It is coming close to the day when we all will see Leopard roaring, or maybe just meow with a bit of claw scratch.  Let us break down visible features to see what are we really getting.

Desktop: Nothing new, every OS has a desktop and every OS has some kind of dock system.  Mac just makes it look good.  The notion of file stacks is also nothing new, Tiger has something similar if you care to look.  This one just bends to one side and is transparent.  The dock has changed a bit but also nothing worth the trouble.

Finder:  The biggest feature is cover flow, and I don’t see how this is important.  It could be a good media navigation tool and allows you a quick preview of what you are looking for but if you have an older system it would slow you down.  Another new feature is Places.  This is the new network discovery sidebar thing.  From what I have tried I can only say it is about time.  It is better then Network icon and trying to find what you want.  It also is better at finding computers and connecting to them.  Looks like that smb has been somehow tweaked to do its job a lot better then in Tiger.  No tabbed Finder though.

Quick Look: Something good that should have been in Tiger a long time ago.

Time Machine: This feature is really nice if you are stationary or you have a good network connection.  I don’t think you would want to use this over WiFi.  If you aim is simple backup then many third party options exist and some of the good ones are free.  It does, however, make it a lot simpler.  I personally didn’t enable this feature and don’t see how it would benefit my Macbook Pro or my Powerbook.

Spaces: It is bad bad bad bad.  Compared to Virtuedesktop and other third party solutions it is simply bad at doing things.  It is also ugly and the transitions lame.  But it does what it is supposed to do.

Mail:  About time we see new improvements.  Mail knows google pop servers and the todo notes is very well implemented.  It still looks the same.  I like the new Mail app and I am looking forward to using it.  Lets just hope plugins get updated to run on it.

iChat:  You can tell that a lot of thought has been put into iChat, but until people stop using MSN and switch to iChat you won’t see its benefits.

Boot Camp:  Same thing but better integrated with Leopard.  Question is will the Tiger version stop working once Leopard is out.

Looks:  Nothing new what so ever.  No new interface no new candy.  The icons are dull and plain except for the Apple application icons.  We will see if this gets improved.

So what are we getting?  Well lots actually, but nothing visible.  You get native 64 bit support and a better OS over all but most people won’t really see anything new.  So is it worth the upgrade? Yes, very much so.  As much as I am disappointed that am not seeing something really cool it is still worth it to upgrade just for the performance gain alone.  Xcode is better as well as the new DashCode but most users won’t even install these to see their benefits.  I know I have skipped a lot of other features but the ones I listed are the ones everyone would see and judge the OS with.  To me this is just another improvement release and not something drastically different.  A lot under the hood but nothing on the skin.  Take a look at the features page and you decide.  Let me know what you think.  The Leopard page says “Hello, tomorrow” I say Hello, today!

Mac OSX Leopard’s Page