# Leopard Reviews



## Jacksloadedgun (Jun 21, 2007)

Just kinda curious if anyone got a copy of the leopard beta (outside of developers) and what was their general impressions of it were? how stable is it? what older programs can be run on it? how do you like the new features?


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## gibbsj (Jun 24, 2007)

I know one of the people that does dev work.  He got a copy at the apple 07 thing.  It will not install on a 544 mhz dule g4.  Other then that, it works very nicely with a 64 bit computer.  Anything less, it chugs sorta slow.


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## fryke (Jun 25, 2007)

That I gotta counter. My MacBook ain't 64bit, and 64bit has basically got _NOTHING_ to do with speed, rather with RAM bandwidth, and since most Macs *I know of* don't have much more than 4 GB of RAM, it doesn't matter _zero_. 

On the MacBook, it runs quite nicely. Definitely quicker than Tiger. Haven't timed anything, but everything feels a tad snappier. Of course, that's often the case with a newly installed system, but I've actually _upgraded_ from 10.4.10 to the beta. (One problem: I seem to have the Safari beta for 10.4.x now, because the installer naturally assumed that 3.0.2 was newer than 3.0. So no webclipping for me. Bleh...)

Most of my apps seem to run quite well already. I haven't encountered any problems with MS Office, Adobe CS3 etc., for example. However: Linotype FontExplorer X doesn't want to start, says something about a permissions problem. That'll probably take an update on their part, although I will try to get rid of its prefs and start it again.

I'm sure there are still a lot of smaller and bigger bugs that I won't even notice, but all in all it feels good and quick.
Of the new features, I'd say the menubar has to be revised. It doesn't "get out of the way" anymore. Its transparency is one of those "oh, look!"-features that get on the nerves over time. TimeMachine seems nice, although I've yet to lose an actual file to see whether it'll be easy to find it again. (What about stuff you're not sure where it actually was etc., me hating Spotlight etc.)


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## bobw (Jun 25, 2007)

> It will not install on a 544 mhz dule g4.


Apple never made a 544MHz machine.


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## Veljo (Jun 25, 2007)

Heh, I wish I could get my hands on a copy.


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## Ferdinand (Jun 25, 2007)

fryke said:


> That I gotta counter. My MacBook ain't 64bit, and 64bit has basically got _NOTHING_ to do with speed, rather with RAM bandwidth, and since most Macs *I know of* don't have much more than 4 GB of RAM, it doesn't matter _zero_.
> 
> On the MacBook, it runs quite nicely. Definitely quicker than Tiger. Haven't timed anything, but everything feels a tad snappier. Of course, that's often the case with a newly installed system, but I've actually _upgraded_ from 10.4.10 to the beta. (One problem: I seem to have the Safari beta for 10.4.x now, because the installer naturally assumed that 3.0.2 was newer than 3.0. So no webclipping for me. Bleh...)
> 
> ...



Were you at the WWDC?


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## fryke (Jun 26, 2007)

Not this year, no.

To add to my comment (and please don't quote whole comments if you only have one line to add which _doesn't_ actually need that comment to be quoted...):

*Time Machine*  _Unnecessary eye-candy._ Imho, is not exactly the best interface for a backup-app. I like how it backs things up, no doubt about that so far. But to bring things back... It works the way they demo it. If you really know what you're looking for and it's a file of three in a folder. Ah, there it is! There it pops up! But if it's a file of a hundred in a folder which, through time, changes a couple of times... Difficult.

*Unified Leopard* or whatever we'll call the "new desktop" etc., I'm also not sure whether I really like it. I *do* like that they got rid of two out of three looks, no doubt about _that_. I'm just not sure I'm down with the look we've seen in iTunes 7 for _everything_. I also miss the rounded edges on the menubar. My guess how they came to eliminate them: They're going with the _small_ rounded edges on every unified window. And those don't look good on the menubar (they're right about _that_). So they get rid of them altogether.
They've also "made it easier to spot the active window" by increasing the shadow. Argh... The shadow is *HUGE* now, and it kinda doesn't make sense optically. The huge shadow implies that the active window is far, far above the desktop, i.e. closer to you, but that kinda implies that the thing _closest_ to you should be _bigger_, which it isn't. When I have three or four windows open and click between them, it just seems kinda wrong how the shadows change... It's too strong for me. And I guess we won't be able to adjust that - unless _they_ do.

