5 Ways Leopard Will Change The Way You Work
Leopard is already looking like a huge step forward from Tiger, and Steve has only unveiled 10 features so far, with many more top secret features yet to come. How’s Leopard going to change the way you work?
Virtual Desktops With Spaces
We all wish we could be using one of Apple’s 30� Cinema Displays but in reality it’s not going to happen. With Apple’s latest Leopard innovation you can take advantage and enjoy your small MacBook or iMac’s display as much as the 30� Cinema, minus the sore neck.
Create up to 16 virtual desktops and switch between them at a press of a button. This will be very handy for those multi-taskers who are constantly emailing and browsing the web, while chatting and editing photos in Aperture. You’ll now be able to create three separate desktops for these tasks. One for Mail and Safari, one for iChat and Adium, and one for Aperture.
This should speed up your workflow and keep your workspace visually clean and un-cluttered.
Backing Up With Time Machine
I dont think I need to cover the main features of Time Machine because we all know what it is already, if not, the best way to learn is to watch Apple’s demonstration video here.
How’s Time Machine going to change the way we work? For starters, we are never going to lose a file again, by accidental deletion or by a hard-drive failure. Backing up will be made as simple as, well, doing nothing, and the 4% of regular people who backup will shoot up before we can blink.
Time Machine is going to save people a lot of stress from the normal backing up routines which become tiring. You wont even have to think about backing up, Leopard will do that for you. The only time you’ll need to think about it is when you lose a file, which you will be able to get back with a click of the mouse.
Organization With Mail
I’ve been pretty disappointed with Apple’s lack of an organization application in Tiger. How hard would it have been to implement something into iCal from the start? The main thing is, we are getting a brand new system wide notes and to-to organizer based in Mail, which will be able to be accessed from all applications, making Mail your true “one stop shop� for getting yourself sorted on your Mac.
With Leopard a Notes & To-Do tab will reside in Mail’s sidebar, allowing you to easily, and quickly keep tab on things you need to remember and do. In turn, this will keep you on target to get the things you need to get done finished, and will save you the embarrassment of forgetting an important date or meeting.
Business With iChat
When your wanting to show a Keynote presentation to a fellow student or business partner you usually have to either be next to them, or burn the keynote to a disk, mail it to them, and wait…You get no instant feedback on how they liked/disliked it, and it doesn’t feel very “personalâ€?.
iChat Theatre is going to change that, and much more.
You can start a video conference with a buddy, then begin a keynote presentation, or an iPhoto slideshow which will be played off to the side of the video chat. It’ll just be like your presenting this to them in the same room. This will be great for business people who are often on the go, and for families to show off holiday photos to their friends on the other side of the world..or fence.
Another wonderful addition to iChat which will make collaboration a breeze is “Remote Control�. You will be able to simply take control of another buddy’s computer directly through iChat, allowing you to work on podcasts, websites, or troubleshoot problems without any hassle. And if that cant get any better, iChat will automatically initiate a voice chat when you enable this feature so you can both chat and collaborate like no other before.
Dashboard
Forget checking multiple comic strips, eBay auctions, and status lists each and every day with the brand new enhanced Dashboard.
Simple create a “web clipping� widget at the click of a button, and make pieces of these web pages into widgets for quick and easy access.
The brand new Dashboard will save you even more time then Tiger’s Dashboard did, you’ll be smothered with by free time before you even know it.
#1
wphI’m looking forward to iChat and Spaces the most.
#2
CaitlyniChat, Time Machine and Web Clipping are going to be my favorites.
#3
JeffWhat you mean is virtual dimension, true image, Outlook, pick a chat program, and Konfabulator. This is weak, is this all that the Macintosh platform has to show for such expensive computers. Maybe if the computers were $299 and at Target I should find this exiting.
#4
GlockUnfortunately, it seems as if most of these things have been done before in other systems, and probably slightly better.
