work.

I'm also pleased to report that, so far, at least, I haven't found a single one of my installed third-party applications that doesn't play happily under Leopard. Well, apart from a minor glitch that keeps the QuickSilver icon visible on the Dock when I've unchecked that option.

We may have had to wait longer for this update than for any previous revision of Mac OS X, but the last few days have proved that it was well worth it, and if the buzz among our sister magazines (all PC-based) is anything to go on, it looks like Apple really is making the Windows brigade sit up and take notice this time around. I know of at least one noted PC journalist who is on the cusp of ditching his Sony Vaio in favour of a MacBook, and is holding off only on the offchance Apple should release that fabled wafer-thin version in the next few weeks.

Those of us who already have a Mac have no need to wait, and indeed we should not. This really is the best big cat yet.

Author: Nik Rawlinson