*The translucent menubar*  _Unnecessary eye-candy._  Well: No, Apple. It doesn't really work well. I've read somewhere the user can turn it off, but I don't find anything about that anywhere. What you _can_ do is put a desktop background in place where the menubar-part is of a different colour, like white. But that can't be the solution imho. It goes with the window focus shadow thing I guess. With a darkish or fully saturated picture like the grass picture they've used in the demos the frontmost window really _does_ come into focus. But that also means that everything else - the menubar with it - goes _out_ of focus. And I do have some things on the screen, on the menubar as well, that I want to have _in_ focus.
So I'm not sure about _that_ innovation either.

*The new Finder*  _Unnecessary eye-candy._ Yep. Cover Flow? Please... It's a nice idea for iTunes, and it makes sense there from an UI point of view. You _do_ flip through covers in a record store, so it makes sense to do so in an online record store. But for files and folders in Finder? No. No, no, no.
I _do_ like the Quick Look feature. The wording, though... "Quick Look of 4 items"? *cough*

*The new Dock*  _Unnecessary eye-candy._ You guessed right: I'm not so sure about that one, either. Yay 3D. Yay glassy effects. Yay screen candy, eh? Uuuurgh... Icons seem less distinct in the new Dock. The new "lightbulb" effect to show whether an app is active doesn't work - period. It's too subtle. Nothing wrong with the old black triangle in my opinion. Not after seing what they've come up with to replace it.

Then again: All put together, it _kinda_ works. It _does_ feel modern. And the graphics power _is_ there, even with my lowly MacBook's integrated graphics. But it _does_ feel like they've taken a page from Microsoft's Vista, and I'm just not sure that it's been necessary to do so.

So out of 10 points, if you want a review, I'd rather give them zero and go back to Tiger's mishmash look of 3 looks than give them 5 points for trying... Yes, they're halfway there, but if it doesn't work completely, I don't think they should release it. Apple is the company that once did Platinum, for crying out loud! A clean look that actually _worked_. They're the ones who did NewAqua in Jaguar! A modern look that actually worked. (You see I'm not a fan of the old Aqua in 10.0-10.1. or of Brushed Metal.) Now, right now in Leopard Beta, it really _is_ a look in beta. That's _not_ finished, and I hope they'll tweak it _right_ 'til release in October.


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## fryke (Jun 26, 2007)

Addendum: The menubar's translucency really can't be turned off in the current beta. However, there's already a small hack, an application that puts a white bar _behind_ the translucent menubar of Leopard. This actually works quite nicely. My guess is that tweaking apps like TinkerTool will be able to turn the translucency of the menubar on and off as well as maybe tweak the shadow-intensity and size of windows.


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## bbloke (Jun 26, 2007)

I haven't got access to a developer's version of Leopard, and I haven't even seen the keynote speech (I keep trying to access it, though...), so I'm not best placed to make comments.  But I'll do so anyway!  


fryke said:


> *Time Machine*  _Unnecessary eye-candy._ Imho, is not exactly the best interface for a backup-app.


I agree.  I've seen videos of Time Machine and it feels very un-Mac-like to me.  It seems rather over the top!  I hope that the feature itself works well, though, as it could be useful to many.



fryke said:


> *Unified Leopard* or whatever we'll call the "new desktop" etc., I'm also not sure whether I really like it. I *do* like that they got rid of two out of three looks, no doubt about _that_. I'm just not sure I'm down with the look we've seen in iTunes 7 for _everything_.


I'm certainly pleased they there is more consistency.  Apple seems to have listened to the criticism on that note.  As for the style, it's hard to say what is best (perhaps a new look altogether?), but I'm glad it wasn't brushed metal!  I've always found the brushed metal Finder windows a bit... "chunky"... and a bit ugly.  That said, looking back at the old Aqua windows, I realized that the styling was a bit over the top in the early days too.