It’s only revolutionary because it’s new to Apple.
Such is life, I guess….
#5
Heatherspaces sounds beyond awesome! I can’t wait! dashboard was so limited before, now it sounds a lot more useful as well.
#6
Andy PalysI can’t wait! :)
#7
PeteImplementation is everything, you dorks.
Konfabulator? Please, everyone downloaded it, but like 10 people used it.
Yahoo Chat has multi-user audio/video, and will let you look at my powerpoint presentation too? I never knew!!!
Did you see the way you can drag windows from space to space? These are small details that make all the difference.
Don’t even get me started on Outlook. If you’re looking for a $299 computer, the Mac is not, and likely never will be for you.
#8
JeffPeter, fuck off.
#9
TKWhy is Spaces such a big deal? From the previews it does not have all of the functionality of XGL which many of us having been using for work for months.
http://www.novell.com/linux/xglrelease/
#10
FaronExcuse me, I own and use several pc’s (running XP) on a daily basis, but I still love Apple’s hardware and software. While these additions to the OS may not be revolutionary in terms of their innovation or originality, you know that they will be tightly wrapped up in a sleek, user-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing package. As far as I’m concerned, Apple has no competition in terms of overall appeal and design (both in visuals and functionality of their software), and I think that should be carefully considered before making rash or ignorant statements about how one platform is better than the other. Who cares?! I use both…and I can tell you, now that apple’s Boot Camp is going to be included with the new OS, I really have no reason not to make an Apple my next computer.
#11
Tux PenguinI love Leopard’s new CoreDump. I can’t wait to load up Cocoa and take my CoreDump to its limits! LOL
#12
JeffI can’t believe they called this Vista 2.0, I am so tired of people digging this stuff. At least the Linux and Window stuff is interesting.
#13
AnthonyDon’t bother with Jeff, flaming is inevitable, and his original post can be seen as nothing else, given the stunningly idiotic lack of logic involved.
Oh, and somebody dugg this site.
#14
TomWhoa with the anger! Let’s be frank here. Cheapest PC on Target.com — $399.99 Comes with Windows XP Home. No Outlook (except for Express). Tack on at least 185 for the student version Tack on 50$ for True Image…
Brings me to 635. The Mac Mini will once Leopard comes out come preloaded with all that functionality for 600.
Where is the cost benefit here?
#15
DaveVirtuedesktops enables tiger to have multiple desktops and switching by hitting your sudden motion sensing mac. I’m hoping the hitting feature will be implemented in Spaces.
#16
Miles“Hi. My name is Glenn, a 14 year old Mac user and I’m from New Zealand. I’m a magazine writer, photographer, and work for Inventive Software.”
14 or 41?
#17
Paulwow, guys, none of this is new…….
at all…….
and from what i can assume……it’s not going to be any better…
#18
LOLZ W0Whaha Lolsz!@#$32. Tom
#19
MarkMost of you are tools.. OSX is a very nice desktop interface to a real operating system (yeah yeah.. apple bastardized it..) as opposed to Vista (or WindowsXP.. ) which is a crappy interface to a POS operating system. It was hacked in minutes!
The fact is, Apple is a marketing machine and never forget that. Most of the functionality they are advertising is available in really good 3rd parth software.. like Virtue Desktop, MailTags, etc.
Linux and xgl is a very very cool step towards the next desktop interface, but linux lacks commercial software support. (so far)
If you think that Apple is the end-all, be-all fine.. enjoy. If you think M$ is, well you’re an idiot. If you think Linux is, you probably have spent over a year getting your desktop to behave like OSX :)
#20
DanielThese five things would be pretty weak if they were all that Leopard did. But everyone seems to forget that Tiger is already amazing. It’s kinda like the shark… why evolve if you already rule the ocean?
