Despite my own advice, I did it again. I just couldn’t help but pick up Mac OS X Leopard (a.k.a. 10.5) within a few days of its release. (Hey, what else was I going to do with my iPhone credit?)

Who else is relieved that there’s no tacky leopard print on the box?

Some of the new features were just too hard to resist, and I’ll start with the one that I think benefits designers most.

Spaces. The Spaces feature immediately increased my productivity, as it allows you to create up to four separate desktops. You assign applications to spaces in System Preferences. Right now, I’ve got Safari, Firefox, and Mail in Space #1 and design programs, like Photoshop and Dreamweaver, in Space #2. I’ve made iTunes available in every Space, so I can see what’s playing at any time.

Pressing F8 allows me to quickly move between my email/browsing Space and my design Space.

It’s easy to move an application from its default Space to the current Space. I usually keep Word in Space #1. Sometimes however, I need to see a Word file while working in Dreamweaver, which I keep in Space #2. In these situations, I just pull up all my Spaces using the F8 key, and drag the Word window from Space #1 to Space #2. It’s really easy!

Cover Flow: The Cover Flow Finder option is another feature designers will appreciate. You have probably seen Cover Flow before in iTunes or on your iPhone. It’s the app that generates the thumbnail album covers that can be used to move through your library. Cover Floew is now a button in the Finder and can be used view any document.

Previews of web pages, PDFs, images, and more are easy to browse with Cover Flow in the Finder.

Time Machine. Time Machine is a backup system that works with an external drive. You decide how often the automatic backups occur - hourly, weekly, monthly, etc. and data is easy to retrieve using a cool Star Wars-esque interface. If you can get Time Machine to work, odds are you’ll love it. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much luck so far, and it seems I’m not alone. The Apple support forums are full of frustrated users. I’ll stick with my old backup system for now and play with this feature more when it’s updated.

Interface Features. Leopard also includes all sorts of spiffy new interface features that make your Mac look cooler than ever. There’s a brand new Dock and a transparent menu bar for those of you who own Macs with recent graphics cards. If you’re machine is an older one, the menu bar will still be opaque. None of this really affects your design work, but a snazzy interface never hurts, right?

However, it’s not all shiny Docks and zippy Spaces; there are definitely some issues. I’ve had more kernel panics than usual, and Photoshop CS3 sometimes crashes on launch. I can also no longer attach files in Outlook Web Access while using Safari. Before you upgrade, be sure to check out the system specs and the support forums at the Apple site. You want to be certain (or at least as much you can be) that the upgrade is a worthwhile investment.

There are lots of other goodies to be found in Leopard (Apple claims there are 300!), but even just the few mentioned here make 10.5 a worthwhile investment assuming you’re ok with early adoption. If the risk isn’t worth the reward, hold out for 10.5.1 or 10.5.2; Apple’s subsequent updates usually resolve the issues associated with the initial version.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 5:35 pm and is filed under Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.