Has Leopard been a dissapointment? « Irfan’s Corner on the Web

14Jun/072

Has Leopard been a dissapointment?

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I tried MacOSX 10.4 out recently, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience: a strong GUI with a strong shell! I was anxiously awaiting what MacOSX 10.5 will have to offer. Apple then finally unveiled MacOSX 10.5 in the WWDC. And by all accounts what I've been reading its release had been a disappointment.

There are 2 things to the build up of the unveiling that made me excited about Leopard:

1, First was the inclusion of ZFS, if you have ever come across ZFS you would know what a powerful filesystem it is. ZFS creates partitions and formats drives in a snap, it is ultra scalable and ensure file system and data integrity. Clones of ZFS filesystems can be created with the blink of an eye. However Leopard did not come with ZFS at all, although people claimed it to be the OS's 'secret weapon'!

2, Built in virtualization was a highly desired feature! This certainly would have been a killer feature! If MacOSX 10.5 ever would take on the Windows World, without built in virtualization it would have no chance. Sure there is Parrallels, and VMware Fusion etc, but having native virtualization within the platform would have compelled many people to switch

Other eye candy features do not interest me, many people are comparing Leopard with Vista, and have determined that it is offering nothing new. I'll end this post with a few excerpts from different places from the internet:

From Web Worker Daily:

"Mail and iCal are still the biggest web worker disappointments from Apple. So much potential not fully realized. We live and die by our email, and Apple somehow thinks we spend our day designing postcards of our last vacation to send to Grandma? Serious web workers are probably going to stick to Thunderbird or Gmail. The improvements to these productivity apps are so superficial in Leopard, they weren’t even worth mentioning in today’s presentation."

From Softpedia:

"What does Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard have that Windows Vista doesn't? The answer is nothing... On the Apple official website, the Cupertino-based company makes an irresistible invitation: "Leopard. Conquer Time and Space." Right... Conquer time and space so that in October you will be able to return all the way to Windows Vista, released by Microsoft in January 2007 for the general public. In its quest to advance the world's most advanced operating system and to master both the dimensions of time and space, Apple has built a replica of Windows Vista"

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Frances

Wow, that’s a whole vineyard of sour grapes there, bubba. It’s true that I had expected more, although I don’t know what ‘more’ would have been exactly.
ZFS seems to be going into the system, but since someone stole Steve’s thunder, he might not have been prepared to actually manage it. He’s a very proud man, Steve is.

The new Finder looks very cool and the extra features like Stacks, Time Machine and Spaces looks to be very worthwhile [well, once I figure out how this Spaces thing works].
There is some eye candy, but really, things generally look very good. The only thing I don’t see a use for is the reflecting Dock. What good does that do? None that I can see.

It is software development. They are features and they need to be implemented. It costs time and effort. The hype that is generated around an Apple keynote has become of such epic proportions that if Steve announces anything less than an 8-dimensional interface that you can only reach across an Einstein-Rosen bridge, it’s old and tired. We have come to expect a single-button warp drive configuration that makes the Large Hadron Collider look like a Disneyland ride.
Come on. They’re in the software business. If it all works as advertised and it’s stable, I’ll be more than happy. Core Animation is going to make some awesome software. I can’t wait to buy Library 2.0 [and a new Mac ].

It’s easy to be disappointed when you set the standard impossibly high. Steve’s RDF has created the expectation of angels with wings, but it just doesn’t work like that.

To say that Leopard is going to be like Vista. Um, no. Vista is a dog. Unless Leopard would be slow and cumbersome, which I hope it won’t be [four more months of bug fixes, guys], Leopard looks clean, chique and sophisticated. I’ve seen Vista. It sucks. It does. Really.

There’s no doubt that I’m buying Leopard.
Justin

Well I will probably buy Leopard but im not happy about it.
I had a chance to use the beta due to a colleague going to the conference.
(To the downloaders dont bother its not worth the efford you will probally be disappointed, just wait.)

I have issues with the new interface. Im not sure about transparent menu, but it does make the icons that reside there harder to read, and no I couldn’t find the off switch. I dont like stacks I like the idea but not having complete control makes me think that Steve knows whats best for ME. And any folder that is dragged into the dock automatically switches to stacks, this makes using that space more difficult. I use the desktop alot I move my folders and files specifically to reside in open areas for quick access going to the dock and looking drives me nuts. I also like saving things to the desktop pictures etc in the dock makes for hard organization, moving files to other folders is cumbersome, and just what is a desktop FOR! Im pleased with most of the other features. And I will probably like all the new features so long as I have control!

Steve has set himself up for failure as said above anything short of stopping time is not enough. The Vista Leopard argument is one that I dont tread on. Much… I will say that no one cares who stole it first! I work with alot of “sensitive data” and if a competitor shows a feature first whether we thought of it first or not they get the credit! If features were in Vista before they were shown in Leopard the winner is Vista. Whether you like it or not.

Leopard was fast and I mean fast if felt really good but its still lacks control.