#21
Real_JeffIs what Apple showing original? Not likely; then again, what OS really has “original” components that have never been seen before in other forms? I mean, the whole concept of “virtual desktops” that Linux users love to boast about came from, guess what, the real world equivalent of a second desk…
Like others have pointed out, implementation is what’s key here. Leave it up to Apple to take it one step further, make it easier to use, and easier to explain.
#22
AanidaaniApple does do a good job of implementing things, but these features alone make the upgrade pretty worthless.
Spaces already exists in VirtueDesktops and Desktop Manager. And while some say Apple can do a better job, Desktop Manager already has nice transitions and works great.
Time Machine, well, there are similar backup utilities, albeit without the flashy graphics. The Mail features are nice, but again, there are plenty of other clients.
The iChat features are cool and I’m sure they’re great for any iChat user, but I’m not one. Why? Because the Mac version of iChat doesn’t share any interoperability with Windows. So why would I use it when all my friends have Windows machines?
Lastly, these Dashboard widgets are great, but you can already download plenty with the same functionality, and why would I pay $100+ for a few widgets?
Granted, I love Apple and what they’ve done for computers. I enjoy my Mac, but Apple has shown a really weak release here. Unless their “top secret” features are much better, it’s going to take some convincing to get me to switch to Leopard.
#23
MHThe best is yet to come…
#24
Mike K.Yes, it’s true. Most of the functionality in these new Leopard components is available in 3rd party applications already. But here’s the thing: Apple isn’t targeting these tools at we, the knowledgable users. They’re targeting them at the Average Clueless Computer Joe.
Do I back up every day? Yes actually, I do. I have a little server in my basement that runs BackupPC over rsync and grabs any changes I make on my MacBook. Now, do my parents have such a setup? Nope. Are they likely to use even a simple backup tool like Apple’s Backup software? Not likely. Even that is too complicated.
The scary thing is that this mentality is common to most computer users that wander into the Apple reseller storefront where I work. Day after day I show business people, students, moms and dads, grandparents and kids things like Virtue or Desktop Manager, Backup, etc … and none of them were aware that the Mac can do all this great stuff. So, bundling it into the OS at least puts it at their fingertips.
I’m looking forward to Time Machine alone. Yes, it’s flashy and pretty and over-the-top. But … if it prevents just ONE more user from wandering into my store wondering why all their photos disappeared from iPhoto, it would easily be worth the price of the upgrade (hint: Windows switchers like to muck about in filesystems rather than use the pretty iPhoto UI and often get themselves into trouble).
Oh, and as for Aanidanni’s comment about iChat not being interoperable with Windows PCs … you *do* realize that iChat just uses the AOL AIM transport system right? I was happily videoconferencing with my sister the other night; she was using a Dell PC running Windows XP and the latest AOL AIM beta client. Sure, her user interface didn’t look nearly as pretty as iChat’s, but it definitely interoperates.
#25
JohnnyCYeah the two most useful things (mainly “time machine” and “spaces”) have been around in the computing world for at least 6 years under XP, the other 3 things can of course be approximated with software available for XP.
Don’t get my wrong spotlight was a good idea that microsoft “is kinda” catching up with the idea for Vista but 10.5 looks like it might be the lamest version of OSX in terms of new “features”
#26
JonYou know, I wasn’t all that impressed with the features revealed at WWDC. Most of those features exist already in third-party software. I wanted to hear about something else… something mind-bogglingly amazing. Xcode 3 and Core Animation comes the closest.
#27
Plop PlopNone of these will change the way I work. I use virtual desktops on Gnome, I backup my datas, I use Gmail, I have special effects on my webcam sessions using effectv and it’s amazing (not to mention remote control that is so old that it was shipped by default with windows xp back in 2001!), and finally, RSS are way much more usefull that the dashboard “where-will-I-place-this-widget-?” stuff.
No, really, none of these will do.
I’m ashamed so many of you guys are blind enought to consider this crap as innovation.
