“Leopard maintains all the goodies of previous Mac OS X versions. To the amazement of many Windows refugees, Mac OS X requires no serial number and no ‘activation’; it’s not copy-protected. It doesn’t clutter the desktop with crippled bits of free-trial software from other companies. There are no nagging balloons or come-ons,” David Pogue reports for The New York Times.
“Leopard does well with backward compatibility, too. Thanks to modest minimum requirements (512 megabytes of memory, 867 megahertz), Apple says Leopard runs on three-year-old Macs and even high-end six-year-old machines,” Pogue reports.
“Leopard is powerful, polished and carefully conceived. Happy surprises, and very few disappointments, lie around every corner. This Leopard has more than 300 new spots — and most of them are bright ones,” Pogue reports.
Full review here.
You can almost say the same for Vista.
Powerful (smell) and polished (turd).
That is the greatest things about OSX and Macs. I have Tiger running on Imac G3’s that run just fine for most common tasks at our school. Try that with Windows – our school district won’t upgrade to Vista because of the problems and system requirements…so they continue to use a five year old OS on newer machines!
Both Mossberg and Pogue are Apple-lovers. Not quite the shills we see in the Windows media, but they are willing to give Apple more than a fair share of breaks, to criticize the flaws in Windows, and – basically – tout Apple products. Hiawatha Bray is similarly enamored of Apple.
And, why shouldn’t they be?!?
However, when Pogue follows the Apple line of “300 new spots”, we need to draw back a bit. Mossberg said “Leopard is more evolutionary than revolutionary”, meaning that many of those “new spots” are merely improved versions of the same “spots” seen in Tiger. Calling them “new” is marketing hype. Which doesn’t mean they are not “better”, but “updated” would be a better term for most of them.
I won’t be buying 10.5 on Friday. I’ll be at my son’s wedding rehearsal. It takes a lot to break my string of Jaguar, Panther and Tiger openings. Maybe Monday, maybe Tuesday … depends on what MacFixIt says. Nah … Monday. (Saturday is wedding, Sunday is recovery with Patriots football)
It will be a sad day when Apple needs shills to spread the modest “good” news about their products … we’ll all think back to these heady days when people touted Apple products because they honestly thought they were “The Best”.
Dave
Powerful and polished? Sounds like Vista to me.
Apple trying to catch up to Microsoft would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic. 30 years and 3 percent market share. Whatever.
BTW I like the serial number and activation procedures in Vista. It gives me a good feeling knowing the geniuses at Microsoft are close by, like a trusted longtime friend—which they have been for so many of us. Apple’s continued disdain for the customer is in clear view the way they just push you out the door after they take your money and don’t want to hear from you again. What a way to do business is that? Dorks.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Polished turd…
Zung Tang is a pretty good, even better that Sputnik. Actually, unlike Zune Tang, Sputnik just might have been serious.
The funiest thing I’ve ever read from Zune was today-M$ as a longtime trusted friend. If there ever was a blackhole, with a screwed up POS O/S, M$ is it.
Based on that comment alone, all I can say is-Zune you da man! (or gal)
“Hiawatha Bray is similarly enamored of Apple.”
There was a radical change in Hiawatha. I remember many anti-Apple hit pieces from a few years back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiawatha_Bray
“I’ll be at my son’s wedding rehearsal.”
Mazel Tov, Dave!
“30 years and 3 percent market share.”
Or six years and 75% marketshare.
“…which they have been for so many of us.” LOL
Thank you ZT, you’re a peach … disguised as a pit!
Love ya’ baby!
“Powerful and polished”
It’s true. It is Polished. (mmmmm . . . kielbasa)
“Polish Localization
Mac OS X Leopard is fully localized in Polish.”
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html#international
Modest system requirements?
Remember a year ago when MS required 512MB of RAM and everyone lashed out at them saying “how dare they set the requirements so high? So many PCs are not going to be able to use the OS”…
Yet when Apple says 512 MB RAM only a year later, everyone says how modest those requirements are.
