new features
After speaking with the managers at VT’s official bookstores, they have decided to sell Mac OS X Leopard for the $69 price instead of the $116 educational price. Us poor people can now take a sigh of relief.
This week was too busy for me to go through the 300+ New Features page for Leopard. But, now that the Friday rain is keeping me inside, I have had two chances to cover the full web terrain. Watch me geek out at the small things.
Boot Camp: When the Leopard website received its overhaul this past summer regarding features, one of them was that you could click on Apple and then beside “Restart” there would be an option of “Restart into Windows”. Then, a week later, the feature (and screenshot of this) was pulled from Apple’s website. Now, it’s back. I loathe having to wait to hold down the option key. Windows takes a long time to boot, so I would rather the leave the room and refill my glass of water than hold Option and wait.
DVD Player: It can now float above all windows even if you need to be working on another document while watching. Great. Now, this feature needs to be added to both iTunes video windows and Quicktime and I’ll be set. Also, what’s this “Scratched Disc Recovery” that’s mentioned?
iCal: Unfortunately, none of these new collaboration features make any sense unless all of the people you are working with are using Mac (as far as I can tell) and are also as obsessive compulsive as you with your calendar. I live by my iCal, so the new interface might assist me. I just wish I could get more out of the program but most other engineering colleagues #1) use PCs, #2) barely maintain any calendaring in Outlook, and #3) typically rely on their memory to make it to an event. Such a pain.
iChat: Tabbed chatting takes all of the fun out of Exposé. I will resist it, if it is an option. And “Hide Local Video”: Thank You, Apple. I’m sick of always sneaking a peek at my mug and then wanting to flex my neck muscles to look cooler. Seriously, it’s an issue.
Instruments: I don’t even understand what this is, but, oftentimes, the strangest technical apps in OS X are the most useful (see: Grapher, an application so wonderful but forgotten that it can’t even be located on Apple’s own website apart from hearsay).
Mail: Finally, To-Dos and Notes! I am the token forgetful person that Steve Jobs spoke about at this year’s WWDC, one who emails himself quick action items and notes. Whether this was successfully incorporated into iCal or Mail, I never cared, as long as it can happen. The current To-Dos in iCal are miserable to access and make the iCal window even smaller in month view.
Printing: Printer Drivers via Software Update. This should make the Leopard installation take half the time of Tiger. I’m sure of that.
Quick Look: I think CoverFlow is neat, but it is very inconvenient for the way I assess files (lots at a time, in detail view). Browsing through my PDFs without fully opening Preview is going to be a blessing.
Spaces: Yeah, I used Virtual Desktop for about a year. Hated it. I always want to see the edges of application windows behind my current workspace so I have a basic impression of what’s going on. I am a lover of Exposé and Apple+Tab, not jumping around workspaces.
Spotlight: “Calculations in Spotlight” - this was the headline that literally made me smile. I hope it recognizes things like “sqrt” and “abs” and “log10″ because I use those all the time in Excel.
TextEdit: The new features are ok. I just wanted to reiterate how much I am dependent on TextEdit. Want to know why I love TextEdit? Restart your Mac. Spotlight “texted” and it will appear fairly quickly. Then select it. Watch how long it takes to open. Then, close TextEdit. Now, Spotlight “word”. Open Word. Watch how long it takes to load. Pages isn’t that much better than Word in this respect. TextEdit fulfills my requirement for a super low system resource-using word processor. I’m just weird like that.
Time Machine: Speaking of low system resource using, I have waited for an auto-backup feature like this but have always been concerned about how it is updating its catalogue of files. If this kills your performance when open (and using intense stuff like Photoshop or my iPhoto library), then forget it. I’ll go back to manual backups.
Universal Access: I sense that the auto-header/table/link discoverer will make moving through my daily list of blogs a lot easier. The “Hot Spots” idea sounds very interesting. It took me a while to figure out how to use Automator to my advantage; I wonder if I can get anything out this.
It’s exhausting being a geek.
October 20th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
i would tease you for being a nerd, but your recap was rather helpful since i know i won’t bother to look at that massive apple page. so thank you
October 20th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
i’m actually glad they threw it all on one page. puts two year’s worth of programming work in perspective (took 23 page down buttons for me to get through).
you’re welcome