#28
Plop PlopNone of these will change the way I work. I use virtual desktops on Gnome, I backup my datas, I use Gmail, I have special effects on my webcam sessions using effectv and it’s amazing (not to mention remote control that is so old that it was shipped by default with windows xp back in 2001!), and None of these will change the way I work. I use virtual desktops on Gnome, I backup my datas, I use Gmail, I have special effects on my webcam sessions using effectv and it’s amazing (not to mention remote control that is so old that it was shipped by default with windows xp back in 2001!), and finally, RSS are way much more usefull that the dashboard “where-will-I-place-this-widget-?” stuff.
No, really, none of these will do.
I’m ashamed so many of you guys are blind enought to consider this crap as innovation. RSS are way much more usefull that the dashboard “where-will-I-place-this-widget-?” stuff.
No, really, none of these will do.
I’m ashamed so many of you guys are blind enought to consider this crap as innovation.
#29
DaveStill, who on earth uses iChat? I can sort of communicate with friends through the Jabber gateway hack, but why bother when Adium and Fire can do it with much less fuss?
As usual, all the new bits and pieces are nothing new, but done more beautifully than anywhere else to date.
#30
FiresnakeAs a poster said above, if you’re in the 4% of users who do scheduled back ups, or one of the people who has three computers with three different operating systems, then this isn’t that big a deal. But for the rest of the world, it is something to note.
#31
King ElessarI’d just like to point out that most of these features have been in Linux for ages.
Spaces? For crying out loud, these have been in Linux since around 2000. And with the recent XGL/Compiz (http://en.opensuse.org/Compiz), you can actually have these “spaces” on a 3D cube!
Dashboard? SuperKaramba (http://netdragon.sourceforge.net) has been around for a year or so now, and offers similar functionality to Dashboard.
Mail? Linux offers “Kontact” a intergrated PIM suite, with mail, addressbook, todo, calendar, RSS feeds, etc, and for that matter, Outlook has been around for ages anyway.
iChat? Take a look @ Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net). It can connect to AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC and Jabber just to name a few, so now you can chat with friends who don’t have iChat.
Remote Control? That has been around for an age, with VNC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VNC) easily allowing you to do this.
And best of all, all of this is completely free and opensource, and will run on a computer a fraction of the cost of a Mac.
I really don’t see what there is to get excited about.
#32
O’NeillAverage ‘My Microsoft is broken!’ Joe wouldn’t even know Linux -existed-.
And lest ye forget, those are only the first ten features.
#33
Chickneen Mcgill> I’d just like to point out that most of these features have been in Linux for ages. Most of them have even been in OS X for ages. Apple just usually does a good job at making it pretty and easy to use.
> Spaces? For crying out loud, these have been in Linux since around 2000. And with the recent XGL/Compiz (http://en.opensuse.org/Compiz), you can actually have these “spaces” on a 3D cube! Yeah, there’s virtual desktop software for Tiger too. None of it is new. I have a PC running XGL/Compiz… it looks fantastic, but I prefer my mac overall.
> Dashboard? SuperKaramba (http://netdragon.sourceforge.net) has been around for a year or so now, and offers similar functionality to Dashboard. Konfabulator was around for mac way back. I’m pretty sure they were the first.
> Mail? Linux offers “Kontact” a intergrated PIM suite, with mail, addressbook, todo, calendar, RSS feeds, etc, and for that matter, Outlook has been around for ages anyway. Mail is primarily a mail app. Previously, all of those features have been available in separate applications bundled with OS X (Address Book and iCal integrate well with Mail). They’re just now adding system wide todos, and throwing notes into mail. Oh and Kontact has a horrible UI, IMHO.
> iChat? Take a look @ Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net). It can connect to AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC and Jabber just to name a few, so now you can chat with friends who don’t have iChat. Adium (uses Gaim libraries I think) for mac does all this too, it’s a fantastic open source app. iChat beats anything around for video conferencing though, and the whole remote presentations seems like a great idea.
