The most hyped and awaited Mac OS X version to date is just days away. Will I upgrade my Macs? Certainly. Will Leopard be worth the effort and money? That depends on who you ask. Someone who knows, or someone who doesn’t.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion on Leopard, and I’ll be frank with you. I haven’t tried it out yet. I’ll buy it and upgrade, but I’m not yet qualified to tell you whether it’s a worthy upgrade or not.
Mac360’s occasional guest writer, the less-than-diminutive Bambi Brannan, asked the question, ”Why do Mac users need to upgrade to OS X Leopard?” The real answer is, ”because we want to.” It’s not because Leopard will make us more efficient or productive in ways that really matter.
How good is OS X Leopard? That depends on who’s answering the question, and the opinions vary.
For example, take Paul Thurrott, writing in Windows IT Pro. He says Leopard has been ”plagued by delays and missing any of the exciting secret features promised a year ago.” Just so you know, Paul is a notorious “hit w_h_o_r_e” who writes such idiocy so his web site and articles get hits by unsuspecting readers who may think, only temporarily, that he knows what he’s talking about. He doesn’t. But he has an opinion on Leopard anyway.
Thurrott goes on to say that ”Leopard is the fifth minor revision” to OS X. You see where this is going, right? Thurrott coughs up a hairball hit piece to deride Mac OS X Leopard without ever having used it himself. He punishes Apple by using terms such as ”comical” and ”minor” and hints that Microsoft has had similar features since 2003.
He derides the “over 300 features” in Leopard by pointing out that some of them are in iChat, in the Xcode for developers, or minor adjustments to the Mac’s aging Finder. Don’t you just love investigative journalism, perspective and analysis from the mainstream media, and a techno-nerd without the techno-capability?
So, compare what Paul Thurrott says about Mac OS X Leopard with what Tom Yager writes in InfoWorld. Mind you, Paul Thurrott appears to be on Microsoft’s payroll, derides Apple at nearly every opportunity, has never actually used OS X Leopard, and only writes his negative slime by reading details on Apple’s web site.
What is OS X Leopard really like by a techno-geek who knows more of his techno, like Tom Yager? He’s actually been using Leopard and calls it a ”beautiful upgrade.” He also says Leopard ”is a triumph of customer-focused engineering.”
Then, in detail, Yager explains why Leopard is so good. He covers layered kernels, system calls, API’s, abstraction layers, frameworks, system stacks, cross application integration, autonomous objects, and other terms for which most of us Mac users are not familiar and don’t really care about. But to sum it up, he says, ”Leopard is a legitimately big deal… under hyped compared to iPhone.”
He also laments that previous versions of OS X left him wanting. That’s familiar territory to some of us who bemoaned the quirks in Finder, the un-even GUI faces, and obvious missing features in Spotlight, Mail, Safari. No more. OS X Leopard looks to be the first complete OS X. But that’s according to Yager, a techno-pundit who views OS X differently than Windows lackey Paul Thurrott who disses Leopard and kisses Vista’s behind.
Is Mac OS X Leopard a roaring cat? It depends on who you ask, but you’ll get a chance to find out soon enough.
Thurott is just a M$ shill. I am very interested in seeing how Leopard performs, and will upgrade almost, if not immediately. I agree though, best to try it for yourself to see if its worth it. People seem to forget you will be able to give it a whirl at your friendly neighborhood Apple store before you buy it. In the mean time I wouldn’t recommend listening to a M$ shill reviewing and Apple product. They probably believe that M$ invented to Gui…
No need to try it out. One glance at Apple’s website and it’s a no-brainer. All these small improvements (and big) add up. I installed Panther recently on an old iMac and was stunned. We’ve come a LONG ways in a short time. What windows clingers deride as ‘eye candy’ are actually useful productivity enhancers.
Constant Evolution can be just as impressive as Revolution.
