Apple’s changes to OS X in Leopard affected more than the basic desktop experience. The aesthetic changes permeate the applications and utilities of the operating system. Even applications that aren’t written specifically for Leopard take on the new look-and-feel to some extent. Here is a brief tour, in pictures, of how some of the bundled OS X application changed between Tiger and Leopard.

The Finder

The first major difference in the Finder is the total absence of brushed metal. The new Finder looks more lightweight, and it fits in with the overall OS X aesthetic much more naturally.


The Tiger Finder


The Leopard Finder

I am not a fan of the new folder icons, but I wasn’t too fond of the old ones either. Fortunately, they’re easy enough to change. The overall look is better, and I think the new sidebar is an improvement over the former. There’s not much else to say beyond that.

iCal

iCal also receives some slimming in the window department as it too loses the brushed metal motif that once adorned it. Some elements, such as the day-week-month buttons, are moved around, and I think the new calendar pane is easier to read.


iCal in Tiger


iCal in Leopard

Editing events in iCal has always been a bit of a hassle with an Event Drawer that would pop in and out as you selected events to edit. Now iCal will pop an editing dialog right next to the event in question. This new approach, while only slightly varied from before, makes adding and editing events a much quicker process.

Safari

Safari hasn’t changed much, but it’s yet another application to lose brushed metal in its chrome.


Tiger Safari


Leopard Safari

Safari has also gained security features that check for possibly malicious sites, and the interface for that feature is pretty neat.

Printing

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the improved printing sheets in OS X Leopard. Historically, it’s been easy for developers to use OS X’s standard printing services, but the results were usually pretty sparse. The Leopard printing sheet is much more robust that its predessesor’s, and it even previews the document without having to launch Preview (a feature Microsoft and Adobe have been offering in their applications for some time).


Printing in Tiger


Printing in Leopard

This improvement may be late to the party, but it’s welcome nonetheless.

Conclusion

This is hardly a comprehensive look at the visual differences between Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard, but I hope it gives you a good idea of how Apple is improving the unified nature of the system’s user interface. It’s easy to pick nits over little details, but it’s obvious that Apple’s team has sweated the details when designing Leopard’s interface. It now feels like a unified system rather than a collection of utilities and applications. Hopefully, Apple will continue to prioritize the user experience as it continues to refine its operating system with the impending release of Snow Leopard next year.

Tags: macintosh, leopard, tiger, os x

As noted in the last post (which was longer ago than I care to admit), by the time Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger was in the hands of users, the OS X interface had grown quite inconsistent. While not as glaringly distracting as the default Windows XP interface, it did seem evidence that Apple’s reputation as having an eye for detail was growing misplaced.

Leopard seeks to fix the growing divergence of UI elements, but some of the design decisions seem strange. Here are some comparisons and thoughts regarding some of the obvious interface changes between Tiger and Leopard.

The First Impression

For OS X veterans, the default Leopard desktop is immediately recognizable for it’s complete lack of blueness when compared to past OS X desktops.


TIger on my G5 and Leopard on my MacBook

Some of the change simply comes from the addition of a new desktop image, but other elements add to an altered user experience.

The New Dock

Tiger’s Dock


Leopard’s 3D Dock

The Dock has gone from a translucent rectangle to a glossy, reflective, three-dimensional plane. To me, it’s an extremely visually distracting piece of UI, and some icons don’t work well with this new Dock. (Read a detailed analysis of this issue here.) The Leopard Dock is a fantastic tech demo, but it fails from a usability perspective. Fortunately, a little command line work can restore the Dock to a more usable, two-dimensional state.


Leopard’s hidden 2D Dock. Much better.

The Leopard Dock also adds a new feature called Stacks, which bring their own share of positives and negatives to the OS X experience. I want to spend some more time of this feature, so I’ll be dedicating an entire post to Stack sometime later.

The Menu Bar

The menu bar in Tiger came under some criticism for its glossy appearance, even garnering some unkind comparisons to Windows XP. (Sorry if I’m criticizing XP too much, but I really don’t like its native UI.) The Leopard menu bar is a complete contrast to its former self.


Glossy and bright in 10.4


Translucent and subdued in 10.5

You can see the desktop through the menu bar with a slight Gaussian blur applied in Leopard. On the downside, while this menu bar is easier on the eyes, the translucency works better with some desktop backgrounds than others. Fortunately, you can make the menu bar opaque in the Desktop and Screensaver preference pane.

A strange side effect of this darker menu bar is that the menus themselves look out of place up against it.



The menus themselves look slightly nicer than in Tiger. The rounded edges are a nice touch, and the complete absence of pin-striping is welcome. I have to admit, though, that the slightly more translucent menus of earlier Leopard builds were even nicer. I know this seems to contradict my statements about the menu bar, but they were never quite that translucent.

Where’s the Love?

In the next post about Leopard’s interface, we’ll look at how some specific OS X applications have changed. It will be quite a bit more positive than this post, I promise. Windows and sheets have both been reworked in Leopard and with some very nice results.

Tags: macintosh, leopard, tiger, os x

In what is probably my latest OS X adoption ever, I finally picked up Mac OS X Leopard a month ago. As my Tiger overview demonstrates, I’m hardly a master at writing overly technical documents about a new operating system. However, I’m fascinated by some of the subtle and not-so-subtle user interface (UI) changes that have come with Leopard.

A Quick Retrospective

The interface of Apple’s Unix-based operating system has been in a state of constant flux since its introduction to consumers in 2001, and every release has seen changes to various parts of the UI. For some history, check out Steve Jobs introducing the new interface in Macworld 2000.



The bizarre thing about watching that video (outside of being reminded of what a pain dialog boxes used to be) is that OS X looks very little like that demonstration eight years ago even though many of the underlying principles remain intact. Take Mail and Finder, for example. Here’s how Mail evolved between OS X 10.2 and 10.4.


10.2 courtesy of GUIdebook.


10.3 courtesy of GUIdebook.


10.4 on my PowerMac G5.

Mac OS X 10.2 still looks very similar to Steve Jobs’ prototype of Aqua, but the interface begins to evolve in 10.3. Mail in 10.3 sports embedded widow controls as opposed to the floating jewels in earlier versions. Additionally, the pinstripes that once dominated OS X windows and menus are greatly subdued. Finally, Mail in 10.4 adopts an entirely new unified window style, loses the drawer, and sports a new style of pill-shaped toolbar buttons.

