Leopard Preview: Letdown or Return to Normalcy?
On August 7, 2006 the Mac community was twisted into a tightly coiled ball waiting to erupt in a spastic frenzy of Mac love when Steve Jobs previewed Leopard to the world. At 3:00PM EST on August 7 the same members of the Mac community were despondent, nothing seemed like a must-have or a Mac-only thing. Beefed up iChat with green screen effects? Yes, soon you can upload your Daily Show on location, knock off bits to youtube and share them with the world! Forget that Leopard is faster, 64 bit, Intellifiied and the like, those are under the hood things, we’re Mac users, we like our cool out in front where we can show it off to the world! Most disappointing preview of an Mac OS ever! Steve, really, go slap some folks around and make it better, we need more shiny!
Or, equally plausible, maybe the expectations of the Mac community were too high. How did the still incomplete (what is that secret thing you’re holding back Steve?) Leopard preview stacked up with OS offerings of the past? A quick survey may shed a little light on the subject.
It is tempting, at this point, to start at the very beginning and examine every Apple OS produced. While that would be informative, it would also be tedious (and I’ve got the market cornered when it comes to tedious writing). The real interest in Apple produced OSes didn’t start until System 7 and didn’t really get going until OS X. So, somewhat arbitrarily, we start with System 8 and see just what each revision brought:
System 8
The same year that Apple bought NEXT, a few years after the “next generation” Apple OS was supposed to be finished, Apple released Mac OS 8. The year was 1997. As with any Apple OS revision they tried, really tried to make a big deal out of it. Thing was OS 8 wasn’t really OS 8. OS 8 was, in fact, OS 7.7 renamed to make life difficult for the clone makers who had licenses to use all OS 7 software.
What users got when they bought OS 8 (and a lot of them did, OS 8 sold over a million copies in under two weeks) was a different look, a finder that multitasked better than system 7 but still not very well, a HFS+ file system and a chance to help Apple make it through some rough times.
System 9
A few years later Apple rolled out System 9. What did system 9 have to offer to consumers? Free iTools! Host a page, get a .mac mail account and several other nifty things included in the price of the upgrade.
In truth, there really wasn’t much for the average consumer in OS 9 but there was ton of improvements as far as Apple was concerned. The transition to OS X was underway and OS 9 featured a lot of things to help the transition move along as smoothly as possible.
OS X Beta
There was a huge difference between the version of OS X and the OS it would some day replace. The graphics were completely different, gone was the Apple menu and the dock had arrived. It a move that showed an astonishing amount of gall Apple was willing to sell the beta to customers for $30.
Whether that money was well spent or not depended on your perspective. If you were willing to pay Apple for the privilege of seeing the new OS up close and personal, it was the deal of the century. If you wanted to use it for something useful, well you were straight out luck. OS X beta was so slow and limited it probably should just have had a build number.
OS 10.0 (Cheetah)
It wasn’t difficult to outdo OS X Beta and Cheetah managed to be ever so slightly better. It was still slow and kernel panics happened far too often. The big improvements over the Beta for Apple included the new asking price ($129.95).
The dock was tweaked but, to the average user, most of the other changes from the Beta were hidden from view.
OS 10.1 (Puma)
10.1, code named Puma, was dubbed by Steve jobs to be the “mainstream release” of OS X. In one way the description was apt users could play DVDs in Puma and use many more peripherals.
Sure, Puma was much better than 10.0 but the interface was the same and there wasn’t any added eye candy. Apple had more faith than the masses and used 10.1 as the default OS for Macs.
OS 10.2 (Jaguar)
Jaguar is the release that can be pointed to as the one that set the stage for later expectations. The video card started pulling more weight thanks to the inclusion of Quartz Extreme. Address Book made its first appearance, Bonjour made networking a no hassle kind of thing and iChat showed up. Most deliciously, Mail got a spam filter.
While there was plenty of shiny newness to go around Jaguar also sped everything up… a lot. This was a huge release and the first time OS X was truly competitive with anything beside the previous version of OS X.
10.3 (Panther)
10.3, of course, sped the whole system up. The release also provided plenty of eye candy. People were stunned by Expose window management (does anyone still use this?) and fast user switching is still a compelling (and cool looking) feature. iChat got upgraded to iChat AV and Apple switched to the brushed metal interface. All in all, another update that kept the entire “Steve is gonna wow us” vibe going.
