 |
by
Ted Landau
August 10th, 2006
Apple has now partially drawn back the curtain, allowing us a first "sneak peek" at Leopard, the next version of Mac OS X. With each new OS, one of Apple's prime goals is to pack it with enough new and exciting features that you are no longer content with your old now inferior and antiquated OS -- opting instead to upgrade (or, for Windows users, switch!). No wonder. A great deal of profit (or potential loss) hangs in the balance between whether a new OS launches successfully or lands with a thud.
So let the speculation begin: How well will Leopard do when it is finally released next spring? Getting an answer depends not only on a look at the upgrade's features, but on a consideration of the different types of Mac users making this decision.
For some users, the only time they will ever upgrade their Mac software is if and when they buy a new Mac. Some of these users are still happily running Mac OS 9. They tend to view upgrading their Mac with trepidation, rather than anticipation. Most of them are probably unaware that a new version of Mac OS X is even on the horizon. You can't expect too many sales from this group, even if the new OS could print money.
At the other end, there are the users who always buy each new upgrade, usually as soon as possible, regardless of how good (or bad) it is. They are eager to remain up-to-the-minute with all the latest tricks in Apple's bag. Apple need not spend a dime advertising to these users; they already have their checkbooks open. And yes, you can count me in this group!
In between, there is a broad middle-ground of users, almost certainly the majority. They are ones who say, "I'm ready and willing to upgrade, but first convince me it's worth it." These are the users at the sweet spot on the bat that Apple swings when it comes out with a new OS X version. These are the ones that Apple most targets in its marketing.
So how will Leopard go over with these users? It's too early to tell for sure, especially with Steve Jobs still promising some as-yet-unannounced features. Still, I expect Leopard to do well. But I also expect it to be a tougher sell than Tiger or Panther. There's a lot to like in the new OS, but not much to say "I absolutely must have it." Here's why:
Time Machine. Backing up has never been sexy and Time Machine is not likely to change this perception. At its heart, Time Machine is a backup utility. There are already dozens of such utilities on the market, many of them quite good and at a very reasonable cost (such as the excellent SuperDuper! for only $28). Of course, Time Machine is written by Apple and included as part of the OS, making it easier and more convenient to use. But it remains to be seen if this is enough to get people who have thus far resisted backing up (which, as pointed out at the WWDC Keynote, is the vast majority of users!) to start doing so.
Equally noteworthy, Time Machine is more than a basic backup utility. It adds the ability to go back in time and bring back documents that you deleted or overwrote. This "time travel" feature is fantastic, no doubt. It would have saved me from heartaches on several occasions in the past couple of years. But a lot depends on exactly how well it all works. Previous attempts at such feats (from Power On's Rewind software for Mac OS 9 or Prosoft's now defunct Data Recycler) suggest that it will require a good deal of overhead, in terms of processor activity and storage space. Plus, Time Machine just about requires the purchase of an additional hard drive. This is a barrier that probably already accounts for why many users do not back up regularly. Time Machine will not change that.
My concern is that, after getting a closer look at what is needed to make Time Machine a practical tool, most users will continue to resist. Still, if Apple does pull this off, Time Machine will be the single best reason to upgrade to Leopard.
Spaces. This utility certainly looks quite cool in demos. While some may describe it as an expansion of what Exposé can already do, it is more than that. It is true virtual desktop software (such as You Control: Desktops or CodeTek's Virtual Desktop). It offers the ability to maintain separate complete desktops for different tasks, with different applications and different documents open in each space, combined with an ability to instantly shift from one space to the other. Despite how useful this can be, the existing third-party programs in this category have never caught on with a wide audience. Making it part of the OS may change that. But I am skeptical.
iChat. The updated version of this software offers several impressive new features. Some are eye-candy (such as adding a backdrop to your iChat screen, similar to what ChatFX already offers). But others are important and, many would say, long overdue. With features such as multiple logins and invisible status, it pretty much catches up with competitors such as Adium. The ability to play Keynote presentations over iChat offers a convenient way to remotely view slide shows, from family photos to business charts. For me, as a troubleshooter, the most exciting addition is being able to control another user's screen from iChat. True, I can already do this in Tiger, for free, using Chicken of the VNC. But it will be easier to set up with iChat, especially when trying to coordinate with less-skilled users on the other end.
Mail. There are several significant new features in Mail, including stationery, notes and to-do lists. This promises to be one of the better reasons to upgrade to Leopard. Still, there are already several note and to-do list packages out there (including Microsoft Office's Entourage). How many users will switch from their current choice? And how many users that don't already use these options will now feel compelled to start? My guess is that the answer is: not too many. But if you are already a dedicated Mail user, the good news is that the Leopard version is a huge improvement.