The OS X Finder has also seen its share of changes between OS X 10.2 and 10.4.


10.2 courtesy of GUIdebook.


10.3 courtesy of GUIdebook.

If examining screenshots, I have to admit that I’d be hard-pressed to tell the 10.1 Finder and 10.2 Finder apart, much like Mail. However, the visual change to 10.3 is jarring. Mac OS 10.3 Panther marks the height of Apple’s infatuation with brushed metal, and metal windows seemed to randomly litter the interface. Again, note how widgets have gone from floating to embedded. In 10.4 Tiger (not pictured), the Finder retains the brushed metal look, but it’s slightly slimmed.

Where Is This Going?

By the time Mac OS X Tiger was released, the UI was an inconsistent jumble. While Apple had been slowly phasing out old ideas like pinstripes and drawers, several new interface ideas were being introduced – without a consistent pattern. With the introduction of unified windows in Tiger’s version of Mail and a dark version of the same window in iTunes 5, OS X apps could sport any one of four windowing styles. Combine this with a variety of toolbar options, a new HUD palette, and completely custom interfaces like those found in applications like GarageBand, and you have a system interface that is growing more and more fragmented.

In the second segment, we’ll take a look at how Leopard takes great strides in unifying the user experience of OS X as well as its share of interface oddities. Get ready for lots of pictures!

Tags: macintosh, leopard, tiger, os x

The WWDC keynote presentation has come and gone, and I think we can all agree that there is such a thing as too many software demonstrations! Other than that, here is the new stuff for today.

iPhone3G

Take pretty much any complaint against the the original iPhone – too expensive, no Exchange support, no third-party applications, no GPS, no 3G networking – and they've been addressed in the new version. Additionally, the software upgrades will be available to current iPhone users for free.



The new iPhone features Internet access over WiFi, EDGE, or 3G now, resulting in web pages rendering roughly twice as fast on the new model. For enterprise customers, Exchange support has been added, and businesses can even internally develop and distribute custom applications for iPhone. App Store for third-pary applications will launch soon, and the keynote featured many applications that will be available at launch.

I'm not going to cover every demonstrated application in detail, but we saw some games, a couple medical applications, a music creation tool, location-based apps, TypePad and eBay clients, and a couple news and video applications. Prices ranged from free to $9.99. In addition to application support, Apple is providing a way for these apps to give you notifications without extraneous background processes through a push notification service.

The biggest news here is arguably the price. When it was released, the iPhone cost $499 to $599. Now the two models cost $199 to $299.

MobileMe

I have to get this off my chest: that font reminds me of Windows Me. There, I've said it. Now let's move on.



MobileMe replaces [dot] Mac. It retains the same price point but adds a few new features and doubles iDisk storage. Webmail, calendars, iDisk, contacts, and image galleries have all received nice web-interface facelifts (with contacts and calendars new to the suite of tools), and information edited here is automatically synced to any Mac, PC, iPhone, or iPod touch set up with the service. Likewise, editing info on any of those devices causes it to be synced with the others.

According to MobileMe's transition FAQ, [dot] Mac subscribers will transition to MobileMe at no additional charge, and anyone with a mac.com email address or webpage will be able to keep using the same address for the foreseeable future. In all, MobileMe looks like a nice upgrade, but I'll miss typing "[dot] Mac."

SnowLeopard

Mac OS X 10.6 will be a departure from Apple's OS strategy of the past few years. Instead of showcasing a handful of impressive new features, Snow Leopard's development seems to be focused squarely "under the hood." It's all about making Mac OS X run better and more stable than ever. Little info about Snow Leopard has trickled out so far, but here's a snippet from an Apple press release:

Rather than focusing primarily on new features, Snow Leopard will enhance the performance of OS X, set a new standard for quality and lay the foundation for future OS X innovation. Snow Leopard is optimized for multi-core processors, taps into the vast computing power of graphic processing units (GPUs), enables breakthrough amounts of RAM and features a new, modern media platform with QuickTime® X. Snow Leopard includes out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 and is scheduled to ship in about a year.

Personally, I think the Exchange support is going to be a big selling point. Speaking of selling, I wonder if Apple will retain the $129 price-point for Snow Leopard or if it will see a smaller upgrade price due to its less-ambitious feature set.

That covers it for today, but we'll probably see some more Apple-related announcements over the next several days.

Tags: apple inc, iphone, os x, snow leopard

March 21, 2001 marked the official release of Mac OS X 10.0 to much fanfare and gnashing of teeth. Yes, I meant to write that. OS X was a milestone Apple achievement. It delivered on their long-term goal to finally deliver a next-generation operating system to their users. It was a complete break from the aging monolith that was the classic Mac OS. It brought new technologies and a new user interface to the Mac-faithful. However, there were some bumps in the road during those first few months of life.


Apple gave the world the first real look at OS X when they released the $29 public beta in August of 2000. I was an early adopter, and ordered the beta almost the moment it became available on Apple's website. As soon as the software arrived, I performed a clean install on my PowerBook G3. There would be no reverting to Classic for me – it was OS X or bust! (I should mention that my iMac DV retained OS 9 for quite some time, so I did have a serious safety net.)

Those early days – while problematic at times – taught me about one of the most valuable resources Mac users have: independent software developers. In the early days of OS X, the shareware and freeware developers moved more quickly than the corporate giants in bringing their products to OS X. As I browse my Applications folder today, more of the programs contained within are from independent developers than corporations. To this day, those independents, by and large, make software that better integrates with OS X and feels more Mac-like than anything Adobe or Microsoft puts out.


With the release of OS X 10.2 Jaguar in August of 2002, my iMac upgraded to Apple's new operating system. By now, I was more comfortable in OS X than OS 9, and all of the applications I regularly use had OS X-native versions. In fact, many had dropped support for OS 9 by now. System 10 was the unequivocal future of the Macintosh operating systems, and there was no more point in holding onto the past.

10.3 Panther would be the last version of OS X for my aging iMac. By the time Tiger was released, we had a PowerMac G5, but we still had the PowerBook G3. I upgraded the PowerBook to Tiger, but quickly returned to the previous system when it became obvious that OS X 10.4 was jut too resource-intensive for my old laptop. It's still running Panther in my classroom, keeping all of our textbook music in iTunes. It's not many laptops that can say they are still in active service after eight years of use!


