OK, so I kind of knew last night was always going to be a late one, but I was determined to get Mac OS X 10.5 (aka Leopard) up and running on 3 machines.
There’s not really a single reason why I upgraded. As I expected it’s the net effect of a wealth of small improvements to day-to-day tasks that has lived up to my expectations. I love the subtle refinements that make the Leopard feel like OS X has really matured.
There’s a few surprises in there too. I love the ability to screen share – this is especially good in a double story house with 3 macs. Now I certainly didn’t upgrade in anticipation of a new screen saver, but the new Mosaic screen saver is truly stunning. At first I didn’t think anything was happening but it soon became obvious why it initially took some time to start. Check it out, it’s one of those “how on earth does that work?” type of scenarios.
Then there’s Time Machine. Probably what I was looking forward to most with Leopard. Now back up isn’t particularly exciting but when you’ve got a laptop full of precious music, photos and hundreds of hours worth of work, it’s certainly important. For years my trusty old You Synchronize has toiled away keeping a single copy of everything backed up. But I’m really looking forward to the way Time Machine takes it to a completely new level with multiple copies all indexed in a slick new interface. Given I’m only half way through the initial back up of 3 machines, it might be a while before I can really see how good it is. Actually, let’s hope it’s something I never have to use.