10.4 (Tiger)
Tiger is what you’re probably using right now and, since you’ve become used to it, you have likely forgotten all the greatness that is Tiger. With Tiger came not only Dashboard Widgets (had people drooling at the time) but Spotlight. There is plenty of eye candy to go around but there were a plethora of other improvements as well.
Naturally, there was an iChat upgrade, now conferencing was possible. Safari received iffy RRS support and Mail went to version 2. Core Image, Core Data, and Core Video all made the scene. In short, Tiger was a huge update that satisfied both developers and users.
With that necessarily truncated history of Apple OS releases, we see a few things. The notion that every release must be chock full of new applications and drool producing eye candy is of a recent vintage. You can also tell that someone at Apple really loves iChat, can’t have a new version of OS X without a significantly upgraded version of the chatty! So, were the expectations to high? The answer depends on what your perspective. If you take the long view, you see 10.2-10.4 as anomalies, a bump in the graph so to speak. If you’re new to Mac watching you’re wondering where the magic went.
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A total bore if you ask me? But then again Jobs makes it know his presentations are “ground breaking”. The demo of Leopard is nothing
I think people got over-hyped with it all, once again, and that was the real let down. The features shown, such as Time Machine and Spaces, are not necessarily new, but they are well implemented and I think they’re going to help out a lot.
The demo wasn’t out of this world, but I’ll judge that come January. If nothing much has changed, then I’ll be let-down, in the mean time I’ll continue to enjoy Tiger and get on with life.
Before you go and blow it out of porportion please keep in mind the previous, said 1, release of OS X didn’t time the same as Microsoft’s OS release. And Microsoft is borrowing heavily on Apple for inspiration towards it’s next OS.
Problem with Job’s display of leapord is that he didn’t WOW us beyond amazement. And I’m sure MS was dissapointed too because now they have little to go on. I’m not poking at the boys in Redmond but I know 2 X-developers there that have told me they use Mac’s to develop the graphics for Windows 98/ME. And they watch apple closely to see where there heading and what features they use so they can be sure there right there with them.
OS X was a HUGE leap for apple when it was released. Based on BSD with a new interface and a ton of features and apps that were never there before… 10.5’s major function I feel however will be the working of the 64bit intel structure into the OS X platform and moving to a 3D style interface. There’s some reworking of current apps that needs to be done, I’m sure has been done for 10.5. So 10.5 to us may be a slight reface to the UI, and a rework of the core.
What does this mean to us? Well no MAJOR WOW’s but more of a “This seems to be loading faster and moving quicker...” type scenario and to be honest the current UI looks GREAT so speeding things up with code optimization would be a welcome enhancement. Keep in mind you know have to make Native OS for Itel/PPC chips. It’s almost like two OS’s in one.
Should also note from what I’ve heard/read 10.5 seems to be aimed more at developer tools and allowing us Software developers to make better looking and interacting applications… That makes for a better Mac Life Experience overall.
When you look at the time 10.5 has been under development, especially in comparison with the other versions, you get the feeling that Apple has been doing a lot of work in areas that will improve the OS without having a major eye candy type of impact. The move on the 64 bit side certainly shows this.
In the Keynote Apple showed a few things for the developers and a few bits of eye candy for consumers. The heavy stuff for developers will be covered in the NDA sessions and are not normally the stuff for the Keynote. If the developers leave WWDC excited by ALL they have seen then Apple will be happy.
On the consumer side the bits of eye candy will probably get enough interest for a good many to be ready to reach for their credit cards. When Apple brings out the rest of the (Top Secret) stuff I have a feeing that there will be even more reasons to upgrade.
I’ll stick with the fact that Leopard has had a very long time for Apple to work improvements and enhancements. Add to that the fact that Steve J is not the type to tell his programmers to sit back & relax a bit and you have the potential for a very major upgrade.
“… 10.5 seems to be aimed more at developer tools ...”
Geez, how many times does it have to be stated that the preview was at a DEVELOPERS conference. What exactly should you show Developers?
I really don’t get all the naysayers, I want Time Machine and Spaces NOW! I want a 64 bit top to bottom OS for my iMac G5 NOW! And even if these ideas have been kicking around for a while, the fact is they are new to OS X!
I like the slick execution and simplicity, all hallmarks of Apple. Taking estoteric software and making it accessible. If this is 5% or 10% of the new feature sets due in Leopard then I can’t wait for the final release! It’s gonna be kickass!
The keynote was a bore due largely of Steve handing over to Phil Schiller the Mac Pro launch. That totally killed the party vibes that have built up the days before the WWDC.