I think it is a step in the right direction, but maybe a newer, single theme could be developed by Apple.



fryke said:


> *The translucent menubar*  _Unnecessary eye-candy._  Well: No, Apple. It doesn't really work well. I've read somewhere the user can turn it off, but I don't find anything about that anywhere.


Ah, I had heard, too, that you could turn it off.  If so, then I think it is OK.  If not, then my first impression from the screenshots was that it could get annoying.  It has the potential to look nice, but also the potential to make the interface harder to use.



fryke said:


> *The new Finder*  _Unnecessary eye-candy._ Yep. Cover Flow? Please...


I agree!  I really thought they're milking the CoverFlow concept now...  I'm not sure I'd ever use the Finder like that!

Who knows, though...  I virtually never used Exposé until I got a multibutton mouse.  Even now, I don't use it much, but a feature that I might have never used has now snuck into my routine, on occasions.  Dashboard looked great, but I wasn't sure I'd use it lots.  I've ended up getting a few Widgets and using them now, and I especially use the calculator Widget, rather than running the Calculator app.



fryke said:


> *The new Dock*  _Unnecessary eye-candy._ You guessed right: I'm not so sure about that one, either. Yay 3D. Yay glassy effects. Yay screen candy, eh? Uuuurgh... Icons seem less distinct in the new Dock. The new "lightbulb" effect to show whether an app is active doesn't work - period. It's too subtle. Nothing wrong with the old black triangle in my opinion. Not after seing what they've come up with to replace it.


Mmm, I wasn't too impressed when I first saw the 3D effect Dock.  I hoped there might be a 2D option too..........  The reflections are quite cute, but it does all seem a bit unnecessary.  I also think it somehow makes things a little less clear.  The glowing blue dot under the app icons looks nice, though!  I don't know how clear it is in practice, but it looks very pleasant in the screenshot.  As for clarity, the black triangle is, by comparison, hard to miss, however.



fryke said:


> Then again: All put together, it _kinda_ works. It _does_ feel modern. And the graphics power _is_ there, even with my lowly MacBook's integrated graphics. But it _does_ feel like they've taken a page from Microsoft's Vista, and I'm just not sure that it's been necessary to do so.


 Perhaps they worry that Microsoft might actually start to take the lead in aesthetics?

...Hmm, can't believe I just said that!  



fryke said:


> So out of 10 points, if you want a review, I'd rather give them zero and go back to Tiger's mishmash look of 3 looks than give them 5 points for trying... Yes, they're halfway there, but if it doesn't work completely, I don't think they should release it. Apple is the company that once did Platinum, for crying out loud! A clean look that actually _worked_. They're the ones who did NewAqua in Jaguar! A modern look that actually worked.


I certainly think Jaguar's Aqua was an improvement.  I'm not so sure I'd like to go back to Platinum now, although I did think it was better than Windows at the time.  



fryke said:


> (You see I'm not a fan of the old Aqua in 10.0-10.1. or of Brushed Metal.)


Me neither!



fryke said:


> Now, right now in Leopard Beta, it really _is_ a look in beta. That's _not_ finished, and I hope they'll tweak it _right_ 'til release in October.


Considering how much time they've had, and how some of the new features seem like pointless eye candy, that's a little worrying...


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## bbloke (Jun 26, 2007)

There are also some videos of Leopard at:

http://www.brightcove.com/channel_all_uploads.jsp?channel=1048121105&firstVideo=0


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## fryke (Jun 26, 2007)

Well, I've merely touched the surface so far, of course. There are various small things that are different. The print dialogue, for example, is vastly improved. I like that one very much.

I haven't had the chance to test the new iChat features yet. Then again, I hardly ever had a videoconference, anyway, so that might not be in my focus.

But I have to say that while Tiger was basically just Spotlight and Dashboard, it certainly _looks_ like Leopard is in fact a bigger upgrade overall. I might not agree with all the decisions they're making, but at least you're not going to spend 129 dollars on widgets and a search feature that gets more in the way than it actually helps finding stuff. (That said, Spotlight, too, seems better than before. Although guess what view they've chosen for Cmd-F when no Finder window is open. Right: Cover Flow.)