Dashboard. With Leopard, creating your own Widgets will be remarkably easy to do -- either via the no-brainer Web Clip method or via the you-do-need-a-brain Dashcode route. Dashcode appears to do for Widgets in Leopard what Automator did for AppleScript in Tiger. Of course, this is somewhat of a left-handed compliment. Automator has not exactly been one of Tiger's big success stories.
Spotlight. I confess I have not yet had much time to examine all the ways in which the Leopard version of Spotlight outpaces the Tiger version. But I do know that the Tiger version leaves a lot to be desired (in terms of speed, specifying search parameters and getting exactly the results you want). Happily, the Leopard version appears to address many of these concerns. Spotlight also promises to be a better application launcher (making it more competitive with third-party utilities such as LaunchBar). Overall, this could be big news; it's too close to call right now.
To be sure, there's much more in Leopard than currently displayed on Apple's Web site. For one example, there's Safari 3.0, which sports an ability to merge multiple windows into a single tabbed window as well as undo an unintentional closure of tabs. And underneath Leopard's hood there will be some less-apparent but significant improvements. I am particularly looking forward to a 64-bit native Finder, hopefully complete with bug and interface fixes for many of the things that have frustrated Mac users for several OS iterations (see my recent MacFixIt article for more on this topic). But as Apple is not giving these improvements much publicity, they are not likely to do much to help sell the OS, at least not initially.
Despite all this, as I said at the top of the article, I expect Leopard to be a successful and compelling upgrade. Here's why:
The total package. Even if no single major feature results in users saying "I must have this," the combined total of all the new features should convince people to say "There is just too much good new stuff here for me to ignore it." Leopard is a significant upgrade of a couple of dozen applications, plus the OS itself. It would be hard to find a better deal.
Similarly, as you may have gleaned from the above highlights, many of Leopard's new features (more so than in previous OS X upgrades) are Apple's takes on already popular third-party software. Some may conclude that this makes Leopard "unexciting." But combining them all into one Apple-designed OS makes the total package much more attractive than having to seek out a dozen or so third-party alternatives.
Intel Macs. What may well turn out to be the biggest reason to get Leopard is that it will work better (faster and with greater compatibility) with the Intel processors that run inside all current Mac models. This is especially so for the 64-bit Mac Pros -- as well as the likely other 64-bit models still to come. Even if you don't consider buying Leopard as a stand-alone package, you will automatically get a copy when you upgrade to an Intel Mac starting next spring.
Ignoring how any of this affects Apple's finances, I am not in the least disturbed at the prospect that Leopard may turn out to be Apple's least innovative Mac OS X upgrade. In fact, I see two quite positive consequences of this.
First, I believe it reflects the coming of age or "maturity" of the OS. It's as if Apple is saying "Tiger is already so good that it's hard for us to improve it much -- at least not right now." Plus, as Apple happily pointed out at the WWDC, Mac OS X is already well ahead of Windows' Vista and is likely to stay that way -- despite Microsoft's efforts to "photocopy" the Apple OS.
Finally, although this may be a consequence of my advancing age, I welcome a bit of a breather in the pace of change. After having survived dramatically overhauled OS versions, coming at the rate of about once a year, from Jaguar to Panther to Tiger, I can use some down time. I look forward to at least a brief respite where I can spend some time exploring Mac OS X -- without worrying that I am just a few months away from having to relearn how everything works. Leopard is a refinement of Mac OS X, rather than an overhaul. That's perfect for me.
Bottom line: I look forward to the release of Leopard -- as much for what it isn't as for what it is.
Ted Landau is the founder of MacFixit, and the author of Mac OS X Help Line, Tiger Edition and other Mac help books.
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Observer Comments
Thu Aug 10, 2006 4:50 pm Subject:
I concur. I will be first in line to buy it whenever it becomes available. And I'll put it on all my machines, including my dear old Cube.
But unlike Panther, I'm not expecting such a leap forward - it almost seems like a sub-point increase. VoiceOver, no matter how cool a technology it is, doesn't do it for me; I've never been a huge user of iChat; I'm not one for inflicting HTML email on my friends; I will use Spaces and come to depend on Time Machine.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not underwhelmed (or even whelmed) - I will use it and enjoy it and be pleased that OS X is still developing, but it's getting to the top of the curve.