Yes, and Tom Yager is a real techie who’s not afraid to critique Apple, either. He also can’t wait till Leopard is actually released so he can finish his review- looking forward to it, and others…
Can we get over Paul Thurrot please? Can we find some other “significant other” to hate and focus our attention on? At least pick on someone that truly deserves it rather than a guy that just gives his opinion from his point of reference. He’s a Windows guy! He writes books about Windows! He views the Mac and things Apple with that lens.
Hey, Paul. It’s good of you to join the Mac 360 forums. It’s always refreshing to have the opinion of Windows user who doesn’t even use a Mac.
Even AppleMatters and LowEnd Mac are stepping back and asking “Where are the SECRET features!”. To me Leopard is a bit of a “yawn” for me, some nice stuff, some cool new technologies, and a needed refresh of some existing stuff, bit not as big a deal as it was made out to be.
Apparently you haven’t read much of Mac 360 recently. You’ll find the very same pokes at Apple regarding the so-called secret features in Leopard which are still pretty much missing.
As for Paul in general you guys gotta get over this posturing. He has a background in Windows and provides a needed perspective. Heck he buys just about ever Apple toy that comes along! His wife uses a Mac Mini and he himself a MacBook, and Ipod and an iPhone. What he does give us is a view into why at times Apple has had limited luck and how we could all be a little more balanced in our views.
What you wrote, Paul, is as close to idiotic and embarrassing journalism as you can get. Remember, you’re getting paid to write, so make sure that what you write is factual, not just negative drivel. Mac 360 and others call you on your mistakes so often I’m surprised Dr. Phil doesn’t do a house call on you.
I think he does a great service and his Internet-Nexus blog is a good counter weight to the usual Mac sites I visit. Here you will see that Paul has defended Apple many times as he has pointed out where it maybe falling down on the job. Often I don’t agree with him because he’s starting off from the wrong frame of reference or understanding but I do see his point. You will also find he hits pretty hard at Microsoft as well when needed. Listen to his podcast with Leo Laporte sure he has an opinion but he’s for sure NOT a Microsoft shill any more than nay of us are Apple shills.
Hahahahahaha. Paul, you crack me up. Seriously. Does anyone believe you are a counter weight to anything, except maybe Rob Enderle? An opinion is one thing, but outright lies and mistakes are sad, and that’s what the great Paul Thurrott is all about. Mac users take pride in finding the errors of his ways and exposing him for the shill he is.
I for one have emailed him and called him on some specifics, at times he’s had a thoughtful retort and sometimes made edits or follow-up articles but in EVERY instance, while we haven’t always agreed, I’ve never found him to be disagreeable. I am not saying he is non-biased. In fact I feel just the opposite and I expect him to be biased. Just as everyone here is biased we all have um’ nothing wrong with that.
Biased? Say it ain’t so. What was it that Dizzy Dean said? “It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.” The Mac does it, so we’re not zealots, just intelligent people making intelligent choices.
As for all of this all I can say is having read some of the things here I don’t blame Paul for calling some Mac users fanatics or zealots. As a mac user since 1985, a 7 year Apple employee, certified (Panther days) ACSA, and the owner of a small Mac museum in the basement with six Mac’s in my office and every member of of family with either a MacBook Pro or MacBook, I’m embarrassed.
Bwaaahahahaha. You of all people should know better and do your best to keep your facts straight. Maybe you just spent too much time in the basement. It’s dark down there. Fungus grows there.
So hey, rather than blogging about what Paul thinks, why don’t you blog an intelligent response to his comments and those of AppleMatters or LowEnd Mac all of whom are saying similar things. The sad fact is Leopard is NOT A BIG DEAL from a user’s perspective. In totality it’s cool, but there is no individual WOW, and for sure, for what ever reason, there were/are no SECRET features! Heck they couldn’t even bother to update the 1990’s finder icons. ugh…
Again, you poor soul, you know not of what you speak… er… write. Check the most recent Mac 360 ”secrets” article here and another one here and yet another one is here.
The problem, Paul, is that it is obvious you don’t read much of Mac 360. I read what’s here because I get a good dose of reality along with the balanced cheerleading. Paul, next time you want to do a hit piece, do your homework first.
