Well as you may or may not know, I am both a Mac and a Windows IT specialist. I favor windows but have consulted many major mac clients as well. I got into the mac scene again during the Panther to Tiger phenomenon and now that Tiger is getting the boot to Leopard, I just wanted to look at the features that Leopard has and see if it is worth me invested in the new operating system. I have no reason to invest in Macs anymore since I now work at my current job, but it is much better to keep up to date than to let my skillz fall behind. With that said, here are some highlights…
Desktop Redesign – As I look at the review of the desktop redesign, I am reminded of Vista and the Windows Flip feature…I never used it in vista, and I will never use it on the mac. Regardless, it allows you to have a pull-down if you may of different icons so if you overflow, you can select it instead of making all the icons smaller and smaller…
Finder – They improved the finder feature (again) It now can find music with Cover Flow (whatever that means….) I didn’t use the updated finder feature in Tiger, I wouldn’t use it now either.
Quick Look – This allows you to browse, play, and page through your files without opening them. This is a similar feature in Vista that I love and would probably use this a lot. So far, if anything, this would make me want to switch. Unfortunately, my mac is not very powerful and would probably need to be replaced to move to Leopard or at least use this feature….that is for another time though
Time Machine – it is a backup program of sorts. You can look at different restore points and if needed, restore your system. Microsoft has had this implementation since windows XP and I am not a big fan….perhaps the mac has a better grip on it than windows does…
Mail – Getter integration, so they claim. I never really used mail in tiger, and would probably not use it in leopard as well….but that is just me. I know a lot of people that used and loved it. I wonder how much better it does on exchange integration now. I know that it was kinda lacking it (which is why I didn’t use it) in previous versions.
Parental Controls – I do not think I need to go into explanation on this one….it has it, and I have no kids to worry about….PASS
Boot Camp – I highly doubt that they changed this feature all that much so no real draw to upgrade there…
Those are the highlights on Apple’s homepage….I would make the leap if I had a slightly newer computer or still used a mac
Maybe I will pick it up and see how it runs on my mac powerbook…supposedly it has better memory management as well which would be nice….