Thu Aug 10, 2006 4:55 pm Subject: I will upgrade
Thu Aug 10, 2006 5:02 pm Subject: I'm getting it as soon as it is released
I would hold off upgrading to Leopard if I didn't think it was worth it, but I do, and I am.
Time Machine would have saved me tons of grief a while back when I copied a working, shipping software project, made days of edits on it, then stupidly saved it back into the folder I copied it from. Didn't notice it for days, and my auto-backup (SuperDuper) that takes place 3 times a week at 2AM didn't help - it had already backed up my experimental copy over the original by the time I realized it.
Spaces - should improve my workflow too. Can't wait to try it. And I've been skeptical of 3rd party anythings that go fiddling with the Finder so I wouldn't try any of those.
iChat - don't use it but I know a 17-yr old girl who does, and would love the new effects.
Mail - doesn't have enough to pull me into a new OS version, but the changes help.
Dashboard - can take it or leave it. Use it alla time but just don't see me making my own. Maybe some day.
Spotlight - Can't tell yet. But I sure hope they make it easy & intuitive to be able to search for something just in the file name. Thought I had a handle on how to do that but I guess I just can't remember how it's done. Also wish they had an option to NOT search until I hit Enter. I've got a Quad G5 and *sometimes* I can type a few strokes and the thing has to think about it for several seconds before it shows any new keystrokes... and searches again. I'd be happy with "Enter".
Anyway, Leopard has enough in it as is for me to give Apple my VISA numbers when it's out. And they say there's more coming....
Thu Aug 10, 2006 11:22 pm Subject:
Thu Aug 10, 2006 11:37 pm Subject:
Quotecanuck15 wrote:
"Of course, this is somewhat of a left-handed compliment. "
Kind of a "back-handed" comment on us "sinister" types (left-handed). I think there may be a better way to state this sentence without slagging us southpaws, eh?
Barry
Awww, this southpaw things it's about right. After all, I'm the last person to say something nice.
After writing and posting this column, I went back and looked at the column I wrote about Tiger shortly after it came out last year.
Although there are obvious differences in the articles, I was a bit surprised to see that some of the things I say about Leopard here were similar to what I said about Tiger at the time. In particular, I suggested that Tiger was less of an "overhaul" of the OS than Panther.
Part of what I think happens (at least to me) is that each OS X upgrade starts out appearing to be less substantive than it really is. It is only after I work with it for a couple of months that I begin to notice how much has changed that was not immediately obvious — from the renaming and relocation of a file in the System folder to a new preference setting in an application. I eventually reassess the upgrade, and consider it much more of an "overhaul" than I initially assumed. And then, when the next upgrade is announced, the cycle repeats itself.
Or so it seems. In any case, if I am correct, perhaps a year from now I will view Leopard as a bigger deal than it now appears to be. We'll see.
I usually run out and get the newest version of OS-X as soon as it comes out but this time I may wait. First both of my Macs are coming up for replacement in the next year or two, so I'll get it anyway at that time. But more to the point I didn't see anything that really grabbed me.
TimeMachine - I already use Apple Backup every few weeks. Yes it isn't automatic but it does what I need.
iChat - I don't use it now and don't see that changing
Spaces - I've played around with Virtual Desktops from time to time and they really didn't thrill me. I always went back to one, even on the Linux machines I've run.
Dashboard - I don't create widgets. The improvement might result in more Widgets out there for me to use, but they should run on my old OS.
Spotlight - Really works ok for me now so unless this is some huge earth shattering improvement, what I have is fine.
Mail - This is the only area that I would appreciate the upgrades. I live on Mail (and Safari) so improvements to these two packages would be nice. Wheather they are $100 nice (or whatever the price ends up being) I'm not sure.
I'll probably deploy it here at the office, we have a University license so it won't cost anything. But for home I'll probably wait until I upgrade my two Macs.
Fri Aug 11, 2006 8:41 am Subject: What I hope for...
is better Enterprise support.
I don't care about all the bells and whistles if I can't get out to the internet through a Microsoft ISA proxy server. (This was the case with Tiger until 10.4.2, but worked fine in Panther.) I also need to be able to work on Photoshop files over a [reliable] network without getting errors when saving the file. (10.4.7 fixed this problem over a year after Tiger's release. Again, it worked fine in Panther.) Have you ever tried using Spotlight while in a managed environment with networked home directories? You have about a 50% chance of getting false results (yes, even after rebuilding the database).
I know Apple publicly claims to be a home PC these days, but our sales rep and Service Engineer beg to differ. So if Apple wants to be in the enterprise at all, they need to pay more attention to the details of running in a mixed environment. A lot of the features that I love at home just don't seem to work right when we deploy them at work.