Can we get over Paul Thurrot please? Can we find some other “significant other” to hate and focus our attention on? At least pick on someone that truly deserves it rather than a guy that just gives his opinion from his point of reference. He’s a Windows guy! He writes books about Windows! He views the Mac and things Apple with that lens.
Yeeeesh. Someone needs some bran for breakfast. I agree that Thurrott is a Windows guy, so why does he attack the Mac with such a vengeance? Worse, he’s wrong so often. Does he put that kind of effort out in his Windows publications? If so, no wonder Windows folks are so ill-informed. The guy just blathers incessantly and appears to make up stuff.
So hey, rather than blogging about what Paul thinks, why don’t you blog an intelligent response to his comments and those of AppleMatters or LowEnd Mac all of whom are saying similar things.
Apparently you didn’t bother to read all the articles about Leopard’s lack of secrets all over the place at Mac360. Aren’t you just like Thurrott? Can you get your facts straight?
FWIW department, as far as I can tell, Mac360 isn’t much of a blog, and appears to be more of a Mac-oriented web site. But, whatever.
Can we get over Paul Thurrot please? Can we find some other “significant other” to hate and focus our attention on? At least pick on someone that truly deserves it rather than a guy that just gives his opinion from his point of reference. He’s a Windows guy!
Whew, boy. Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed today. You need a nap, bud.
Admittedly, Thurrott is easy pickings and a sharp contrast to people who actually think and make qualified decisions about their computer choices. But why does a “Windows guy” think he can pick apart a competing operating system without ever trying it out?
Even AppleMatters and LowEnd Mac are stepping back and asking “Where are the SECRET features!”. To me Leopard is a bit of a “yawn” for me, some nice stuff, some cool new technologies, and a needed refresh of some existing stuff, bit not as big a deal as it was made out to be.
It’s been said and linked to already, but I found half a dozen Mac360 articles on the lack of secrets in Leopard, one dating back to January, long before it was fashionable to utter such blasphemy.
Here’s what happened. You read the article and became so inflamed with hatred lust that you just had to sign up for the Mac360 forums without thinking first, and certainly without doing much fact checking.
As for Paul in general you guys gotta get over this posturing. He has a background in Windows and provides a needed perspective. Heck he buys just about ever Apple toy that comes along! His wife uses a Mac Mini and he himself a MacBook, and Ipod and an iPhone. What he does give us is a view into why at times Apple has had limited luck and how we could all be a little more balanced in our views.
Sure he does. We should believe everything that a liar says, right? Uh huh.
Not.
I’ve never found him to be disagreeable. I am not saying he is non-biased. In fact I feel just the opposite and I expect him to be biased. Just as everyone here is biased we all have um’ nothing wrong with that.
I’m not biased. Macs are better.
I’m embarrassed.
You should be.
why don’t you blog an intelligent response to his comments and those of AppleMatters or LowEnd Mac all of whom are saying similar things. The sad fact is Leopard is NOT A BIG DEAL from a user’s perspective. In totality it’s cool, but there is no individual WOW, and for sure, for what ever reason, there were/are no SECRET features! Heck they couldn’t even bother to update the 1990’s finder icons.
I’m a Mac user and I found a bunch of things in Leopard which ARE A BIG DEAL to me. Maybe you should tone down your rhetoric a bit a recognize that opinions and perspectives vary. I applaud Ron’s obviously restrained effort to compare and contrast the opinions of a so-called “h_i_t w_h_o_r_e” with a tech writer who understands what is really going on in Leopard.
Simply put, the comment ”plagued by delays and missing any of the exciting secret features promised a year ago,” sounded, to me, like a response to Vista, except that that promise was more like 3 years.
Other than Speech Recognition I don’t know what other impact technology Apple missed out on.
It’s come the point where people are asking to be wowed by features they can’t describe. The key
is what’s missing in your computing life that prevents you from become more efficient?
