Over a month ago, I wrote “Dawn of a New Era – Story of a Leopard and its Spots“, reviewing the then newly released Mac OS X Leopard, raving about its superb new features and brand new interface.

Now, with over a month passed, has the verdict changed? Are the 300-plus new features really worth RM500 (USD 129)?

Frankly, I love Leopard. Apart from major upgrades like Time Machine, Boot Camp and Stacks, amongst others, vast improvements have been made to existing programs such as Preview, iCal, Mail and Finder.

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Let’s begin with Mail. Unlike previous versions, Mail 3.0 now supports to-do lists and notes, in which you can leave messages or reminders to yourself. Though I personally prefer to set reminders in iCal or even on stickies stashed on the dashboard, having an alternative doesn’t hurt either. Another addition is the support for RSS feeds. Although initially surprised with this addition in Mail, I eventually found it quite enjoyable reading the feeds while waiting for incoming mail. (image 1). Also new in Mail are the stationery templates. Easy to customise, these templates use standard HTML that can be read by both Mac and PC.

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Then there’s the newly improved Preview. It now uses Spotlight to perform relevancy ranked searches on PDF documents (image 2), offers support for PDF annotations and provides built-in tools to reorder and combine PDF pages. You can now also enhance image files easily in Preview. (image 3).

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But perhaps the best addition to Preview is the ‘Instant Alpha’ background removal tool which was first introduced in iWork ’08. Select ‘Instant Alpha’ from the menu on the toolbar and click and drag in the area of the background you wish to remove. A very handy tool for removing backgrounds without having to open Photoshop. (images 4&5)

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Safari. Apart from being the fastest browser on the web, the new Safari offers a newly improved Find command, highlighting search results while dimming the rest of the page. Another notable improvement to Safari are resizable text fields for Web forms, where contents of the web page will reflow to make room for the resized text field. Indeed clever. Safari also offers a web clip, where you can turn any page into a Dashboard widget. (image 6)

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Though this is not a feature I’d use myself, it’s still a very cool addition to Leopard. What I do like, however, is the fact that I can now watch movie trailers right in Dashboard. A very dangerous feature that can whisk you away from your work for hours!

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I LOVE the newly improved Dictionary utility, which now supports Wikipedia as an additional information source, and it’s nicely integrated into the application’s interface. Truly a time-saver! (image 7)

For movie lovers, here’s the best part – Leopard’s upgrade to the DVD player. Though the player’s dramatic new full-screen interface is impressive, the player’s most amazing feature is its ability to playback even scratched DVDs. Yes, tested and proven. Leopard boasts new technology which can locate and avoid scratched areas of the disc. Is that impressive or what? Reason enough to get a Mac this Christmas.

The addition of the Parental Controls feature provides even greater reason for families to switch from PC to Mac. Parents can now monitor their kids’ online activities – websites visited, applications used, and online chats. An absolutely called-for prevention method to keep cyber-crimes at bay.

I could go on endlessly about Leopard, considering that it comes with over 300 new features. However, I am also equally certain no Mac user will ever be able to fully utilise or will ever utilise all 300 features unless that person uses every single application that comes with Leopard. Some of the other upgrades from Tiger to Leopard include Text edit, screensavers, font book and more… all of which I will not go into detail. Besides, don’t you think it would be a lot easier to SEE and explore for yourself?

So, for Mac users who have yet to make the upgrade from Tiger to Leopard, do it now. Come on, 300+ features at only RM500 (USD 129)? What are you waiting for? And if you don’t have a Mac, go on, splurge a little and get one this festive season. By the way, no, I’m not getting paid by Apple for raving on about them (though I certainly wouldn’t mind), nor do I work for them (much as I’d love to), but am simply sharing my experiences on should I say, how ‘wonderful’ Macs are? And if you’re not convinced, you might want to head on to the nearest Apple store to try it out for yourselves.

The highly anticipated Mac OS X Leopard is finally here, and I can well say it was worth the wait. Needless to say, as an ardent Mac user, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it the very moment it was released. After a swift installation process, the new Leopard roared successfully on both my Macbook and iMac.

Even before Leopard was released, we’ve all heard that it comes with over 300 new features – a huge leap from Tiger, no doubt. Undeniably, these features are impressive. So exactly what’s new in Leopard? From its interface (which is enough to make you gasp in awe) to major changes like Time Machine, Spotlight, Quicklook, Parental Controls, and Spaces, Leopard is also amazingly fast.

But of course, like all other Mac OS X releases before, Leopard is too big to review in just one sitting.

Today, we shall begin with the basics.

Let’s see now, basically every other review you’ll find on the web will cover pretty much the same technical aspects of Leopard. How it works, what is it, and what are the new features?

But exactly how does Leopard fair as opposed to every other OS when it comes to functionality for users?

Let me first say that I am a designer, for both print and web. Which means that speed and functionality would be everything. So what do I like about Leopard? One of my faves is QuickLook, which lets you play, view, and page through your files without opening them or the application that created them. Images 2, 3, and 4 captures how it functions and of course, let’s not forget how aesthetically appealing it is.

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Another favourite is how Leopard allows one to breeze through files, folders and documents, with mini thumbnails showing the front of these documents. (see image 5)

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One of Leopard’s most useful additions is STACKS. Stacks is basically a virtual stack of documents that sits in the dock area, giving you one-click access to files. (image 6). One click and the stack springs open, revealing items at a glance, which is truly a real time-saver.

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I don’t know about you, but I’ve a number of friends who for amazing (or perhaps, strange) reasons, tend not to know where their downloads go. Well, if that’s the case, your problems are solved with Leopard since all downloads are shown in a dedicated stack on the dock. (image 7) No reason to ever lose your downloaded files again!

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Another amazing feature about Leopard is that you can just drag a file, hover over any application in the Dock, and press the Space bar — the application opens instantly. If you drag a file and hover over a stack, pressing the Space bar opens a Finder window showing the contents of the stack. Apart from being useful, this is also very impressive.

And now, to the part where all Mac users will have to agree that Apple rules – Boot Camp.

Dear friends, gone are the days where you’d have to have 2 separate machines to run 2 different operating systems. With the new built-in Boot Camp in Leopard, you can now install a Windows operating system alongside it. To be specific –XP and Vista.

So congratulations, PC users, with this feature alone, you might want to turn in your PC for a brand new MacBook or perhaps a stunning new 20’ iMac anodized aluminum frame? You might want to go ponder over this question while I churn out the next write-up. Come back tomorrow next week for more insights into Leopard – from the stunning new look for Preview, Safari, Dashboard and more!