Can you believe that I still can't watch embedded Quicktime movies in Safari (due to the proxy server)? They work in every other browser just fine.
Maybe it's been too long for me to remember well, but this looks like more of an upgrade than Tiger did. Aside from Tiger booting up faster than Panther, I was mostly disappointed.
I'll probably buy Leopard, although it will be with the hope that Apple has made several under-the-hood fixes, particularly to the FireWire driver (which causes CPU spikes when a class-compliant audio interface is connected) and to CoreAudio (which can cause random offsets when recording audio). Of the already revealed features, the only ones I will get any use out of are Time Machine, maybe Spaces (although I doubt it), and maybe Spotlight if it isn't as lame as it is in Tiger (I ended up reverting it back to Panther's search by name). The new iChat features will go unused, I no longer bother with widgets, and I will never send HTML email.
And southpaws rule. 
Fri Aug 11, 2006 1:05 pm Subject: I'll reach for the credit card
I have no problems moving right away with a new version of OS X. I have to get the Family Pack and will first put it only the wife's iBook for some initial testing. After that it goes onto the home iMac and so on until the last Mac is the PB I use at work.
I believe that Steve J has had the developers working rather hard over this extended development period. He's just not the type to tell those guys to sit back & relax. The results will, I think, be significant for PPC users and especially for Intel users - even if a lot of the improvements are "under the hood".
Fri Aug 11, 2006 3:27 pm Subject: iLife/iWork/Pro Apps
The key thing is going to be how Apple refresh their apps to make use of Leopard technologies. A lot of the time you can see a link between a core API and one of the Pro apps (Quartz and Motion for instance), and there is obviously a reason Core Animation is going in there - the obvious candidates to benefit would be iMovie / iDVD / KeyNote / LiveType / Motion / FinalCut.
The system wide to_do might be the single killer feature for me, if it's adopted by enough of the software I use (OmniOutliner, Growl)
I think there may be a better way to state this sentence without slagging us southpaws, eh?
Especially since we apparently make more money....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060811/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_life_lefties
Since 10.2 I've been of the mind that users can safely skip a single paid upgrade on their system. So people with 10.4 could probably give 10.5 a pass, while people with 10.3 will almost certainly need to upgrade to keep up with new software releases.
I think this time I'll spring for 10.5 however, just for Time Machine. Having fallen victim to a hard drive crash once already with only partial backups, I think this sort of automated daily backup will be just what I need.
Still looking forward to the other new features, although I doubt they'll be quite as major as the ones already mentioned.
Sat Aug 12, 2006 11:34 am Subject: I will upgrade ou tof curiosity, if nothing else.
I want to see how performance varies across processors. I still have 2 G4 macines and I want to see how well Leopard works on them versus my MacBook (I know it will be faster, I am referring to the Tiger on G4 versus Leopard on G4 perofrmance). The features demonstrated at WWDC were nice, but not earthshattering...except for Time machine. I already use an external backup solution and have it automated, but to be able to navigate back and retrieve items "a'la carte" with a GUI is very, very slick. Also, I am all for improvements to Mail and iCal...both of which I use incessantly. I also suspect that we will see the next iteration of Safari in Leopard (think Top Secret features) which will also be welcome.
For all of the comments that Leopard is more evolutionary than revolutionary: You say that like it is a bad thing. It isn't. The few things that get broken on point-releases of OS X are enough to draw the ire of many developers and users. I can only imagine if Apple did a major (and IMHO unnecessary) overhaul of the OS and broke say 10% of 3rd party app and plug-ins at one time...no matter how groundbreaking the changes may be, we'd never hear the end of it. No, all I really hope for is super-optimized code allowing for the fastest, most reliable performance possible along with many small but evolutionary touches and that will be enough to justify the $199 for my purchase of a family license.
SuperDuper doesn’t compare to Time Machine. SuperDuper is just a disk cloner, whereas Time Machine is more of a file archiver. I have always found incremental backup solutions much more useful. This feature is worth the upgrade cost alone, IMO.
One of the best features of Tiger, in my book, is something which was never touted and most people don’t even know about: the system-wide Dictionary service. I use the pop-up Dictionary (Command-Control-D) all the time in Cocoa apps. That feature alone was worth the upgrade to me.
While i was somewhat underwhelmed by the Leopard preview, i am quite confident it will be well worth the upgrade cost. I also anticipate a killer “one more thing†or two when some of those Top Secret features are finally revealed.
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