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## Ferdinand (Jun 26, 2007)

Even though the blue glow, the reflections and the new grey shadow over the name of the app in the dock are all unnecessary eye-candy, it still looks great. But I could do without the 3D thing...
The Time Machine is a great feature, I think it will be very practical. What I hate is the new menu-bar with this "adapting to the desktop picture" feature... ugh! 

PS no.2: Thanks to whoever moved this thread - it was really annoying going to Mac OS X System & Software and then finding the thread...


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## fryke (Jun 26, 2007)

The thing about the menubar is: On the _desktop_, it actually looks good. But if you're working in, say, Adobe Photoshop CS3, it looks terrible, because you don't see much of the desktop picture other than what's shining through the menubar. I've installed that little app now which makes it look like Tiger's (but without the rounded edges) -> http://www.manytricks.com/blog/?id=14 ... (This of course is only useful when in Leopard.)


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## Durbrow (Jun 26, 2007)

Can anyone talk about the ToDo items that are somehow embedded into Leopard? Is this some kind of new data item like urls? Can To Do items be denoted as such in any Cocoa apps using a service or context menu option?


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## symphonix (Jun 26, 2007)

> The new Finder  Unnecessary eye-candy. Yep. Cover Flow? Please...



I would agree that 95% of the new stuff in Leopard is eye-candy, but there are definite usability improvements in some spots, especially in the Finder. The sidebar, with its collapsible sources list that has live updating of available Macs on your network using Bonjour would be one feature alone that would make this a worthwhile upgrade. The use of stacks, and multipage previews of documents right from the finder will also make it better when sorting through your files.

Coverflow though? Ridiculous.


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## fryke (Jun 26, 2007)

Todos are synced to my treo automatically. Suddenly my treo's todos popped up in Mail.app, which was kind of a surprise to me.  I haven't looked into the documentation, though.

I'm not so sure about the stacks, btw. ... Again, I have the feeling that they're okay for three or four files, but then again, for that low a number you don't really _need_ anything like stacks. But as soon as there's a larger number of files in there, it gets complicated, and I rather work with folders sorted by date.


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## hawki18 (Jun 27, 2007)

That I gotta counter. My MacBook ain't 64bit, and 64bit has basically got _NOTHING_ to do with speed, rather with RAM bandwidth, and since most Macs *I know of* don't have much more than 4 GB of RAM, it doesn't matter _zero_. 

When they did the demo during key note on fix the graphic the 64 bit machine was over twice as fast as the dual core machine so I say it make a differance.


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## Timotheos (Jun 27, 2007)

It seems im the only one that thinks cover flow makes more sense in the finder than in iTunes. Yes you flip through the CD's. records etc. in your collection/store but on a computer it doesnt really help you find the songs or album you want to listen to. Infact I find it awfully hard to find the right album or artist. 

I do like how you can flick through the different pages of a document (if you can or could do this in normal view then IMO it cancells out the need for cover flow). It would be good if you could select a folder then quickly flick through different files in the folder in the same way you can do it with pages in a document. It would help when you have alot of files with only a couple of files in each.


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## Qion (Jun 27, 2007)

CoverFlow, in my honest opinion, is only good as a graphical representation of a search. I don't go searching through my 50GB of music and videos by sliding my fingers across a trackpad; I do a search within iTunes and watch my album appear. With the amount of files I work with daily, CoverFlow makes no sense. I could never track file names as quickly as I can flip through them graphically, and besides that, I don't think any of my computers could read a hundred or so Ai files w/ a preview in under a minute of flipping. They would just show up as orange icons with a file name under them, completely defeating the purpose of the CoverFlow implementation.


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## fryke (Jun 27, 2007)

hawki18 said:


> When they did the demo during key note on fix the graphic the 64 bit machine was over twice as fast as the dual core machine so I say it make a differance.



They actually did that test on the _same_ machine, one time with 32bit, one time with 64bit code. They loaded an image that was larger than what 32bit code can hold in RAM at the same time. Basically, they simply showed the _one_ specific case where 64bit makes sense at all. 

On a MacBook, you can *NOT* put as much RAM in the machine. Not even on a MacBook Pro. So while a MacBook and MacBook Pro with Core 2 Duo can run 64bit code, it doesn't give you much of a speed difference. I'd go as far as to say none at all.