I’m really on the fence for upgrading. Kind of want it for Time Machine, Boot Camp (so I can run native versions of MS Office, run Sibelius natively without having to upgrade to the newest version). On the other hand, I would rather use that money towards buying the newest version of the Logic software…
“Remember a year ago when MS required 512MB of RAM and everyone lashed out at them”
remember a year ago when 512 was a lot of RAM?
honestly, did that make sense?
also, i never heard anyone complaining about the RAM needed to run Vista. i have heard complaints about the graphics needs, the drive space, the CPU needed, and the DRM, but never the RAM. i might have just not been paying attention though.
i expect OS X to need a lot of RAM. it is a unix after all. but the other requirements are pretty small. i can live with that.
Anthony,
You have a good point. However, now that Vista is the standard, that’s pretty modest.
I don’t think you can even buy a computer with less than 512 of ram. Most come with 1 gig standard.
Quit whining.
@Anthony
Vista requires 1 gig of RAM for all but the most basic Home Edition. It requires 15 gigs of HD space (Leopard requires 9), and a 1 Mhz CPU (Leopard requires a 867 Mhz G4). Every G4 computer listed that is over 867 can take at least a maximum of 640MB of RAM, some can take as much as 1.5 gigs so there would be no problem upgrading RAM if needed. What’s the problem?
Where´s the secret, really great, features that Apple hinted at?
Time Machine? How often are you really going to use that?
Stacks – Organized clutter or what.
The other things in Leopard…yeah, polished, coolness I guess, but I spend very little time on my desktop and most of my time working in a program (Photoshop and other graphics programs) and so eye-candy system tweaks just don´t impress me that much.
I am waiting for a faster destop mac then I will take the Leopard plunge.
can anyone give me a legitimate reason to spend 130 bucks for someone running consumer applications on a 2ghz dp g5 pm?
<sarcasm>I don’t care what these shills say. Lets hear from someone objective like Paul Thurrott.</sarcasm>
@clyde:
For the same reason people trade in perfectly good 3 or 4 year old cars for new ones. To have the latest version, and to have all of the new features.
Is anything wrong with 10.4-or if you have an early version PM-10.3? No, but unless you never trade, sell or throw out any consumer good that isn’t destroyed, ruined or otherwise totally unusable, why should upgrading software be treated any differently?
These Windoze clowns make me laugh! Microsoft wouldn’t be close to what they are today without Apple and IBM. Hell, they can’t even get the VISTA pricing model simple or provide a level of support to get their customers up and running in the same day.
Tell me again who has won the award for Customer Service for 6 consecutive years? Oh yeah, that would be Apple…. the company that “kicks their customers to the street after taking their money”… what a moron!
@clyde – Time machine.
If you have and use a great backup proceedure there would be no compelling reason you couldn’t wait until 10.6
Hey, the fact that in Leopard when you select a file for renaming it automatically excludes the extension is reason enough for me to upgrade.
Oh, yeah, and that core animation stuff and Time Machine and Spaces, too. Yeah, those a pretty cool, too.
that’s actually the first time i’ve heard leopard’s requirements referred to as “modest”.
they aren’t that far removed from what vista requires, but here’s the difference. leopard will likely run WELL on an 867mhz g4 with 512mb ram (provided you don’t do much multitasking or AV/photoshop stuff, and MAYBE disable a few dashboard widgets), whereas my experience with vista is that even on a 2.2ghz athlon xp with a geforce 6800, it was still somewhat chuggy. i’d hate to see what it performs like on the “minimum” system…
so apple is basically covering themselves. there’s techincally nothing stopping leopard from running on older G4s, they just don’t want a bunch of people clogging their tech support with “my 500mhz imac g3 runs slow! what’s wrong with it? i thought i was UPGRADING!” someone with, say, a dual G4 533 with upgraded RAM and video? that’d probably run leopard great. xpostfacto will probably come to the rescue.
@Cubert
At work I am forced to use Windoze so I have picked up the habit of using Adobe Bridge instead of Explorer. Works great! Feels very Mac-like and, like your comment, excludes the extension from your selection when clicking on the title when renaming… nice.