I haven't upgraded to Leopard yet. I'm guessing the PowerMac will stay on Tiger, but the MacBook Pro seems to be ready to move on. Things like Time Machine, Quick Look, improvements to Preview, Cover Flow, Stacks, and many other small touches are compelling. Apple really have brought OS X a long way since those first feeble steps seven years ago, and I'm excited to see where things go next.

Tags: macintosh, software, os x

Apple: Mac OS X Leopard
First, I promise not to link to every Leopard-related post on the Internet. I'm just adding some I thought were particularly interesting or fun. Second, it's pronounced, "Oh-Es Ten" not "Ahs Ecks" or Oh-Ex Ecks." It's a Roman numeral, people! (Okay, done ranting.)

• Macworld Review: Mac OS X Leopard

Leopard is, at once, a major alteration to the Mac interface, a sweeping update to numerous included productivity programs, a serious attempt to improve Mac OS security, and a vast collection of tweaks and fixes scattered throughout every nook and cranny of the operating system.

• Engadget: All about Leopard: gallery, apps, impressions

Bottom line, PC users: don't be afraid to give the Mac a second glance, there's plenty in Leopard sure to please. Mac users: run, don't walk, to get your copy when it goes on sale today.

• TUAW: 24 Hours of Leopard
This is a great collection of short posts that detail many of the enhancements and new features in Leopard. It's kind of like a Cliff Notes version of a Leopard guide book.

• Engadget: Leopard on an 8 year old G4 Power Mac -- can it be done?
Thinking of upgrading an older Mac to Leopard? the staff at Engadget see how the new OS fares on an eight-year-old Mac. I'm more surprised by how much worked rather than by what did not work!



Opposable Thumbs: Happy birthday, PlayStation 2!

Wow. The PS2 is seven years old. OT takes a look back at what made the PS2 great and how it changed the face of gaming.

Tags: leopard, video games, os x

Some of the visual asthetics of Leopard bother me in the screenshots. It's the way I am. I'm a UI junkie, and, while I like visual flair, I grow annoyed if the eye candy begins to detract from the experience as a whole. Once I get to use Leopard, I might change my mind, but right now I'm not sold on the new menu bar, the new Dock, or the way stacks fan out. Well, strike that last one. I gained some appreciation for that interface nuance earlier today.


image from apple.com

I always disliked how the stack curved slightly to the right, until I was working this morning and I noticed how my mouse hand drifts to the right when I try to go straight up. In fact (and I tested this against an enlarged screenshot, so you know its scientific), my hand drifted along basically the same arc the stack has!

In other words, this interface element that looks like useless eye candy actually has purpose. It's easier to intuitively navigate than a straight column. Once again, Apple shows its attention to detail even with an interface element that most users won't give a second glance.

Tags: macintosh, software, technology, os x, leopard

World of Apple: Gallery of screenshots from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard build 9A499

Mac OS X 10.5 is looking really nice, but I just am having a hard time with the whole 3D Dock and translucent menu bar thing...

Tags: leopard, os x

In 1999, Apple released a humble product called Mac OS X (pronounced "ten") Server 1.0. In look and feel, the operating system was very similar to Mac OS 8 (and 9), but, beneath the interface, the system contained some drastic changes that would eventually revolutionize the entire Macintosh software line. It eschewed the classic Mac OS nanokernal for the NEXTSTEP hybrid kernel, and it contained a hybrid of classic Macintosh features and NEXTSTEP features – even requiring an emulation layer to run classic Mac OS applications. This Mac OS was unlike anything that had come before it. In fact, it was really Mac OS in name only.

A Little Background

In 1986, two years after the introduction of the Macintosh and and the Mac OS, Steve Jobs found himself ousted from the company he helped create. Ever the entrepeneuer, he quickly launched into two new ventures – one was an unwanted animation studio that would become Pixar, and the other was a new computer company called NeXT.

NeXT computers were technnically advanced for their time. They were released in 1990 with 25MHz processors, 8 MB RAM, an ethernet port, 256 MB storage, and a 1120x832 display. In contrast, typical machines of the time would have had 16MHz processors, 640 kb RAM, no networking, 10-40 MB storage, and 640x350 displays. NeXT Computer is considered a pioneer in brigning networking to desktop computers. The first email programs and web browsers were developed for NeXT. Unfortunately, the NeXT hardware was doomed to failure (mainly due to prohibitively high costs), but the operating system would live on.

NEXTSTEP was released in the days of Windows 3.1 and Mac OS 7, and it stood out from its competition both visually and in capabilities.



Mac OS 7, Windows 3.1, and NEXTSTEP. These screenshots are all courtesy of Wikipedia.

NEXTSTEP was based on the Mach kernel and BSD. It featured object-oriented programming based on the Objective-C language. It was meant to be viewed on higher-resolution displays, and it included many software tools for networking and collaboration. Additionally, NEXTSTEP was the first general operating system to handle color standards, advanced sound processing, modern typography, and internationalization. It's interface featured real-time scrolling and window dragging as well as window notifications and transparency. Again, this was all in the early 90's, well before the world would be captivated by Windows 95.

NEXTSTEP faded into obscurity after the mass adoption of Windows 95, but it would find a strange rebirth in 1996 when it was acquired by Apple, and Steve Jobs returned to the company that had rejected him ten years prior.

Reinventing the Mac OS

When Steve Jobs came back to Apple through the NEXT acquisition, Apple had already put massive efforts into overhauling the Mac OS through the Copland and Taligent projects (though some Copland features were eventually incorporated into OS X). Both of these systems were laid to rest in the late nineties in favor of Rhapsody, an operating system based primarily on the OPENSTEP (neé NEXTSTEP) operating system. Rhapsody eventually became Mac OS X Server 1.0 which would lead to the public beta of Mac OS X.


OPENSTEP and Rhapsody (both courtesy GUIdebook) side by side

Though called Mac OS, system 10 shared little in common with the previous Mac operating systems outside some superficial interface elements. Like NEXTSTEP, Mac OS X is based on the Mach kernel and BSD Unix. They are both object-oriented environments based on the Objective-C programming language. Both feature a dock, system services, managed memory, and preemptive multitasking. In fact, if you crack open the UI of most Mac OS X applications, you will find files with the extension ".nib" contained within. NIB is short for NeXT Interface Builder.