It _does_ make a difference if you're

1.) using a Mac with more than 4 GB of memory
2.) working with files that are larger than 4 GB in size
3.) in 64bit clean applications.

But to say that "Leopard doesn't run well on 32bit machines", which you basically did, is simply not correct. At all.


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## ApeintheShell (Jul 2, 2007)

The Platinum theme looked great compared to Windows 98-2000 but its time has past. I enjoyed the different themes that were introduced from Mac OS X 10.0 thru Mac OS X 10.4 and the new look in Mac OS X 10.5. I think Apple has transitioned to this unified look because of the highly critical user base. Professionals will salivate over this grayish interface, with the graphite buttons, and that gray desktop that came with all Macs in the 1990s. 
The next generation of the user interface is simple and dark. That's right, you know it, I am talking about Front Row, Time Machine, and Dashboard. 

p.s. This is not a review and please don't quote me on this.


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## Rhisiart (Jul 2, 2007)

I bet you still can't lock the dock without a palaver.


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## mw84 (Jul 2, 2007)

Does anyone know if the theme shown here http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/features/ in the image with the grass desktop background is going to be how Leopard actually looks? I really don't like the tapered dock, REALLY. Also not _that_ sure about the semi transparent menu bar.. Please tell me this is jut a mock up!

EDIT: Just spotted those little blue dots below launched apps aswell. Once more, please tell me!


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## fryke (Jul 2, 2007)

It certainly _is_ how things look in the current beta build. But that doesn't mean it's how it'll look at release time. But I'm not sure that's what they'll be working on 'til October.


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## Jacksloadedgun (Jul 4, 2007)

i put the big cat to sleep about a week ago...

i got sick of having to deal with restarting my computer all the time. It did run a look quicker on my powerbook g4 but the heartache it was giving me was not worth it in the long run.

i loved the way the dock looked though.


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## serpicolugnut (Jul 5, 2007)

I picked up my copy at WWDC and had been using it since then. I still have it running on my iMac, but I took it off of my Macbook Pro (2.16ghz, 256MB VRAM, 2GB RAM, 1st gen). The reason was that the system idling was taking up so much CPU cycles that it constantly had the fans whirring on the MBP. Mail and Safari both would routinely consume 100% of the CPU resources, making the fans go beserk. The same behavior didn't occur on the iMac.

Once they get the quirks worked out (it is BETA, and they do have 3 months after all) it is going to be a great release. You can moan and groan about not liking this or that, but the entire OS feels more polished, all of the apps have some really great additions, and once you use it, you will hate going back to Tiger.


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## Qion (Jul 5, 2007)

serpicolugnut said:


> I picked up my copy at WWDC and had been using it since then. I still have it running on my iMac, but I took it off of my Macbook Pro (2.16ghz, 256MB VRAM, 2GB RAM, 1st gen). The reason was that the system idling was taking up so much CPU cycles that it constantly had the fans whirring on the MBP. Mail and Safari both would routinely consume 100% of the CPU resources, making the fans go beserk. The same behavior didn't occur on the iMac.
> 
> Once they get the quirks worked out (it is BETA, and they do have 3 months after all) it is going to be a great release. You can moan and groan about not liking this or that, but the entire OS feels more polished, all of the apps have some really great additions, and once you use it, you will hate going back to Tiger.



Is iChat as nifty as it looks?


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## fryke (Jul 5, 2007)

I agree with most of the points you've made, but I've actually enjoyed coming back to Tiger for two main reasons (besides quirks and bugs that are going to get worked out 'til final):

1.) The Dock. It _really_ isn't an improvement whatsoever in my opinion. It doesn't look or feel more professional, it just looks overloaded and intrusive.

2.) The transparent menubar. It feels _wrong_. The little utility that put a white bar behind it had its own problem with full-screen VLC (i.e. it was in front of that...), so I had to constantly quit and relaunch that utility.

The rest of the look I'll enjoy, quite probably.


