“After three intense days with Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard Version 10.5, I have three main things to say about it. First: despite minor problems, it’s by far the best operating system ever written for the vast majority of consumers, with dozens of new features that have real practical value—like truly automated backups, preview images in folders, and notes and to-do lists integrated into the mail program,” Edward Mendelson reports for PC Magazine.
“I found Leopard to be startlingly fast, brilliantly streamlined, and packed with conveniences and innovations. Leopard’s rich set of built-in software runs faster than I imagined possible,” Mendelson reports.
“Leopard has its share of first-version glitches.. There aren’t a huge number of them but you might want to wait until Apple releases its first update and more before third-party customization utilities become available,” Mendelson reports.
“If you’re in the market for a new machine, it’s time to look seriously at a Mac, especially now that all Macs can run Windows along with OS X through the built-in Boot Camp feature that lets you install Windows and Leopard in separate partitions. Even better, third-party software from Parallels or Vmware make it possible to run a Windows program in a window on the OS X desktop. It’s even possible to set up OS X so that Word documents automatically open in the Windows version of Microsoft Word,” Mendelson reports.
“Leopard again raises the question of whether to switch from Windows to a Mac. I’ve found Vista to be a major disappointment that tends to look worse the more I use it. I still use Windows XP for getting serious work done. But OS X is easier to manage and maintain and I vastly prefer OS X to Windows for Web-browsing, mail, and especially for any task that involves graphics, music, or video. Leopard performs all such tasks even better than previous versions did—and Leopard is the only OS on the planet that works effortlessly and intuitively in today’s world of networked computers and peripherals. Leopard is far from perfect, but it’s better than any alternative, and it’s getting harder and harder to find good reasons to use anything else,” Mendelson reports.
Full review here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Corinne” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Mendelson still uses Windows XP for getting “serious work” done? “Serious work” like what? AutoCAD maybe, because Autodesk can’t get off their duffs to release the app for Mac OS X? (An aside: AutoCAD is so horribly spaghetti-coded for Windows, that it would require a totally fresh rewrite from the ground up.) Or games – that’s probably what he means, unless he thinks installing and wasting processor cycles running antivirus, antispyware, anti-this and anti-that is “getting serious work done.” But, hey, he is writing for PC Magazine, he must feel that he has to feed the sheep at least one morsel as he shovels Windows into the manure pile where it belongs. On the other hand, perhaps he means that he uses XP vs. Vista for getting his so-called “serious” work done? In that case, we understand to a point, but we’d still use Pages, TextEdit, or God forbid, Word for Mac to open Word docs. Why suffer with XP unless you absolutely are forced to do so by shortsighted IT guys and/or developers?
@ Ex-Excel User
Numbers is great for what it does as a 1.0 app. However, it is still far behind Excel for hardcore financial modeling. I am in a “Wall Street” business and use Excel for Mac every day with no problems. So I don’t agree that the Windows version has the upper hand.
However, the new Excel ’08 will cripple the Mac version with no VBA support. Numbers better come up the curve soon (or a third party VBA plug-in better surface) or else spreadsheets on the Mac will start lagging Windows.
Just my 2 cents.
Chris ][:
AutoCAD IS a mess. An over-priced, bloated, counterintuitive, entrenched mess.
Yes, it’s the “industry standard”, but it’s a pain to learn, support and keep up to speed on. Thankfully it’s gradually been losing marketshare to other CAD applications over time. Apps like VectorWorks, ArchiCAD, Revit, Microstation an BIM apps.
One of the biggest reasons why people still “need” AutoCAD is that AutoDesk refuses to publish their complete file format specs, so that other CAD developers are forced to reverse engineer every revision of AC, so their apps can translate files accurately. It’s gotten a bit better over the years, but it’s still a big pain.
There are some articles at Architosh.com.
http://www.architosh.com.