Like Mac OS X Server 1.0 and the Rhapsody developer builds, Mac OS X is incapable of natively running applications written for previous versions of the Mac OS. These applications were relegated to a "blue box" called Classic, and they could not take advantage of Mac OS X's more advanced features. The Classic layer, effectively the final vestiges of the original Mac OS, lost support with the recent Intel-transition of Macintosh computers, placing the final nails in the coffin of the system that served Apple since 1984.


System 1.1 (from GUIdebook) next to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (from Apple)

As John Siracusa wrote last year (on the fifth anniversary of Mac OS X), "The Mac is dead. Long live the Mac." OS X is Mac OS in name only. Truth be told, Mac OS X is the never-released NEXTSTEP 5, for the system shares much more in common with that legacy than with the Mac OS legacy. Apple took a daring move with Mac OS X in that they completely pulled the rug out from under their current OS foundation and replaced it with something entirely new – a feat that other OS vendors have been reluctant to attempt.

As Mac OS X becomes a more mature product, it resembles NEXTSTEP more and more while retaining the style and simplicity Mac users have come to expect. NEXTSTEP and the classic Mac OS were products doomed to failure – the former for being too far ahead of the times and the latter for being to far behind – but Apple has created a powerful and stable operating environment from the ashes of both, similar to each but ultimately original and innovative.

Tags: software, macintosh, leopard, os x

A couple of interesting images related to forthcomeing Apple products have been floating around this week. (Well, they're interesting to me at any rate, so you get to hear about them.)

The first image that struck me was in Engadget's report on a new keyboard for the upcoming iMac revision. This falls firmly under the "rumor and speculation" category, but it seems inline with Apple's current design philosophy. One item of debate, though, has centered around the apparent removal of the apple logo from the cmd keys on either side of the keyboard. See the comparison shots below:

x
photos courtesy of Apple and Gizmodo respectively

Whether or not the second image is real, I'm surprised this cosmetic change hasn't already been implemented. Apple documentation seldom (if ever) refers to an "Apple" key while "cmd-" is commonly documented. Furthermore, Andy Hertzfeld writes about Jobs' intense dislike for the keyboard Apple logo on folklore.org.

From the article:

"There are too many Apples on the screen! It's ridiculous! We're taking the Apple logo in vain! We've got to stop doing that!"

After we told him that we had to display the command key symbol with each item that had one, he told us that we better find a different symbol to use instead of the Apple logo, and, because it affected both the manuals and the keyboard hardware, we only had a few days to come up with something else.

Therefore, if future Apple keyboards eschew the use of Apple logos on the cmd keys, it should really come as no surprise.

The second thing to pique my interest came way of Think Secret's posting of some recent Leopard screenshots. In the shots was a picture of the Finder's new Path Bar:


photo courtesy of Think Secret

I don't find this interesting because of a similar Windows Vista feature. Rather, it's significant because this is another NEXTSTEP feature to reappear in OS X. (Really, one of these days I'm going to write a very long-winded post about why I view Mac OS X more as NEXTSTEP version 5.x more than Mac OS 10.x.)

In order, the shots below represent OPENSTEP 4.2 released in the late nineties, two developer previews of Mac OS X, and the public beta version of Mac OS X released in 2000. Note that a path bar is visible in all screens except the Mac OS X Public Beta, where it suddenly disappears.

xx

these shots are all courtesy of GUIdebook

The new Finder Path Bar is definitely more minimal than those previous incarnations, but I think it is yet another indication of the influence Mac OS X's NEXT roots has on its continued development. Also, as Mac OS X continues to evolve, I think we're going to see a lot more small but welcome enhancements like these slip in under the radar. Now, if only they would fix the weirdness that is the Leopard dock...

It often strikes me as fascinating that so many advances at Apple owe so much to their roots, even as far back as the development of the original Macintosh more than twenty years ago.

Tags: technology, macintosh, leopard, os x

Steve Jobs outlined some more info about Leopard during his Keynote speech at this years WWDC, and Apple's website has even more. Here are some of the overall impressions I've gained.

Eye Candy Is Important

One of the big changes (improvements may be debatable) in Leopard is in the visuals. Everything seems geared toward visual impressiveness. This user interface (UI) is intended to make people look at Vista and think it looks clunky.

x



x
all images from apple.com

I've read many power-users bemoaning the fact that visual flair is becoming too emphasized in modern operating systems, and it doesn't look like that trend is reversing anytime soon. Personally, I like visual enhancements so long as they do not come at a cost to usability. The only complaint here is in the menu bar. The menus look out-of-place when invoked.


it's translucent now

iTunes = Mac Experience

Apple wants iTunes users to feel right at home in the Leopard UI – iTunes being the only Apple interface many potential users have daily contact with. As a result, the majority of the system resembles iTunes. Nowhere is this more evident than in the revamped Finder.


image from apple.com

From the window design to the sidebar to Cover Flow, the Finder basically recreates the iTunes experience in file management. The message: "If you enjoy using iTunes, you will enjoy using a Mac."

Organize Your Way

Stacks, the Dock, smart folders, Cover Flow, Quick View, Spaces – all of this gives the user greater flexibility in how he or she uses a Mac.


a stack of documents (from apple.com)


Quick View in Time Machine (from apple.com)

It's all about giving you greater flexibility and more options in how and where you access your files, media, and applications. Content is king, and Apple is giving us many ways to experience, organize, and access that content.

One Size Fits All

Steve Jobs made a joke during his talk that Leopard will come in three editions – Basic at $129, Premium at $129, and Ultimate at $129. He thinks most people will buy the Ultimate Edition. The simple fact is that you don't have to worry about which version of the OS to upgrade to because there is only one. Ease-of-use is a hallmark of the Macintosh experience, and that simplicity begins with the purchasing process.

Personally, I can't wait to get my hands on Leopard in October.

Tags: software, opinion, macintosh, leopard, wwdc, os x

TUAW: Leopard's iChat Theater could change the way we do... well, everything

I really hadn't paid any attention to this feature until now. It looks to be a pretty interesting expansion of iChat's capabilities. Especially neat is the ability to remotely interact with other people's machines through iChat ... as long as that feature doesn't open some massive security hole.

Tags: leopard, os x

Presentation Zen has a couple of good entries about faults surrounding PowerPoint and the option of avoiding the application (and those like it) entirely.

