Leopard reviews

Here are some reviews of Leopard from prominent tech pundits and tech sites.

David Pogue of the New York Times: "Apple Offers New Goodies in Leopard System". He extols on Time Machine, Quick Look, and some of the other new features. Downside to Leopard is the see-through menus. If the menu overlays a document, things will just become a jumble of words. He ends with:

"Leopard maintains all the goodies of previous Mac OS X versions. To the amazement of many Windows refugees, Mac OS X requires no serial number and no “activation”. It doesn’t clutter the desktop with crippled bits of free-trial software from other companies. There are no nagging balloons or come-ons.

Leopard does well with backward compatibility, too. Thanks to modest minimum requirements (512 megabytes of memory, 867 megahertz).

Leopard is powerful, polished and carefully conceived. Happy surprises, and very few disappointments, lie around every corner. This Leopard has more than 300 new spots — and most of them are bright ones."

Pogue writes a followup "More Goodies in Apple's New Operating System", where he discusses some of the little tricks that makes using Leopard fun and easy. He focuses on the new tricks Spotlight has picked up, which includes doing calculations, getting definitions, and looks like being an application launcher, too. (Is this bye-bye, Quicksilver?) He also talks more about Time Machine. I suggest you go over to Pogue's articles to get the whole story.

Walt "Uncle" Mossberg of All Things Digital has posted "Leopard: Faster, Easier than Vista", which takes a jab at Microsoft 7-year-old bloated operating system. Just like Pogue, Mossberg hails Time Machine along with Quick Look and Cover Flow and new ways to communicate with other computers as the "marquee features." His beef were the translucent menu bar, bland icons, and font problems on some webpages. He talks about his upgrade process (real fast) and how Leopard compares with Vista in booting up and doing certain tasks (Vista sucked). Final thoughts:

"Leopard isn’t a must-have for current Mac owners, but it adds a lot of value. For new Mac buyers, it makes switching even more attractive."

Pogue and Mossberg have videos on their review of Leopard.

Edward Baig from USA Today calls Leopard as "one cool cat" ("Leopard, Apple's new Mac operating system, hits all the right spots"). Time Machine's in the forefront of the most exciting feature but Baig also mentions the newer and more fun iChat and the To Do and Notes enriched Mail. Quicklook and Webclip also get mentioned.

Wired's Scott Gilbertson ("New Treats and Tiny Tweaks Make Mac OS X Leopard Spot-On") says:

"The iPhone might have grabbed all of this year's headlines, but Leopard may well prove to be Apple's most revolutionary product release of 2007.

...not only is Leopard fully of eye candy, it's perhaps the most thoroughly thought-out OS release from Apple yet."

Simson Garfinkel of Technology Review calls Leopard "...visually stunning, ...fast and stable" in his piece "Review: Apple's New Operating System." There's mention of Time Machine here but also mentioned are Parental Controls, Back to My Mac and Stacks.