Truth is for me… I have had no reason to upgrade from win2k, so the day my old celeron powered Thinkpad running a lean, stripped down win2k isn’t supported anymore (which is getting close) I simply get the mac I’ve always wanted. Despite living with windows (although win2k was probably the best version ever made) I have eliminated virtually all other software made by MS, running more open source apps (Firefox, OpenOffice,) or Apple apps (iTunes, Safari) and still manage to get things done fairly efficiently, and with a reduced vulnerability to ActiveX and other scripting pranks. WinXP never made sense to upgrade to, and Vista just won’t happen. MS painted themselves into a corner with me, and I’m cutting a hole in the wall and getting out (on the back of a mighty Leopard…
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” /> Bring on the new Macbooks!
PS: Disclosure – I have a position in aapl. (and man, am I happy about that!!)
@Vanillacide
“Excel on the Mac just doesn’t cut it”
Hmmm, and I wonder whose fault that is? M$ has always held back or disabled features on their Mac offerings. Jerks!
Mac OS X Leopard – BY FAR THE BEST OPERATING SYSTEM EVER WRITTEN.
—
Amen
—
1:34 pm ET. AAPL is about to pop! Are you ready?
Leopard is bloody brilliant!
I have to use windows for autocad too 🙁
Leave it MDN to find a way to bash the author of such a glowing (and accurate!) review. When the author talks about using XP to “get serious work done” he’s obviously trying to distinguish between XP and Vista — not between XP and OS-X. He still does his “serious work” on XP because that’s what he’s been used to for years, and perhaps because the “serious” programs he’s already invested a lot of money in were written for Windows. He’s not a switcher yet, that’s all. But it’s also clear he thinks he and most other folks probably should be.
Lighten up MDN!
I emailed the author and asked him about the “serious work” comment. His response is valid:
“I’m an English professor in my other life, and WordPerfect (especially the DOS version) and MS Office both manage long documents and document-editing in general in ways that FOR ME (maybe not for other people) are better than anything available on the Mac (and yes, I’ve tried OpenOffice, NeoOffice, Mellel, etc., etc.,). Believe me, if I could get a Mac program do what I can do easily in WordPerfect, I wouldn’t wrestle with Windows any longer. And I’ve tried…!”
word of the day: inexorable
—
AAPL
Although MacOS is my personal choice, there are some applications that request me to use windows (other than autocad). you can add the following programs to that list:
Solidworks
Moldflow
Minitab
So, yes there is a need to use windows for a lot of people…
ArcGIS
Surfer
… they work in Parallels just fine…
@ Jimbo
Way to go Jimbo. Thanks for taking the effort to email the author and post the reason instead of just doing the easy thing and posting pedantry. Understanding is always preferable and, like it or not, there are some reasons some folk must continue using native Windows software where Mac equivalents are not always fully compliant. As a person who has convinced a number of people to switch, they have always appreciated it when I give them the “straight dope” so they know exactly what difficulties they may encounter and whether the features of the Mac are enough to offset those problems.
If Steve and his company were wise… they would use this bit of ‘copy’ for the next Mac Vs. PC commercial before the holiday buying season. There are I am sure some more college and high school kids who will get outfitted with computers for Christmas, and what responsible parent would dare buy an inferior product with a not so rosy future like a PC?
@Ex-Excel User
Numbers, yeah great for some regular spreadsheeting — nice formatting and that — but not good enough for serious number crunching I am afraid.
I really wish it was, but it isn’t.
The open source spreadsheets are rubbish, they are just too slow. So, that leaves me with multi-core Excel 2007 … and Parallels / VMware and BootCamp for “serious work” .
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
I find it really, really strange that their is no AutoCAD, or any equivelant application for Mac. I would think Mac would be the ideal platform for Computer Aided Design. Why hasn’t anyone developed a good alternative to AutoCAD for Mac? What are all those fucking engineers at Apple using? I would think they of all people would need some kind of computer aided design software.
It just doesn’t make any sense at all. Why should Mac people be reduced to using Linux or Windows for computer aided design?
@ Critic
I wouldn’t mind being Paul Allen. At least he knows how to live an interesting and adventurous life. He also tends to do no evil, even in business.