• David Byrne on PowerPoint: Freedom – who needs it?
• Is it finally time to ditch PowerPoint?

Daring Fireball has two posts regarding some facts about AAC and some of the recent misinformation spreading around regarding the audio format.

• Some Facts About AAC
• A Wee Bit More on AAC, Ogg, and MP3

Nobel Intent: Teachers and testing under scrutiny

I love the opening lines:

Education is a perennial political football. It is one of those lovely subjects where everyone feels that, since they went to school once, they have an equally valid view of "what is wrong with education today."

TUAW: More Leopard Delay Reaction

In case you didn't here, Leopard is experiencing a four-month release delay from June to October. My take is that the sky is not falling – not even close. Others disagree. TUAW's post here aggregates some sensible and entertaining views on the delay.

Tags: powerpoint, technology, education, leopard, drm, os x

freshome: Furniture Inspired by Scrabble Game

D'oh! I wish I knew about these BEFORE we began redoing our living room!



TUAW: Our Favorite Easter Eggs

TUAW writes about some fun hidden goodies in Mac OS X (but there aren't as many as in the good old days of the classic Mac OS. grumble, grumble, kids these days...). I have to admit, though, I didn't expect –

"Nooobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

Tags: silly, tiger, os x

Apple – Boot Camp

The new 1.2ß release officially adds support for Windows Vista for those of you so inclined to use Windows on a Mac.



YubaNet: New Bush Plan to Gut Endangered Species Act

Is it me, or does the Bush administration seem to go out of their way to harm nature as much as it can? Just thinking out loud.



Opposable Thumbs: Xbox 360 Elite launched: official details and specs

It's the update everyone saw coming – 120 GB hard drive, HDMI port, Black, $479. However, there seems to be no easy way to easily transfer the information from one XBox 360 to another at this time. That could frustrate some users.

Tags: environment, video games, leopard, os x

Both Ars Technica and TUAW are reporting that InputManager plugins will be disabled in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

from Ars:

"Apple isn't really broken up about it since InputManagers were often used for nefarious purposes anyway," our sources said, but the loss of InputManager control will break a lot of shareware and commercial software that currently makes use of that control. 

To tell you the truth, I've read about possible InputManager exploits, but I've never seen any "nefarious" plugins in the wild.

Now, in the original version of the Ars post (I wish I had a screenshot), there was speculation that this would break Unsanity haxies, but that info has been altered since then. Still, I thought I would shoot off an email to Unsanity and get a direct answer. Rosyna was kind enough to provide me with some answers, and I thought I'd share these with you here.

Q: You may not be able to answer this one, but can any of you confirm or deny rumors that InputManager plugins are broken in Leopard?

A: We cannot comment.

No surprises here!

Q: Whether or not the rumor is true, do you see the disabling of InputManager plugins as a good thing or a bad thing?

A: I couldn't say, honestly. If true, it'd cause a lot of useful software to be otherwise disabled.

Q: Would this impact APE in any way if it were true (hypothetically speaking)?

A: Why would it impact APE at all? APE has nothing whatsoever to do with InputManagers. Only two of our products (SCR, MEE) use Input Managers and both of them are quite free. Input Managers are cocoa only and are therefore not adequate for our needs.

At this point, my other questions were rendered moot. The short story is that APE is here to stay.

Of additional interest, the TUAW post has a comment with a questionable picture (comment #7) that refutes the total disabling of InputManager plugins, and an update at the bottom of the Ars post says this:

When you install Leopard, InputManagers are (currently) disabled by default, but they can be enabled when Leopard finds something of yours that uses an InputManager and presents you with a dialog box. You can currently enable them this way, but if you click "Disable" (which is the default option), they apparently go away for good. "That's what Apple says is the current behavior. They're not sure what the final behavior will be," says one developer. "Apple says they are deprecated, and in 'a future release' they will be disabled pernamently. They won't say if that release is 10.5.x or 10.6."

As far as InputManager-powered products go, I guess we'll just have to wait and see, but it does seem certain that APE modules will be completely unaffected by this, which is good news for me as well as many other Mac users!

Tags: software, technology, os x

Unsanity's products always seem to spark debate in the Mac web-sphere. From some of the more vocal members of the development team to the rather roundabout ways their products interact with Mac OS X, they are a company that polarizes the community surrounding them. Negative attention is turning toward the company again as Apple is making it clear in their developer's mailing list that they officially do not support systems on which Unsanity's Application Enhancer is installed.

George Warner:

Our (Apple's) official policy is that we don't support APE'd systems. Period. The data miner that parses all the crash logs that are sent to us automatically ignores any report that has APE api's in the backtraces or dylb lists.

Likewise If DTS receives a crash incident with API in the backtrace or dylb list we will not investigate it. Our "standard answer" in this case is to inform the developer that we don't support APE and that we'll only be able to help them if they can reproduce the problem without APE installed.

The simple fact is that APE works some strange mojo on your Mac to do its magic, and some users resent that. Others point to serious problems APE can cause on systems. Just search for "Application Enhancer" or "APE" on the MacNN forums for a good idea of what I'm talking about.

Regardless of the risks, I have to admit to being an Unsanity customer since the early days of my Mac OS X adoption. I can hardly remember what it was like using OS X without APE installed and a couple of its companion products (called "haxies"). I have registered four of Unsanity's haxies, but I only actively use two. One product is ShapeShifter, a theming utility for OS X, and the other is FruitMenu – the utility that keeps me coming back.

After transitioning to an Intel Mac, Unsanity's haxies were seriously slowing my system down, among other factors, and I ended up removing them and the APE module from my system. No buyer's-remorse was involved. I had gotten years of use out of the products and was perfectly okay with leaving them behind. However, once Mac OS X 10.4.9 was released, allowing for a more efficient version of APE to be released, I found myself reinstalling these utilities primarily for a single feature of FruitMenu. Allow me to illustrate.

If I'm working on a project for work or this site, I typically have several applications open at once, and I'll cmd-Tab between them as needed. I imagine you might have a similar workflow. Unfortunately, look what happens to the menus as applications change:

Menu headers jump around based on the length of the application's name. This is most noticeable with the File and Edit menus, which appear in nearly all windowed applications. This means if you are a clicker (like me), there is a moving target on top of the screen, especially in the case of Word in this illustration.

