Max OS X 10.5, Leopard, is crammed with over 300 new features. I’ve already got it pre-ordered and am eagerly anticipating it’s arrival. Of course, like everyone, I have my favorite new features so without further ado, I bring you a list (in no particular order):
- Greater .Mac syncing: Widgets, System Prefs, Dock, etc.
- Stacks
- System-wide grammar checking
- All of the long overdue iCal features
- Tabbed chat support and Screen Sharing in iChat
- To-Dos and Data Detectors in Mail
- New Airport menu
- Word of the Day screen saver
- Spotlight Application Launching
- Time Machine
I’m going to dress up and go to the Apple Store because I’m a nerd. Here are my most anticipated 10 features:
1. Multi-core optimization
2. Time Machine
3. All of Safari 3
4. Spotlight application launching
5. Multiple iChat logins
6. Quick View
7. Instant Screen Sharing
8. iCal being out of beta
9. Core Graphics, Animation
10. The hope that Finder might be more stable and faster
I do like Safari 3.0. I just didn’t have it on my list, because I’ve been using it in Tiger. I don’t really consider it a true “new” feature of Leopard.
i had to actually read what you guys were talking about for “spotlight application launching”. my dock is already sub-dozen in membership, so i naturally use spotlight all the time to open programs.
but this new feature only auto-selects the top hit in spotlight. what happens if, in the course of searching as rapidly as it does, the top hit changes into some random document you happen to access a lot? this happens to me a lot actually, namely with pages. i think the benefits of that feature will have to pan out. hopefully, i will begin to find out friday.
i also would add, though i won’t list a top10, that i hope automator is out of beta. it will semi-freeze at the strangest of times; and, though recoverable, it just wastes my time.
Being an information assurance nerd, there are a lot of internal changes in Leopard which will enhance its security posture that I’m excited about, but for functional features I’m excited about:
1. New Finder that supposedly doesn’t choke when network shares become unavailable
2. Stacks
3. Time Machine
4. New Airport menu
5. Spaces
6. New iChat features–though many were available in Chax, it’s nice to have them integrated and I think can finally dump Adium now that iChat supports invisibility
7. iCal–hopefully Google Calendar will implement WebDAV so that I can stop paying SpanningSync
8. Mail data detectors, especially now that GMail supports IMAP
9. Quicklook
10. Safari 3.0–assuming it’s out of beta
11. defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
I have a copy preordered, but I’m going to wait to see how people say it performs on the 1.5GHz Powerbooks before I install.
I’m surprised Spotlight application launching made most of the lists (yawn). The dock is powerful enough for me. Why would I want to type the name of the application just to launch it?
Here are my votes in all the appropriate categories:
Best no-brainer improvement: New Airport menu
Best example of Apple’s innovation: Time Machine
Features that will impress your Vista friends: Quick Look & Cover Flow
And now, my vote for the worst Leopard new “feature”:
1. Translucent menus! Apple, what were you thinking??
Armen: I use over 30 applications regularly. That’s a lot to put in the dock, especially when I’m never running all of them at once. I keep my dock shortcuts down to the 5-7 applications that I’m most likely to always be running and leave space for whatever else I need to run at the moment.
I have used LaunchBar since it was released and tried Quicksilver just for application launching. It’s super fast to find and launch an app within 5 keystrokes. Many hoped that Spotlight would mimic this behavior when it was introduced, but it’s too slow and often changes the top hit as results populate in Tiger. Supposedly Leopard removes the need for basic Launchbar and Quicksilver functionality.
Jeremiah, I see your point. I have my Applications folder in the dock, so it hasn’t really been an issue for me. The thing that bugs me about my current setup is the long delay when attempting to click and hold that icon. The list appears, but not as fast as I would like.
I’m hopeful Leopard’s Stacks feature turns out more responsive.
Wow. Take back everything I said. I am just *loving* Spotlight’s application launch feature. It is wicked fast…something I was not expecting. Command space, a few typed characters, and then boom! Less than three seconds flat.
Stacks is nice, but definitely too slow as an application launcher. Tried out help for the first time. You now get visual assistance for menu items. Brought back fond memories of Apple Guide in OS 8.
I am loving my new cat. All sort of pleasant surprises.