I’ve found Vista to be a major disappointment that tends to look worse the more I use it
Sounds like the person who married a truly awful spouse after a fleeting engagement, and just had his “What was I thinking?!?” moment.
Fortunately, OSes are a little easier to get yourself out of…
Great install on MacPro (QuadCore 3 GHz), and MacBook (C2D). Install on G5 2.3 Dual wasn’t so great. Wouldn’t restart – had to do a HD wipe, and clean install. Now it appears stable.
Spaces will take some time to optimize. Time Machine took all night to backup (You have 1,124, 341 files to backup). Used a new LaCie 2 TB HD, and that baby was still hot this morning.
“but it’s snappier……”
Quad Core,
exactly!
MDN’s usual knee-jerk reaction was wrong.
He was talking about the two Windows’ OS’s when he mentioned preferring XP.
It wasn’t a jab at OS X.
no-no,
I agree with your post entirely.
MDN is showing increasing signs of acute paranoia.
Leopard is truly great but I did have trouble with the install. First I tried the upgrade option and after 2 hours and a restart I was greeted with a blue screen that never went away. I had just enough hard disk space to complete the upgrade but after using my wife’s Mac to lookup the issue, I found out that I needed to do the install again with the archive options in place. This was a surprise.
The problem here is that I now needed to delete a bunch of stuff to free up the space to do the second install but I had no way to access my hard drive to delete files from the Documents folder. I tried accessing the drive from the Leopard DVD with no luck, I tried to network in from my wife’s machine with no luck. Then I grabbed an old external firewire drive that I had that had an old system on in from a while back. I could now see my drive but the Document folder with the files I needed to delete was locked. After some trying I realized that if I created a user account exactly same as my original one then I could access the folder. It worked and everything is all good now. So instead of the 2 hours I expected this took about 8 (with dumb luck and frustration). Hope your uprade went / goes better.
Time machine rocks!
So I sent him an email and asked that he explain what “serious work” is. Here was his response:
“Long complex documents in WordPerfect for DOS and sometimes WordPerfect for Windows. Used for many books, using features that don’t exist in OpenOffice, Word for Mac, etc.”
So, basically, he’s too lazy to upgrade to Adobe InDesign for his long document design.
I’ve updated my Mac Mini, and Leopard is fantastic for my “serious work” – and as I’m an editor, that’s a LOT of documents. Claiming you need Windows XP for serious work is bewlildering – if it’s serious, why are you willing to risk losing it to viruses and crashes?
PS I found a neat little trick during my leopard install – got one of those drop-in upgrade DVDs? Want to upgrade another computer NOT on tiger (or want to just do a clean install after a hard drive wipe without reinstalling 10.4 first)? Well there’s a bug in the installer on the drop-in disks that lets you do just that and bypass the upgrade check. Pop it in the machine you want to upgrade, and it’ll look for Tiger – when it says it can’t upgrade because 10.4 is not found, click on “utilities”, then on “time machine backup”. Then just click “back” – the installer jumps past the 10.4 check and behaves just like a standard retail copy, and will be ready to go!
He was comparing XP to Vista when mentioning getting serious work done, that’s how I read it anyway.
Leopard is beautiful. I LOVE it. And Spaces is KILLER. Well for me anyway, I don’t know where I’d be without it…
@UltraVisitor
VectorWorks
Try this link if you need an CAD on a Mac.
You can’t go wrong.
From their about us blurb –
“Nemetschek North America is a wholly-owned subsidiary of European software giant Nemetschek AG. A global leader in design technologies, Nemetschek N.A. has developed CAD software for the personal computer since 1985. VectorWorks, our flagship product, is one of the world’s best selling CAD products and is available in over 85 countries. The VectorWorks Design Series is a line of products designed specifically to meet the needs of designers in the fields of AEC, entertainment and landscape design.”
As for the –
…”I still use Windows XP for getting serious work done.”
I tend to agree that he was validating XP as opposed to Vista.
However, I think Mr Edward Mendelson was being somewhat equivocal on purpose, the ambiguous expression, from a competent English Professor would not make sense otherwise.