FruitMenu has an option in its Preference Pane to use applications' icons to denote the application menu in lieu of the programs' names. Take a look at how this alters the menu bar:

Now the menus remain much more static, thus improving the overall usability of the menu bar. The File and Edit menus stay exactly consistent. Some might raise the concern that it is not ideal UI design to use an icon for a menu because it is not immediately apparent that the icon is a clickable item. However, I would say Mac users are used to icon-activated menus due to the Apple menu in the left-hand corner and the various other menu extras that appear to the right (not pictured). I personally think that the usability gains granted by turning the application menu into an icon trump the negatives.

In short, this feature keeps bringing me back to Unsanity's APE modules. It really surprises me that this behavior isn't the Mac OS X default, and FruitMenu will stay on my system as long as it performs reliably. Between the release of 10.4.9 and Unsanity's resolution of APE's pre-binding issue, I perceive no performance lags on my modded system, so I guess I'm okay with some system mojo happening just as long as everything is sailing smoothly and I get to have my Menu bar the way I like it.

Tags: software, opinion, os x

Instigator Blog: 5 Phrases You Never Want to Hear in a Presentation

Let me additionally say that you should never begin your talk by telling people what you aren't going to cover. Also, the author of this post mentions participation as an important part of your talk. I do agree, but don't force it. No participation is better than forced participation.



TUAW: Where OS X 'Big Cat' code names REALLY come from

I like the German tank theory better, but this is probably a more realistic origin.



Wii Fanboy: Spielburg working on Wii game with EA

Let's hope these games are more Minority Report and Saving Private Ryan than they are Hook or The Lost World.



I'm a little late getting these put up, but here are 1Up.com's lists of most wanted games this year. As an aside, I'm playing Burnout: Dominator (on the PS2 list) right now, and it is very fun. I don't miss crash mode very much, but the lack of traffic checking is taking some getting used to.

Top 10: PC • Top 10: Wii • Top 10: DS • Top 10: PSP • Top 10: PS2 • Top 10: PS3 • Top 10: XBox 360

Tags: powerpoint, tiger, leopard, video games, os x

Cabel Sasser: Apple's Next-Generation Themes

Cabal Sasser blogs about Apple's patent for resolution independent interfaces and draws some interesting conclusions. He also posts some information about Apple's own theme creation tool.

via Daring Fireball



IntelliAdmin: The Progression of Vista Through Screenshots

This is a really simple but nice trip trough Vista's development from the first alpha release to the final shipping version. I like screenshots.



Ars Technica: IPTV on the XBox 360: Ars digs deep

This could become a big deal, and it could really help the XBox 360 gain even more momentum in the US market.



Nobel Intent: Even more ethical stem cells

I've always found myself torn on the issue of stem cell research. On the one hand, the investment can be unreasonable (potentially human life). On the other hand, the benefits of studying stem cells seems staggering. A new technique that recovers stem cells from amniotic fluid may succeed in dispelling much of the controversy around this research.

Tags: technology, microsoft, video games, science, leopard, os x

This is so neat, I have to share: In the Mac OS X 10.4.8 update, the Keyboard & Mouse Preference Pane has been modified to allow for automatic screen zooming (independent of Universal Access controls).



As you can see, if you hold down Control while using the scroll wheel, zooming is automatically enabled. Here are a couple of screen captures. One is a normal shot of the screen. The second shows zooming enabled.

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Also, once the screen is magnified, you can navigate around simply by moving the mouse. You can actually achieve a pretty intense magnification with this method, and it is another hint at resolution independence being a possible feature in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. (It's already available in Tiger but not at the user level.)

Furthermore, this is a pretty handy feature for presentations that include software demonstrations. Right now, enlarged icons and controls look fairly pixelated, but the use of resolution independent elements could make this feature even smoother. Imagine being able to demo iMovie or MS Word and smoothly zooming in on a feature you are elaborating on without having to visit a preference pane or using a static magnified screenshot.

Little touches like these make me like my Mac even more. Thanks to the great Daring Fireball for pointing this feature out. (You can see his blog in the screenshots.)

Tags: software, os x

Some pretty neat stuff came out of WWDC 2006's Stevenote today. I didn't get what I wanted to see (Merom-based MacBook Pros), but the announcements today made for a good show.

The Completed Transition

Apple's new workstation is a powerful machine. It contains two dual-core Xeon 5100 processors (a.k.a Woodcrest) in speeds of 2.0 GHz, 2.66 GHz, and (finally) 3.0 GHz with a 1.33 GHz frontside bus. It ships with 1 GB of memory, expandable to 16 GB, and 250 GB of internal storage, expandable to 2 TB. We have an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT PCI Express graphics card with many upgrade options, and the the option to have dual optical drives.

On the education store, I was able to strip one down to $1,962 USD (not including a display). On the other end of the spectrum, if you go for all the bells and whistles, you'll be out over $11,000 UDS (still not including a display). From what I hear, the pre-configured $2,499 model is pretty competitive, but it is definitely out of my pricerange!

Along with the Mac Pro comes a Xeon-based XServe, making for a speedy update to Apple's server solutions.

The New Cat In Town

The Steve also had a sneak-peek at Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on display. Many of the features demoed were far from Earth-shattering, but they do go towards making the Mac experience more fun for us veterans and more familiar to Windows converts. The updates to Mail, Dashboard, iCal, and iChat are evoutionary enhancements (except I think the backdrop thing in iChat is pretty cheesy).

The exciting stuff here is in Apple's implementation of virtual desktops, known as Spaces. I really didn't think this feature would be included. Sure, there are a few third-party solutions for virtual desktops, but, by and large, I doubt many people know what these are. Time Machine brings a much-needed backup utility to Mac OS X with the usual Apple flair, and Core Animation will make it a bit easier for developers to add some eye candy to their apps.

I can't say I'm excited about Leopard yet, but this was just a limited preview. In the future I'm sure we'll see resolution independence as well as a refined interface along with some features that aren't being talked about yet. Still, the Intel transition is complete. Leopard is progressing toward a Spring 2007 launch, and Apple is continuing to make being a Mac user an exciting experience.

Tags: macintosh, technology, wwdc, leopard, os x

Wow. Just wow. Things must be really cold right here at the moment. Thanks to Boot Camp (have to love Apple product names, even the temporary ones), Intel Macs can now dual-boot Mac OS X and WIndows XP.