Tiger’s a good OS but it has its fair share of problems. Finder freezes when shares are dismounted. Beachballs because
the UI still lags. No full 64-bit support. Good fit and finish but UI inconsistencies everywhere. Poor support for threading on
dual and many core systems.
Leopard fixes a lot of this stuff and more. Apple hasn’t even shown the best Core Animation demos yet. I still read developers
raving about its potential. If productivity is a goal for a user then the iCal enhancements, email ehancements (Data Detectors, To-dos)
alone should suffice.
I have work to do and I want Leopard to facilitate me being a more organized and productive computer user. I’m beyond the “make me
drool with amazement every OS release Apple” fanboy stage.
You guys would think I insulted your mother! Wow! We really do have a bunch of wackos! I think too many Mac users walk right into Paul’s hands and prove his points and do more damage to the Mac’s reputation than he does. He’s but one voice you guys are the many that damage the view of our platform of choice with a refusal to intelligently debate anything. All I see here is more name calling some bordering on delusional. I’ve been a product manager and an engineering manager at Apple now at another MAJOR mac software house, and like it or not, there are issues. You guys can post and play I have to live in it and make money. Hey, given the caliber of readers here at 360 I don’t think I need to read anything more here that appeals to this crowd of crazies.
Have a wonderful day!
I don’t read Paul Thurrot articles. Why would I waste my time reading that drivel. I’m not sure I quite agree with you about Apple’s reputation. With a market cap of 150 Billion and rising if this is a damaged reputation I’m sure other companies are lining up for their abuse. I’m not sure I’d consider your post intelligent at all. You continue to refer to Mac enthusiast with pejorative terms then display faux surprise when they respond negatively. Now your here with chest thumping Appeal to Authority logical fallacies regarding your esteemed employment positions within Macdom. If you consider your posts to be of high caliber then clearly Mac360 is NOT the place for you. Perhaps you need to be in Silicon Valley sipping Martinis and trying to impress women with your insipid communication skills.
Sorry, folks. I have to weigh in on this, if anything, just to set the record straight.
#1 - Ron’s piece was a rather straightforward comparison of two Leopard reviews. One from a notorious Apple basher who obviously has an axe to grind and has yet to try Leopard personally. The other from a techno-writer who knows Leopard inside and out. Which one carries the most weight with Mac360 readers. Along the way, Ron got in a few pokes at our old friend Paul Thurrott who deserves to be poked because of his antagonistic style. When he writes pure drivel, as he often does, and Mac users call him on it, then he cries “wacko zealots.” Sorry, Paul. You can’t have it both ways. Two words: write better.
#2 - New Mac360 reader WhoMeWorry, who obviously woke up on the wrong side of bed and left home without his bran muffin, registers on the Mac360 Forums and begins to attack Ron, the article, and Mac360, but somehow does not expect a response for writing in an obviously inflammatory manner.
Inflammatory? Attack? Yes. Here’s a small sample from WhoMeWorry:
As for all of this all I can say is having read some of the things here I don’t blame Paul for calling some Mac users fanatics or zealots.
So, by implication, we’re fanatics or zealots? How about calling us informed Apple customers who don’t put up with phony journalism and illogical commentary, such as that offered regularly by flame-bait specialist Paul Thurrott in the above linked article?
Why don’t you blog an intelligent response to his comments and those of AppleMatters or LowEnd Mac all of whom are saying similar things.
The implication there is that we, Mac360, are not intelligent and that AppleMatters or LowEnd Mac are on top of it and we’re not (as if they never write about Paul Thurrot). See? Those are inflammatory insults. Based on what? All the Mac360 articles WhoMeWorry has read about Apple’s still unknown “secrets” in Leopard? Mac360 published six articles since January on that subject, and if you’re a regular reader you know we poke at Apple often enough to keep a good balance between our spoon fed buying habits and cheerleading.
Balance? One man’s balance is another man’s fanaticism, so it would seem. Here’s WhoMeWorry again:
I think we all have a responsibility to criticize but we also have a responsibility to be correct in that criticism and I don’t believe many of the Mac web sites have done that.
