Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Unlike the previous Mac OS X releases, I didn’t have think of getting a copy of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard because I only have non Intel-based older Macs (a PowerMac G4 933MHz and a PowerBook G4 1.33GHz). However, there was something in the ad campaign yesterday that just attracted me enough to push me to get a copy today. The short of the matter is that it is a good release but not necessarily the best. Initial testing (I’ve only got enough time to install on my PowerBook) reveals that it is fast and zippy…but there are small irritating things like transparent Finder menu bar (Hello? Why copy this from Vista?) which is distracting and frivolous. I wasn’t too impressed with the Cover Flow feature when I first saw it in Steve Job’s keynote but I must say, after trying it myself on my PowerBook, that this is one of the better features of this release. It really opens up a different way of interacting with your folder and files.As for the much touted Time Machine, I really wouldn’t know yet because one would need to have a system with more than one hard disk drive to enable this feature.Overall, I’m happy with Leopard as I think that it looks more polished, more aesthetically pleasing. But honestly,  I could have lived without the graphical bells and whistles and just remain with Tiger.