Leopard as we know it
The imminent release of Mac OS X 10.5 known as Leopard has been the longest between any Mac OS X release - due partly to Apple’s focus on the iPhone (see previous entry). What we do know of Leopard is the technologies that were demonstrated during Apple’s 2006 World Wide Developers Conference held a little under ten months ago. During the conference Apple stated that there were features in development that would not be revealed until a time when Apple could be assured that their competitors couldn’t get copies to market. While Leopard at present is not going to be as big as Mac OS 9 to 10, or even 10 to 10.1 or like 10.2 is to 10.3 the next operating system out of Apple’s labs is going to feature some under the hood and new features.
Time Machine is one of the bigger features that Mac OS X 10.5 will provide. It is a fancy local backup solution that allows you to “go back in time” to retrieve documents of yesterday, last week or last year. Backup functionality has been part of Apple’s competitors solutions for the better part of the last century but what makes Apple’s implementation an improvement is the passive role you need to take in the process, and the simple way for you to retrieve the backed up data. Time machine provides you with a graphical interpretation of how the files existed on your computer at the moment in time you’re looking for. Apple claims that you can restore any point with a single click.
Spaces creates a number of desktops where you can store a selection of windows in their own virtual desktops. This feature is nothing new, and has been around for many years on UNIX based systems and has been a much sought after feature since Mac OS X debuted. Spaces fits in with Expose and Dashboard to help organise your work flow. Dashboard has seen minor enhancements such as enabling you to create a simple live web clipping and designing more complicated widgets via an application called Dashcode.
Mac OS X 10.5 will be the first Mac OS optimised entirely for 64bit computing. The latest Intel CPU’s in current generation Macintoshes, as well as older PowerPC G5 based computers will be able to take advantage of a full 64bit core. The big advantage of Leopard is being able to run both 32bit and 64bit applications without modification. Leopard will also see the two platforms of Mac OS join to become platform independent with single installations able to operate in not only 32bit and 64bit modes, but also on both PowerPC and Intel platforms.
Apple has yet to reveal all of Leopard’s features and many of them will remain unpublicised even after the operating system release in October. Speculation around the secret features includes an update to the Aqua interface.
Aqua has been the cornerstone of Mac OS X since it was released in 2000 but is beginning to feel dated even after the many tweaks that have been made in every increment. The similarities between Microsoft’s Windows Vista and Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger mean the striking user interface of Mac OS is not as definitive as it once was. Leopard could be the perfect platform to revitalise the Mac OS interface even if it’s only for shows sake.
Apple expects to have the feature set for Mac OS X finalised by WWDC with a release sometime in October 2007.