In general, we’ll agree with that. While Ron pointed out specifics of Thurrott’s silly review of Leopard, WhoMeWorry avoided specifics entirely. Specifics. Facts. In fact, that’s usually why writers like Thurrott and Rob Enderle get raked over the coals by Mac users. Criticism is fine, so long as it has a basis in fact, avoids inflammatory phrasing, and benefits the discussion with analysis and perspective. Thurrott and Enderle make a good living by fanning the flames with insulting argumentation and they use both sides of line, Mac and Windows, to do it. When readers point out the obvious errors of their ways, the readers get branded as flaming zealots by the writers.
Sorry. I don’t buy that kind of argumentation from tech writers who engage in that type of slimy journalism and I don’t buy it from a so-called Mac user who defends it. Facts are facts. Let them speak for themselves. Thurrott’s review of Leopard is a hit piece, designed to fan the flames, get more hits to the site. It works. But continued use of that tactic in an overall strategy to enrich himself diminishes his reputation, which is left in tatters. Still, he churns out the manure.
We appreciate the response, though unexpectedly vivid and quick, of Mac360 readers who chimed in on the aforementioned misguided diatribe from an obviously over-stressed Mac user.
We should offer him our sympathy instead. After all, he’s degraded himself by defending that which cannot be defended and has resorted to attacking his brethren (and sisters). Oh, the shame.
I read OSView.com, a site accused of every flavor of bias known to any kind of tech-related site. I have read articles from dozens of sites (it’s how I found Mac360) and written by probably over one hundred writers, including Thurott. Yes, he is a blowhard who at least as often as not writes fiction in his columns, but he has made some excellent points over the years (I know about broken watches). Roughly Drafted Mac makes for a fine counterpoint, providing readers with articles about OS history (not always favorably reflecting Apple) and other matters, mixed heavily with anti-MS flame bait.
I no longer really bother to read either. Why? Sorry, but this is politics to me, or a fine metaphor. I am sick of extremism, so I familiarize myself with the players and argumentative frameworks, but I don’t delve as deeply into the words and actions as once I did.
WhoMeWorry wants to come after the people here and plead innocence when the fecal matter makes impact with the high-speed rotational air circulation device? Fine. I will even accept, prima facie, the claim that WhoMeWorry is a project manager somewhere. I will not accept, with the information presented, that he (she? it?) should be a project manager anywhere. If the best argument a project manager can make against an upgrade is that new technologies create problems, said project manager has clearly never dealt with any other OS upgrade.
Better still, he defends the quality of Thurott’s writing in general, yet here he implicitly refutes Thurott’s claim that this is a minor upgrade; after all, if this were such a minor upgrade, project managers would simply shrug, right?
The install upgrade went smooth, the overall start off with Leopard was a bit sticky, then Apple was fast to put out a update on bugs in Leopard (gonna have bugs in any new OS) and now I here Apple is putting out a big patch for us Mac customers/users. Apple works fast to fix their problems, All my Vista friends are still picking their noses waiting for the first service patch, I am sure glad they are not holding their breaths. SO CHOKE ON THAT Paul Thurrott! We got a hell of allot more opinions on this side about Microsoft so go stick an Apple in your mouth and shut up!
I installed Leopard on 12/31. I have since seen my third-party two-finger scrolling (iScroll 2) kick out on me every day. A restart brings it back, but it is kind of annoying.
Yeah I am going to have to look into an alternative for anther mouse. My mighty mouse scroll ball goes out on me about every week now (this is not a OS issue). Everyone that has complained about this problem that I have read on states that once the scroll ball stops it is done no matter what they do. I take a full can of compressed air, push the ball in as far as it will go and then turn the can upside down so when I push the trigger it is putting out the cold part not the air, then I turn the can back over and spray allot of air in their (I hope that made sense/lol). I know one of these days it’s gonna stop for good. Idiot design to not be able to get in their and clean the rollers.
Wait the mighty mouse came with My Mac Pro. Shouldn’t it be covered with my Apple care plan?