I have to admit to not knowing what to think of this. On one hand, this could generate a lot of consumer interest in the Macintosh as switching is no longer an all-or-nothing proposition. Furthermore, this could be great for the education sector. Think about it; you can now teach about all of the major operating platforms on one machine.

On the other hand, I remember talking once to a developer who thought creating a Mac port of her product was a waste of time because Mac users could always pay for a copy of Virtual PC + Windows to run her software really slowly, and that solution was good enough. This move could potentially encourage some developers to get really lazy. "You want to use our software? Just dual-boot."

Should Apple be able to retain the developers, this could be a good move. As I earlier mentioned, this could entice people who might otherwise view purchasing a Mac as a risky investment.

Despite the weirdness of this announcement, you have to love some of the barbs Apple dishes out to Microsoft on the Boot Camp product page:

On BIOS & EFI:

"Macs use an ultra-modern industry standard technology called EFI to handle booting. Sadly, Windows XP, and even the upcoming Vista, are stuck in the 1980s with old-fashioned BIOS. But with Boot Camp, the Mac can operate smoothly in both centuries."

On Security:

"Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC. That means it’ll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world. So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes."

(Actually, I would avoid the internet with the Windows partition as much as possible!)

In the end, in case you can't tell, I really don't know what to make of this announcement. The thought of running Windows on a Mac makes me want to wash my brain out with soap, but I can understand the appeal to others. I just hope the major Mac-supporting developers stay on board, and I hope the smaller developers like Delicious Monster, RealMac Software, Panic, and the Omni Group continue to make their awesome Mac-only products that help make this platform unique.

I guess I, like many others, will just have to sit back and see where this goes.

Update 4/6:
A favorite blogger of mine, John Gruber posted this interesting write-up on what this whole Boot Camp thing means for the Mac. The article is called, "Windows: The New Classic." (Warning: language.) Toward the end of the article, he makes an interesting observation about the Boot Camp icon (which seems spot on), and he includes one of my favorite recent geek jokes in the article as well:

"What's the difference between OS X and Vista? Microsoft employees are excited about OS X..."

Additionally, I mentioned the potential for the Boot Camp solution in the classroom. Actually, this looks like a much more interesting solution for multiple platform environments.

Tags: software, microsoft, opinion, os x

I promised this post months ago, but I just haven't had the time to hash it out. Now seems as good of a time as ever since at least one of my grad classes is mostly caught up for the moment! This is by no means a comprehensive review of Mac OS X 10.4, but I hope it provides a decent overview and a good perspective on one person's experiences using this product.
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Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger was released on April 29, 2005 to wide acclaim and wide criticism. As per Apple's recent tradition, the product was $129 ($69 for educators). There was much ado over "200 New Features" from Apple's PR, and there was general complaint and mockery regarding a $129 fee for a "point release" from the critical. The truth of Tiger is somewhere in the middle. You have to pick some pretty fine nits to find "200 New Features." On the other hand, Mac OS 10.4 is more than a general "point release."
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An OS By Any Other Name...

I've often said that Apple sells itself short in the nomenclature used for it's "X" systems. To illustrate this, some history:
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(At this point, some of my more tech-savy readers should skip ahead.) Mac OS X, pronounced "Mac Oh-Es Ten," is not really the tenth version of the Macintosh Operating System. The original Mac OS died with the passing of Mac OS 9. The current system is based on UNIX, and it is a marriage, sometimes inelegant and sometimes uncomfortable, of the Classic Mac OS and another OS project that was called NeXTSTEP. As such, Mac OS X 10.1 was really version one of a new product. (No, I refuse to count Mac OS X 10.0 as anything else than an expensive beta.)
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With each successive release, this product has matured considerably, so much so that screenshots of Mac OS X 10.1 look very foreign to someone used to working with Mac OS 10.4. In fact, these two systems look about as similar as Windows 98 and Windows XP. However, public perception can be that progress has been minimal because of how Apple has chosen to name their new operating system. It would be more accurate to view this product as Mac OS X Version 4 than as a simple point release.
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Installation and First Impressions

My system disks were of Mac OS X 10.4.0, and installation was breezy. It took a little over 20 minutes to install on my G5, but it took quite a bit longer on my PowerBook G3. After rebooting, there was some performance lag as Spotlight indexed my hard drive, but that was quickly resolved. I quickly played with as many toys as I could including Automator, Dashboard, Spotlight, and the snazzy new screen-savers! Everything worked as expected.
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My G5 seemed noticeably faster overall. I'm continually impressed how each Mac OS revision seems to make that machine snappier (even though it's a 1.8 GHz SP, which is supposedly adversely affected by 10.4). Startup time is also speedier. On average, my G5 takes roughly 30 seconds to boot. Unfortunately, Mac OS 10.4 has had the opposite affect on my PowerBook G3, and the poor thing seems to struggle under this system's weight. I guess I should have known I was in trouble when my old PowerBook was not on the initial list of supported hardware. (It appeared a few days later.)
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What about stability? So far, there have been no kernal panics. Actually, I have been fortunate enough to never have had one of these, and I have been an OS X user since the Public Beta came out. My PowerBook began my OS X experience, and my old Graphite iMac DV joined the X era when Mac OS X 10.2 "Jaguar" came out. In addition to the lack of kernal panics on either my G5 or my PowerBook G3, I have experienced no system freezes, and the only application to "Unexpectedly Quit" has been Microsoft Word 2004 on my laptop. My desktop has had absolutely zero flakiness ... outside of some that was my own doing.
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My only real complaint is the fact that 10.4.1 and 10.4.2 (as well as some other miscellaneous updates) had already been released prior to my purchase of Tiger in late August, but the boxed version I got did not contain these updates, so both my desktop and my laptop had to download those updates after installation. I had kind of expected those updates to be "in the box" by then. For reference, 10.4.1 had been released May 16, and 10.4.2 had been released July 12. My purchase of Mac OS X 10.4 was on August 20.
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New Features

Dashboard: Dashboard is the flashiest of the new features, and it is the feature that will probably remain most associated with Tiger. Dashboard is a compnant of Exposé, which was introduced by Apple in 10.3 "Panther." Dashboard is a separate layer from the desktop that runs mini applications callsed "widgets." These widgets are one-trick ponies that can do things like track shipments, monitor the weather, control iTunes, convert measurements, and act as a calendar. There are thousands of widgets freely available for download on the Internet, and there are a few more sophisticated ones that cost a few dollars. Fortunately, Apple has included an interface for installing and managing widgets as of the 10.4.2 update.