> Remote Control? That has been around for an age, with VNC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VNC) easily allowing you to do this. And best of all, all of this is completely free and opensource, and will run on a computer a fraction of the cost of a Mac. I really don’t see what there is to get excited about. You can run VNC on a mac too. I disagree with your use of the word “easily”. iChat just means people don’t have to figure out ip addresses and such. A better comparison would be MSN Messenger for Windows, which allowed you to initiate screen sharing sessions.
#34
Chickneen McgillOops, I was mistaken about Kontact… its UI looks pretty reasonable for linux. Maybe I confused it with some other app.
#35
Glenn Wolsey@ Miles
I’m 14…The about page is correct.
#36
AmosIs funny like last years’ comments of the people bashing the mac were “windows had this for ages” or “windows is much better at doing this” and similar lines.
Now almost nobody is comparing Win at OS X and all everybody’s going at “Linux is better”, “*nix had this feature since the civil war”
As any *nix OSses are readily usable by the average computer user and should be adopted straight away…
But at least people using Win has the decency to stop bragging about an OS that has serious functionality problems…
One step in the right direction, I would say
#37
SomeoneIt seems to me that this whole discussion is insane. We do not know anything about the new OS. ‘ichat’ ‘dashboard’ ’spaces’ — These are all applications NOT OS enhancements.. ‘Time machine’ is the only thing significant here and technically thta is an add-on application as well.
What would be great to know are actual OS related things like (for example).. Are they finally going to get rid of the hideous HFS filesystem (which is a bear to work with if you are integrating with any other non-apple system) Will they introduce ZFS?!
Its hard to call ‘adding backdrops to an IM application’ an “OS enhancement”.
#38
Phil GrayHey folks,
If you don’t like Apple’s new Leopard get off the pot and go shit on someone else’s blog
#39
JoeyI am really looking forward to Spaces and Time Macheine. My desktop frequently gets cluttered when I am working it would be great to have a different desktop for each project I am working on. Can’t wait to get my hands o Leopard, another winner from Apple I think.
#40
Colei still don’t think virtual desktops are necessary on a Mac w/ expose. I can find anything I need on my single desktop with the use of expose.
#41
RigbyI’d just like to point out that most of these features have been in Linux for ages.
Spaces? For crying out loud, these have been in Linux since around 2000. And with the recent XGL/Compiz (http://en.opensuse.org/Compiz), you can actually have these “spaces” on a 3D cube!
Dashboard? SuperKaramba (http://netdragon.sourceforge.net) has been around for a year or so now, and offers similar functionality to Dashboard.
Mail? Linux offers “Kontact” a intergrated PIM suite, with mail, addressbook, todo, calendar, RSS feeds, etc, and for that matter, Outlook has been around for ages anyway.
iChat? Take a look @ Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net). It can connect to AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC and Jabber just to name a few, so now you can chat with friends who don’t have iChat.
Remote Control? That has been around for an age, with VNC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VNC) easily allowing you to do this.
And best of all, all of this is completely free and opensource, and will run on a computer a fraction of the cost of a Mac.
I really don’t see what there is to get excited about.I imagine that the 5 items listed are not evolutionary to most people who take the time to read this blog/column or whatever you choose to call it.
But, more importantly, to the average user of a Mac or a Windows machine these features will appear evolutionary. Term applies to the perception of the general audience not to the technology.
To most of my friends in the business community or in my social life they will see these as advances, even evolutionary advances, although we may not.
#42
MGKWhoApple is innovative.
They don’t necessarily invent all of these new things, take the Apple II for instance. They didn’t invent the PC. But Apple’s innovation led the Apple II to be the best PC around.
The same is with OSX. Sure, not everything is a new technology. But they way Apple implements the existing technologies is INNOVATIVE.
For instance, iChat. Some were comparing the share-deskptop feature with VNC. I have VNC. My dad uses it because of his business and therefore my PC has it.
