Why do I do that? Early reviews tend to either be glowing to the point of blinding or written by curmudgeons. If you want to see what I mean check out these two articles: Glowing – Dallas News, and Curmudgeony – TidBits. Articles that tend to glow are usually written by what I consider to be people with average computer skills. They are easily dazzled by the eye candy and new features. The curmudgeon reviews are nit-picky and written by longtime Mac users that still pine for the days of Mac OS 9. “Oh, why did they ever have to change?” The end impression I get is that any user can write a review of a product. But let’s be responsible.

So like a good movie reviewer will watch a movie more than once before writing the review, I will re-visit Leopard twice more after this. The early adopter review (below) will focus on the glitz and heartache of the new OS. Thirty days from now, I’ll write a follow-up revisiting the initial thoughts and digging into the underpinnings of Leopard. Ninety days from today, I’ll give a final review that will revisit the earlier thoughts and look at other technical attributes. So on to the early adopter review.

Leopard has gotten a great deal of press as of late. So most of us know the features that come in the new OS. Let’s take a look at a few of the highlights.

The Dock

Apple’s update to the Dock has gotten the most negative press from the early reviews. And I am not sure that I disagree with it completely. Previous versions of the Dock had its layout matched no matter where it was placed on the screen: bottom, left side, or right side. The dock was always a flat rectangle filled with icons. The rectangle itself identified the space the Dock occupied on the screen. This made it was easy to guess where windows would be prevented from venturing.

The new Dock has two different formats that change according to screen position. There is the traditional flat rectangle that is used for the left and right side positions. When placed on the bottom, the Dock sports the reflective 3D shelf format. I have read articles that criticized the shadow effect of icons and the reflective surface. Honestly, I think the new Dock format is cool. That’s where I begin to suspect my opinions. “Cool” means eye candy. And eye candy means that I need to stop and look at the value of the feature.

The shelf format places the icons a little higher on the screen. On my laptop, this is a loss of valuable real estate. Windows still wont open under the Dock, but without the defining rectangle of the old Dock, I am not sure where the top of the Dock is. As both of these details cause me considerable distraction, I have to consider my options.

• Option 1: Place the dock on the left or right sides of the screen.
• Option 2: Hide the Dock. This way it disappears altogether and I will only be distracted by the eye candy when the dock is on screen.
• Option 3: Break out the Terminal kungfu and reset the dock defaults so that even the bottom positioned Dock is placed in a rectangle.
  defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
killall Dock

Another new feature of the Dock is Stacks. In the old days (as of yesterday morning), folders added to the Dock could either be browsed as a menu or clicked on like a button to open a new window to that folder. Stacks combine those behaviors. One click on a folder icon in the Dock and the contents of that folder “fans” out from the Dock. Again, a cool feature. The common criticism is that it doesn’t work like it use to. It shouldn’t, folks!. One, clicking on an icon to open a window so that you just have to browse the folders contents is waste of Dock space. Two, using a Dockling menu to browse the same folder requires a certain amount of skill and familiarity. The mouse button has to be held for a few seconds before the menu appears. Then the mouse has to be moved carefully so that the menu doesn’t disappear while you are trying to find the right sub-directory.

Stacks work on a one-click principal. One click opens the fan and one click opens an item in the fan. There is no need for mouse ballet. For those that find the fan ‘silly’ and long for a window, use the grid option. The beauty of either is that once a choice is made, the fan (or grid) disappears. No extra windows left on screen. And no hand cramps from mashing the mouse button. I am going to give this one a real try before I decide it’s full value.

The Finder

Much ballyhoo has been issued about the updates to the Finder. I am grabbing my brass instrument and adding to the ruckus. Most comments are directed to the altered appearance of the Finder. Frankly, I disagree with the dissenters on this one. Apple has chosen to create a single interface style that runs through all Apple applications. The new Unified Window interface gets rid of drawers (ugly), bars between sidebar contents and content sections of windows (very ugly), and brushed metal treatment of window elements (beaten with a muddy ugly stick). The new interface is polished, soft, and consistent. Once I learn to read one window, I have learned to read them all.

Also, window focus (which window is currently active) is easier to identify. Prior to Leopard (again, yesterday), window focus was identified by which window had the most distinct elements. This is still true, except that earlier there wasn’t a huge difference between active and inactive windows. The window control buttons (the stop light at the top left) would turn gray and text in the window would lighten. Leopard goes further. The inactive windows do all of the above, but Apple has gone further. One, the inactive windows’ elements turn a much lighter gray thus providing more contrast between active and inactive. Also, Apple has broadened the shadow cast by active windows. This gives the appearance that active windows are floating higher than inactive ones.

There is a lot to be said about the Finder’s new features and I’ll dole those out over the coming reviews. The new features tend toward the technical. Before I move on, I want to address the menu bar and menus. Apple made the most significant appearance alterations here. I am surprised and amazed at the changes. The menu bar, itself has always been a functional feature. Elements have been moved around, but the appearance of the bar was never altered significantly. Leopard menu bar is now semi-transparent. The problem with this is how that transparency interacts with the desktop pictures. Even Apple’s new Aurora desktop isn’t tuned to the transparency. I can see stars through the menu bar. This is a little distracting. It’ll be even more distracting when other desktops are used. Many desktop image designers (myself included) would leave a strip of space at the top of images for credit text. Now that text will be seen through the menu bar and possible blend with the menu text. Yeesh!

One addendum: The image behind the menu bar is thrown out of focus. Still distracting, though.

Apple also has made changes to how menus are rendered. Menus were opaque. Now, they too, are semi-transparent! Considering that menus drop over text in windows, I thought this was going to be a nightmare. Then I noticed something brilliant: window content below a menu is thrown out of focus (made blurry). The out of focus content doesn’t distract at all. It’s eye candy that is well thought out. There is no need for the menu bar or menus to be semi-transparent. The success of its use in one instance outshines its mediocre use implementation in another.

The Other Stuff

There is lots to talk about. Apple packed nearly 300 new and updated features into Leopard. I am not going to be talking about all of them, but I will get to many of the flashier items in the upcoming reviews. I don’t want to talk about things that I haven’t run to ground yet. Look for to discussions about new functions in Finder and Spotlight, Spaces, and Time Machine. I think the Ninety-day review will include maintenance, management, and security. See you in thirty. In the meantime, if you want to see a list of updated features check out Apple’s 300+ Features page.