By in large, I find Dashboard pretty useful. I used to run Konfabulator strictly in Konsposé mode, so Dashboard offered little adjustment for me. The screenshot shows my most frequently used widgets, and they all do the job well. My only gripe is with the general laginess of Dashboard when you open it the first time after login. Personally, I have to recommend a tiny app called Dashboard Starter if you think you'll use Dashboard a lot. All it does is launch Dashboard on login, thereby making the widgets more responsive once you are ready to use them.

Spotlight: Spotlight is the integrated system search feature of Mac OS 10.4. You can envoke Spotlight by clicking on a magnifying glass icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen or by using the keyboard command Command-Space. Spotlight searches while you type, which is fine on fast systems, but I wish there was the option for it to wait for you to hit Return on my slower G3 system. Most of the time, if I lose something, Spotlight can find it for me. However, on my PowerBook G3, I've noticed that about half of my documents never get searched, and I'm not sure how to correct that situation. I'm a pretty organized person and seldom lose track of where I have information stowed, but Spotlight has come in handy during those times I have lost track of stuff.

Here's what a Spotlight window looks like if you ask it to show you all results from the Spotlight menu. Could this be the future of the Finder?



Automator: Automator may be one of the cooler new features that few will discover and even fewer may use. I can't comment too much about Automator because I'm still learning about it. Basically, Automator is designed to bring one-step goodness to repetitive tasks. For example, you could apply a sepia tone filter to multiple photographs at once. You may want to assign Spotlight Keywords to multiple items, or you could name several files sequentially (August 01.pdf, August 02.pdf, etc.). There is a learning curve involved, but Automator is a nice example of how Apple sometimes succeeds in thinking outside the box. I think I'm going to really like Automator once I get used to it.

Here's a screen capture of one of Automator's sample workflows. You can add and rearrange steps using simple drag-and-drop.



Other New Features: QuickTime is now at verison 7 and supports a new high-definition codec. Unfortuantely, QuickTime 7 does not seem to be as responsive as QuickTime 6 was when viewing .mpg videos in a browser window (Safari or Firefox). Some new Finder features include Burnable Folders and Smart Folders. Both are quite useful, especially the Burn Folders, which allow you to set up a burn session without a CD or DVD actually being inserted in the drive. FIanlly, the built in RSS support in Safari is cool, but if you are used to a dedicated RSS aggregator (like NetNewsWire), Safari probably won't offer enough features to make you switch.

There are plenty more little touches that separate Mac OS X 10.4 from previous releases, but this gives an overview of some of the most obvious enhancements.

Under the Hood

More important than the superficial enhancements are the "under the hood" improvements to Mac OS X 10.4. These are the changes that most will never see or know about but that affect how the system and applications work. Apple refers to these as "key technologies," and they include such elements as H.264 support, Core Image, Core Data, and Core Audio. Core Audio was introduced in either Jaguar or Panther, and it created a robust set of integrated audio functionality right into the operating system that any application can potentially have access to. Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro is a good example of an application that takes advantage of Core Audio.

New to the Core Foundation Technologies are Core Image and Core Data. Core Data is over my head, but it meant to improve the data-model framework used by applications. Core Data is important to Spotlight's functionality, and it uses database concepts to organize and manage data from any application built to utilize it. This, like other Core Foundation Technologies, is aimed squarely at developers and making Mac OS X as attractive of a development platform as possible. Furthermore, Core Image, like Core Audio, provides developers with a respectable palette of image tools that can be seamlessly integrated into their application. Image Tricks by BeLight Software is a nice utility that is built entirely around the Core Image filters.

What does this mean to the end user? It means future Mac OS X applications can take advantage of all sorts of great technologies that would formerly have had to be integrated manually. Imagine a presentation application that could apply audio effects to sounds and music in the presentation, that could manipulate images right in the application by applying Gaussian blur and sepia tone filters without having to rely on a separate image editor, all while indexing every bit of content in your presentation for easy searching later. An application like this would be very possible utilizing Apple's Core Foundation Technologies (which makes me wonder what new features we'll see in Keynote 3). I don't understand half of the technical documentation regarding Core Foundation, but I do know that I've been impressed more than once by applications that make good use of these technologies.

Dashboard and Safari RSS are nifty and fun. Core Foundation Technologies are the stepping stones that will build the future of the Macintosh platform.
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The Interface.

See that cool screenshot? Yeah, Mac OS X 10.4 doesn't quite look that good. That screenshot is actually the product of two different interface modifications (iTuno and SmoothStripes Sunken Mod if you must know). Don't get me wrong, I really like the Aqua user interface, and I am a big fan of the new "Unified" look that Mail 2 sports. I just don't like how every other application seems to have a different version of Aqua applied to it. The Finder, for example, still looks basically like it did in the days of Jaguar, while iTunes has a drastically different appearance using similar elements, and don't get me started on GarageBand.

Aqua has evolved greatly since the days of Mac OS X 10.0. It is much more subdued than it used to be, and pinstripes are pretty much gone. However, it seems that Apple has been improving the interface in bits and pieces. Unfortunately for users, this results in a very inconsistent visual experience. On the other hand, this may be intentional. Software developers seem to be moving to having different applications having distinct looks and feels (Windows Media Player and Office 12 anyone?). It's just not my cup of tea. Fortunately, applications like Unsanity's ShapeShifter make modifying the systems appearance fairly painless.

The Kitchen Sink & Conclusion

I know there are many aspects of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger I have failed to overview in detail. For example, I haven't talked much about H.264, nor have I said anything about the new metadata features that have worked their way into Tiger. iChat AV has gone untouched on my computer, so there was no use in even mentioning it, and accessibility features as well as the new parental controls are absent from this overview. 10.4 is a huge system filled with features, and there is no way I'm going to be able to cover all of them.

Tiger is another step toward making Mac OS X a more robust and feature-rich environment to work in. Some features like Dashboard are very visible while others, like Automator, may seem more daunting to the average user. Some features have been left strangely hidden, like the Finder's Slideshow functionality, while many of the other enhancements are at the system level, invisible to most people. Overall, I'm glad we bought Tiger, and I'm really looking forward to the enhancements and changes that will be brought by Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in late 2006!

Tags: macintosh, software, opinion, tiger, os x