But since when is VNC easier than typing in someone’s screen name? It’s not! Sure it was around first, seeing as Leopard isn’t out yet obviously, but Apple does it better.
And that’s not saying that Apple doesn’t come up with their own things either. On the other hand, they aren’t copying and I don’t see why they should call others copycats.
Everyone should just shut up if you’re complaining that these 5 feautures are not ‘evolutionary.’ If you think that way then you’re missing the point completely.
Have a nice day!
-=|Mgkwho
#43
RichardWho cares? Can we quit trying to decide which OS is better, because it’s all down to personal taste.
These are products, not religions. Can we get a grip?
If it’s an Mac topic, talk about Macs. A Linux topic, focus on Linux. Windows, focus on Windows.
Simple as! Stick to these, and we can all chill out a little more. I own a Mac, PC, and Linux machine. I like all three!
#44
RobIf people spent less time arguing about brands, computers, operating systems, CPUs, the colour blue…..they would probably find something else to fight over.
Visit http://www.bbcnews.com
Real stuff matters.
#45
TSCHwell, some of these things might have been available for a long time on linux, xp or by 3rd party software.
but apple has proven many times that their implementation simply kicks all other’s ass.
you can call me a mac-fanboy, but i am one for a reason. os x is in terms of technology and user interface design way ahead of everything else.
linux is still ugly and too complicated for the average non-geek user and xp … i’m not even going to talk about that.
#46
Thomas“ohnnyC said on August 11, 2006—
Yeah the two most useful things (mainly “time machine” and “spaces”) have been around in the computing world for at least 6 years under XP, the other 3 things can of course be approximated with software available for XP.”
Something like Time Machine has been available on XP, included with it, for at least 6 years? Are you referring to NTBackup – a program that can do incremental backups of the drive to another drive? How is its functionality anything like what is proposed in Time Machine? Time Machine is proposing in-line data recovery – no need to launch another app or anything like that. Also, where is NTBackup when the computer takes a shit? I tried installing Leopard on my iMac and it made a Time Machine backup of my drive beforehand. Lucky me, all 3 installs failed to yield a bootable OS. So I tried “recovery” -> Time Machine from the installer. My computer is now working perfectly fine. Can my XP box do that? No, it cannot. nothing is included with XP that can do that – Period. I would know, I am a computer technician with several years of experience and a degree in it. Nearly everything I work on is a XP or Server 2k/2k3 computer. Get your facts straight, bud, before you start spouting off all kinds of false claims about how XP had features like this.
The point of these features is not that they’re going to be super-different than what might have been seen in the Linux world or something of the like. The point is now they are part of the operating system and integrated in a seamless fashion, all designed by the same guys, so that the functionality of the system as a WHOLE feels logical. The problem with 3rd-party add-ons is that they typically do not ‘feel’ like they were programmed by the same guys who worked on the operating system.
#47
AlastairWindows xp and linux go in the same basket. Nasty nasty installs and work arounds just to get it to do what you want. But hey thats half the fun you say, well enjoy.
Sure third part developers have been comming up with this shit for years. They get most of their ideas from apple since XP and linux out of the box is fugly.
This is the first time it has been implemented in an OS without hacks or third party BS. Which is revolutionary.
Granted alot of these featrues have been done before and I agree this was the most underwhelming of all WWDC hypes.
I come from Australia and for two glorious years we had ICQ then msn came out with cutesy features aimed at 13 year old girls and before long everybody in australia is using msn . iChat needs to have full suppport across all chat clients. Sure I can use a jabber hack portway etc. But I know longer find enjoyment in finding hacks and backdoors, or running spybot or renistalling my os every 3 months. ITs time comsuming aukward and not enjoyable. Thats why I use a mac now.
#48
Shreedhan → appleication.com
You can get some/most of functionality leopard will ‘intoduce’ right now.
#49
Richi → replicahandbags.mybb3.org
http://replicahandbags.mybb3.org/