2 Views Of OS X Leopard: 1 Good, 1 Not So Good.

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. If you plan to buy Leopard through Amazon, please consider using the Mac360 Store to place your order (it’s really Amazon). You’ll get the same discount, and Mac360 makes a few bucks on each order. We appreciate your visits and assistance.