Why We Look At Screenshots Of Mac OS X Leopard.

My husband tells me I’ve become something of a Mac voyeur. “Why?” He pointed to the ThinkSecret page on my Mac’s screen.

“Just because I look at screenshots of naked Leopard pages?” I shot back. He was serious and maybe he was right.

I derive pleasure from knowing what Apple is about to launch. That’s what makes Apple’s secretive nature so exciting. They flirt with us, taunt us, tease us, so the only voyeuristic pleasure we can get is from stolen screen images posted on shady, secretive web sites.

My husband pointed out that a voyeur is “a person who gains sexual pleasure from watching others when they are naked… blah, blah, blah.” Was I obtaining unhealthy pleasure from dragging my eyes across the love fest of Leopard’s screenshots?

I pointed out to my husband that another meaning of voyeur is “a person who enjoys seeing the pain or distress of others.” So, if you’re a Mac user and you see Windows PC users in pain and suffering, and feel smug because you have a Mac, well, you’re a voyeur, too.

Welcome to the club. When my husband left I headed back to my Mac and the ThinkSecret gallery of OS X Leopard screenshots. They’re hot.

That is about as close as you’ll get to Leopard until the release sometime in October. Apple has become the master of re-design and new, glossy features.

There’s just enough new in each Mac to make us want to give away our old Mac (purchased just a year or so ago) and buy a brand new Mac. Feel the aluminum. Roll your eyes over the glossy, Kodachrome screen. Ahhhhhh.

The ecstasy continues with OS X Leopard. Look at that Time Machine icon and dialog screen. Doesn’t that just scream sexy?

Apple has polished up the rest of OS X so it’ll look new enough to buy, new enough not to be disappointed once we buy, but not so different that we don’t buy, and just different enough that we do buy.

Makes sense, huh? Even the Finder’s ColorSync icon is so sexy it makes me want to figure out what ColorSync can do for me.

Likewise, the DigitalColor Meter. It just screams out, “Touch me!” I will, I will. Wait for me!

Why do we wait with anticipation? Why do we lust over screenshots of new Macs and Mac OS X? Because it makes us feel so good inside.

If loving my Mac is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Even the mundane has a new spark of virility. The DiskUtility looks soooooo hot that I just want to create disk images and check permissions late into the night.