13 Jun 07
OS X Leopard Apple
So as an update to my post yesterday, Apple released the final details for Leopard. Quite a lot of disappointment really, there isn’t anything new in Leopard that makes me go "Wow! I must have that".
Like I said on Paul's site, mostly it seems just glitzy stuff, although the Automator "record actions" bit is pretty neat. Apple have got a complete features list of Leopard, but generally it is mostly eye-candy, and not much that seems to be truly innovative and useful.
'Finder', (like Windows Explorer), has been updated, and now includes the Cover Flow feature that is in the latest version of iTunes. Only slightly useful, and I think I will stick with the column view as normal.
Big surprise of the day was that the Mac browser Safari was released onto Windows. I don't really know how many Windows users will change from Internet Explorer or Firefox to Safari, even though it has been proven to be twice as fast, but as John Gruber points out, the fact that Safari on XP has Google integration, is likely to net Apple an extra $100 million per year. That said, I've tried it on my XP laptop and it is very speedy, although advert blocking is non-existent, but I am sure someone will come up with a plug-in for that sooner or later.
As Michael pointed out, Safari XP is released as a beta version, so expect it to be as reliable as a dead racing driver. Also, remember that this is the first time Safari has played on a Microsoft platform, so be wary of reports suggesting that Safari is not up to scratch.
Overall, the keynote was a bit disappointing, so let’s hope that MacWorld will offer something more exciting. Leopard is due for release in October. The keynote is now up and available for QuickTime streaming here on Apple's website. A downloadable version should be available shortly on iTunes.