Comments on: OS X Leopard – a review, a warning, and alternatives

By: Jon Atkinson

Jon Atkinson — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:24:00 +0000

I fired up my editor to comment on this post, but I kept on getting a few paragraphs in and starting over. While I can’t find the correct prose, I can make do with bullet points:

- Leopard was very late.
- Leopard seems very ‘rushed’, and the quality suffered because of this.
- We’re still using the ten point five dot zero release.
- Patches and updates *are* on their way.
- Things will get better.

That’s about it. You seem to have made a very quick decision based on your initial impression; remember the guys at Infinite Loop are programmers just like us, and just like we do, they’ll be trying to get the fixes out as soon as they can.

By: Andy Hume

Andy Hume — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:24:00 +0000

Strange, I’ve generally had a good experience. It seems snappier, though does seem heavy on RAM as you point out, but not to the point of having any problems with the dozen or so apps I might have running in a typical work day – including Parallels, which was a dog on Tiger.

I’m finding it an excellent and worthy upgrade.

By: West Crosby

West Crosby — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:24:00 +0000

For someone with as much experience as you seem to have, you sure are having a lot of problems.

By: Paul C. Harvey

Paul C. Harvey — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:24:00 +0000

Truly I don’t know what your problem is. I have Leopard installed on two computers. One is an iBook G4 1.2GHz and the other an unsupported PowerMac G4 Digital Audio model. This is by far the best OS X I have used (yes I started with 10.1 and have used all of them since). Other than some minor problems, such as my Logitech mouse not being recognized on startup occasionally and some incompatible third party software, it is fine.

Both of these computers are noticeably faster. Specifically the Finder and the Apple apps such as Safari and Mail. Oddly enough Firefox is slow to fire up as usual. After a week of intensive use I am very pleased. This has been the least troublesome upgrade of OS X that I have used

The speed of the Finder is much improved as are most applications. I am very pleased after one week of intensive use. So far the most trouble free upgrade yet for any OS X release.

By: Baz

Baz — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:24:00 +0000

I’ve not upgraded although I probably will in the next six months (the three people I know who have have had no issues and say it is faster than Tiger) – but I do remember people screaming about how Tiger was Apple’s worst release ever, people screaming about how Panther was full of bugs and not worth it … und so weiter.

Then again, I’m a Mac-boy, not a Unix-with-nice-GUI boy, so maybe I give them a bit more slack.

By: DMann

DMann — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:24:00 +0000

On the other hand, It would be nice if Ubuntu were stable enough for sustained usage……

By: John Davis

John Davis — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:24:00 +0000

So far I’ve installed 10.5 on two machines – a brand new 24" iMac and an older Al PB.

Total Crashes = 0
Total Freezes = 0

The only weird thing that happened is that I got an error message the first time I tried to install it on the iMac, so I ran DiskWarrior and AppleJack. The install went totally smoothly. Since I had had this on the iMac, I ran DW and AJ on the PB before installing too. Both machines have been up and running for a week now with nothing odd happening. Everything seems nicely snappier. The only thing I don’t like is the new Dock – it doesn’t work for me. Everything else makes it a good solid upgrade.

I can’t find ANYTHING to agree with in what you write.

John Davis

By: John Davis

John Davis — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:24:00 +0000

So far I’ve installed 10.5 on two machines – a brand new 24" iMac and an older Al PB.

Total Crashes = 0
Total Freezes = 0

I can’t find ANYTHING to agree with in what you write.

John Davis

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:24:00 +0000

Aside from some of the ‘not well thought out" visual effects (3d dock, transparent menubar, etc.), so far I think this is the best OS Apple has ever made.

Sorry your experience with it didn’t go well.

By: Roger Kortas

Roger Kortas — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:24:00 +0000

I have 10.5 on 4 Macs now 2 G5’s a Macbook and a Macbook Pro each install was just an upgrade install and so far not one problem! One of the G5’s has been on 24/7 So I find it hard to understand why you are having so many problems.

There are a few things I do not like but others may like them but as always it a very personal thing some people hate others love.

Roger