Where Are The Secret Spots In Mac OS X Leopard?

Rumors say OS X Leopard will debut at the NAB Convention in April. Or not. Or later in April. Or not. Or June, as expected. Or October.

My money is on June, as Apple has confirmed. The only problem is, Leopard still looks like Tiger, with no new “secrets.” There’s not much new in Leopard.

We’ve discussed this before and there’s little new news to report. The old news is stale, and Apple has done a good job of hiding the fact that the promised Leopard “secrets” haven’t been revealed.

In the uproar over iPhone’s introduction in January, quickly forgotten was Apple’s new Airport Extreme, what may end up being the coolest and most elegant backup solution for Macs and PCs.

AppleTV is shipping so the media pundit focus is on all the features not yet found but hoped for in Apple’s streaming multimedia device.

Coming soon is the National Association of Broadcasters convention in April. Apple is expected to announce something new, perhaps a new version of FinalCut Pro. Some say that Leopard will be introduced. That’s too soon.

Why? Because Mac software developers by the thousands already have OS X Leopard in hand. Most reports indicate that Leopard is a bit buggy, unpolished, certainly unfinished, and definitely not ready for prime time.

Also missing in action is iLife ‘07 and iWork ‘07. Why? Both were expected at Macworld in January. Ars Technica’s Iljitsch van Beijnum supports the theory that Leopard will be three-dimensional.

Three dimensional? Resolution independence? Perhaps some form of accelerated 3-D like we’ve seen in the iChat demo.

The point is, we’ve seen nothing specifically “secret” from Apple’s pre-releases of OS X Leopard, so it’s a guessing game.

With the exception of Spaces and Time Machine, Leopard looks pretty much like Tiger. There’s still the mixed mess of brushed aluminium vs. platinum plastic vs. plastic whatever interface elements that exist in Tiger.

A spreadsheet and a database make for obvious inclusions in iWork ‘07, and speculation runs high for one or the other, though not necessarily both. Apple has a history of last minute surprises, so I’m looking for surprises in three locations.

The first is in iLife ‘07. Apple is expected to spruce up all the applications to match some of what will show in the way of new technology in Leopard. But what?

The second is in iWork ‘07. Apple has to make the suite more competitive and valuable when compared to Microsoft Office 2000-whatever it will be called.

The third is in OS X Leopard in the way of an unannounced but still secret technology. I’m surprised we have not seen interface changes to Leopard’s GUI, the Finder, a unified look.

Apple does a super job of keeping secrets to itself and the unannounced secrets that Steve Jobs talked about last year have yet to materialize. Let the speculation games begin.

What’s coming in Leopard, iLife ‘07, and iWork ‘07 that we haven’t heard much about recently?