It was like, you paid a wholesome of cash to see the “ooohs, aaahs, wows!” from the Steve and then you get - Mr. Phil Schiller. No offense, but if I paid a couple of thick ones and to see Phil introducing the Mac Pro, I would just stay home and go to CNET’s WWDC live webcast.
If you were a developer (most were) then the whole shebang was worth it - you got a complimentary copy of the world’s most advanced technologies in the hood. You got to meet face-to-face with your customers and, of course, your very competition out there for your eyeballs to witness. Never mind the buffets - stick to the drinks..
For me, none of the latest scoops on Leopard got me more interested than the promise that Leopard will be 64-bit native. These Intel engines, after all, are fully 64-bit natives, mind you, with a great support for 32-bit. What’s best? The 64-bit support propagates all the way up to the application layer! Now, that means we will finally have 64-bit Photoshop and Quark!!! 64-bit iWork and MS Office!! 64-bit iChat and other consumer-levl apps! And don’t forget 64-bit Widgets.
What you saw with Spaces and Time Machine, those “tricks” are 64-bit tricks. For a beta level, those were very fast and fluid, weren’t they? And how about Core Animation? Would Apple try offering CA on anything but 64-bit? I wouldn’t think so.
So, Steve might have mentioned little of Leopard’s 64-bit plumbing but Apple will soon before Leopard becomes golden. It will be the differentiating factor in comparisons to Vista 1.0.
I use exposé about once every five minutes - i literally feel claustrophobic without it!
I can’t wait for leopard, especially a nice, new, unified tabbed finder. C’moooon, Steve!
“Geez, how many times does it have to be stated that the preview was at a DEVELOPERS conference. What exactly should you show Developers?”
Was referring to the improvements, not what was shown… Ah, nevermind…
I really don’t get all the naysayers
Now there’s a shock.
The real question is whether or not the advertised features should be an incremental update or a major upgrade that costs $129 and makes some of your old software stop working. Is “loading faster and moving quicker” really worth the trouble?
If some or all the aforementioned “top secret” features that weren’t unveiled at WWDC will make me more efficient by saving lots of time waiting for something to finish, then at $129 a pop, it would be most worthwhile, indeed.
I am a database and test applications developer and the potential impact of the 64-bit native development framework will be so beneficial to me and most, if not all, devos out there. I can think of lots of ways to using all that extra memory space. 64-bit address space will finally give the hardware Virtual Memory manager lots of legroom to keep applications from encroaching other app’s address spaces.
The eye candies, are just that, sugar coating on top of a superb system foundation that will be Leopard. I don’t mind a bit if OSX 10.5 will come with a bunch that will attract more consumers to the Mac. I don’t think eye candies will affect much of the performance under the hood and devos will have a choice of adopting them or not.
Nicely written Chris…
Very crisp, with lots of snappy sentences.
I liked this:
“Steve, really, go slap some folks around and make it better, we need more shiny!”
[Beam me up to Serentiy Scotty...]
That captures the “all that glitters is eye-candy” just fine.
Regarding this:
“People were stunned by Expose window management (does anyone still use this?) and fast user switching is still a compelling (and cool looking) feature.”
I use the F11 key all time.
I call it my:
‘Clean-all-the-shit-out-of-the-way-NOW’ key…
Lastly…
Here is what is left wanting in all the OS Big Cat genre:
When my system gets hung… and it does when running Firefox often… I want an ALT_DEL_ESC key.
In other words: A three finger salute that will call up FORCE QUIT without fail no matter how deep the infinte loop within infinite loop within infinite loop goes....
Fair enough?
I attended the keynote and dozens of sessions following it.
Apple is putting a ton of work into developer tools and system level frameworks for Leapard.
Not only is the OS going to get better but so is 3rd party stuff. It is going to be great!
Sadly I have to agree with koreyel. Sometimes OS X does do a full narnie lock up.
It happened to me tonight. A rogue website sent Safari into a berserk death spiral (why are hangs so often browser related?? When it comes to killing the Mac, browsers are the killer app) Option-Command-Esc did nothing. I had to cold reboot (i.e. hold the power switch).
Gimme a 3 finger salute that infalliby brings up the “Force Quit” dialog.
To Koreyel
option-command-esc
That’s Apple’s force quit app.
To Chris,
I don’t know what I’d do without Expose. Everytime I have to fix my parents PC I throw my mouse to the corners trying to move the windows only to be reminded why I am fixing the computer.
I think there’s still tons of stuff that Steve hasn’t showed us yet.
I’m sure there’ll be plenty of changes, he just wants to keep them to himself.