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## nixgeek (Jul 5, 2007)

I'm hoping that once the final version of Leopard is out, the menubar stays solid or at least give you the option to change the level of transparency.  The new Dock is pretty, but I don't see anything that fantastic over the old one (excluding Stacks, of course).


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## Captain Code (Jul 5, 2007)

serpicolugnut said:


> I picked up my copy at WWDC and had been using it since then. I still have it running on my iMac, but I took it off of my Macbook Pro (2.16ghz, 256MB VRAM, 2GB RAM, 1st gen). The reason was that the system idling was taking up so much CPU cycles that it constantly had the fans whirring on the MBP. Mail and Safari both would routinely consume 100% of the CPU resources, making the fans go beserk. The same behavior didn't occur on the iMac.
> 
> Once they get the quirks worked out (it is BETA, and they do have 3 months after all) it is going to be a great release. You can moan and groan about not liking this or that, but the entire OS feels more polished, all of the apps have some really great additions, and once you use it, you will hate going back to Tiger.



I've been using my WWDC copy for about a week and a half and no problems so far like you have, on my MBP too.

I think Apple has done a good job with this so far.


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## Exebit (Jul 6, 2007)

Jacksloadedgun said:


> Just kinda curious if anyone got a copy of the leopard beta (outside of developers) and what was their general impressions of it were? how stable is it? what older programs can be run on it? how do you like the new features?



I tested Leopard for a few days... It's really more stable than all other builds before 9A466. The only applications that don't run on Leopard are applications that were made with REALbasic and REALbasic it's self. (Other applications I haven't found yet...  )

Some of the new features are really cool and helpful. Most helpful is TimeMachine I think... But it's interface is a bit eye-candy. (Some of you already said.)
QuickLook is helpful, too... I used it very often since I installed Leopard on my Mac.
And the entire system is much much faster than 10.4.10! The speed is really really awsome! Some Applications (like iTunes) bounced more than 5 times until it was opened under Tiger... Under Leopard it bounces 1 time until it's opened and ready to use. 
Safari 3 is as twice as fast than Safari 2. The Web-Pages are displayed pretty fast. (Now it's really fun to surf the net.  )

Now... Enough of "pretelling" about Leopard. 

My impression: Apple has done a really good job I think. Leopards new design is cool... (It's somthing new... And a bit eye-candy.)
And I think I'll buy the final version when it releases!


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## Madelin (Jul 6, 2007)

Exebit said:


> The speed is really really awsome! Some Applications (like iTunes) bounced more than 5 times until it was opened under Tiger... Under Leopard it bounces 1 time until it's opened and ready to use.



Just had to say, my iTunes opens in one bounce and ive not got the fastest iMac going. Im going to get leopard solely because i like to be up-to-date though.


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## Exebit (Jul 6, 2007)

Madelin said:


> Just had to say, my iTunes opens in one bounce and ive not got the fastest iMac going. Im going to get leopard solely because i like to be up-to-date though.



Sorry, I've not read all statements...


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## Qion (Jul 9, 2007)

My friend let me try out his developer copy of Leopard yesterday. I'm not allowed to say much, however...

The active window drop shadow is HUGE. The transparent menubar is *not* a good idea. The new dock is pretty spiffy, but it's really distracting unless it's either on the side of the screen or set to auto-hide. The seemingly superfluous CoverFlow is actually pretty nice for sorting through files, however, the sidebar items are far too small. I hate having to click within a 10pt box to get what I want.


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## Exebit (Jul 12, 2007)

Qion said:


> (...) the sidebar items are far too small. I hate having to click within a 10pt box to get what I want.



Yes, you're right! I tryed to change the size of the icons but there are no settings for that... 
I hope that Apple fixes this "problem"...


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## Exebit (Jul 13, 2007)

Hi there!

I really like Leopard! (You know from my posts.) 
But... I tryed to connect to my WLAN network (for uncountable times)... But Leopard doesn't find my network called "WLAN-network". But it finds it when I installed Leopard and it wants to connect to Apple. (When I choose it, it says "connection failed".)
I disabled the password in my router... But that doesn't help!
Can anyone help me? - Or is it a bug of Leopard Beta?

(BTW.: Under Tiger 10.4.10 it works fine!)

Thanks for help!


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