Apple's Mac OS X Leopard edition has now been around for nearly a year and a half. Where have I been? As a developer, I'll admit, I'm wary of change. Not all change, but certainly any change which affects or seeks to completely reinvent my workspace. I planned on using Tiger for as long as I could hold out, or at least until Apple released a version of OS X with full 64-bit hardware support.

Recently, however, I found reason to move on from the comfort of my setup in OS X v10.4, thanks to some great new software available only to the 10.5 crowd.

Enter, the MacHeist Bundle...

For those of you unfamiliar, the MacHeist is a packaging of various shareware and small developer titles, bundled together as a package deal for $39, given a theme and goals to make it entertaining and drive up sales. Did I mention a portion of proceeds are donated to charity? It's a good cause and a great value, or was for me this year, as there were three titles in particular which I've had my eyes on:

Espresso, a web development tool, which retails for $60.
The Hit List, a task management tool, which retails for $50.
PhoneView, a utility to view the contents on an iPhone and use it as an external drive, which retails for $20.

Those alone combine for a retail cost of $130. With the rest of the software, the total comes to around $1000, but that's almost irrelevant. I really didn't care about the rest of the software, even though I may get some decent use out of WireTap Pro, as well. Otherwise, I thought there were too many image editing apps of one sort or another. Just too much similarity there, and I already own the Adobe CS3 suite, so those sorts of chores have been delegated.

Two out of the three of those aforementioned desired titles require OS X v10.5, so it was time to upgrade. I got lucky on eBay and found a used copy of Leopard in great condition. Between the MacHeist Bundle and the OS X v10.5.1 install DVD (which arrived with all its original packaging and documentation) for an additional $40, I spent just $80, total. Not too shabby...

After a clean install, plus all the current system and core software updates, I noticed there are things I definitely dislike about Leopard. The first thing I noticed is that configuring the general environment is more complicated than it's ever been. Folders dragged to the dock are displayed as stacks by default. After resetting a folder's display as a folder, its exploded view is set as a grid, again by default, meaning I then need to change that to a list.

Must I really perform this change for each folder added to the Dock? Is all this trouble really necessary, just to configure my environment to match the very same, basic view which has been the default for nearly every previous version of the operating system? I rely on expanded folder views from the Dock to quickly open files and launch applications. It's a great way to add convenience to my work environment and keep clutter to a minimum.

That said, there is one change that I like a great deal: no longer having to control+click or right click to view the contents in a folders. A simple click, or better still, tap on the trackpad, if I'm on the road, now does this. This is especially good from the trackpad, as it means less dexterity is involved, which in turn means I can move my fingers more quickly from one task to the next. Efficiency- it's a Good Thing. Control and right clicking now brings up a menu with which to set the aforementioned view options.

I've found I enjoy using stacks for folders containing miscellaneous stuff, however, stuff which I may have put off organizing for the time being (read: 'procrastination'). I enjoy being able to quickly scan such a folder as a 'stack' or grid from the Dock. This is one instance where stacks are very, very useful.

Another interesting feature I found in 10.5 is the ability to preview the contents of a selected file via the Finder, by pressing the space bar. VERY cool, indeed!

Connecting to wireless networks, slow and at times awkward in Tiger, is nearly effortless in Leopard, as evidenced by my experience with Wifi Rail during morning commutes on BART. It used to take 15-20 seconds to connect, and now that time is down to a scant four seconds (this is the actual time it takes to connect to the network, not including the browser-based login). Also, the Airport menubar app used to at times go ADD while cycling through networks for a connection if a solid network connection wasn't readily available. It was quite a challenge to disable Airport during such occasions. The dropdown menu would flicker in and out as I tried, sometimes angrily, to simply make it stop. Cabled networking is a more pleasant experience (not that it was ever a chore, really) as well, and I like the 'shared' section in window preview panes a great deal, which shows all machines on a network in a list view.

Keeping an eye on the Activity Monitor, as I tend to do out of habit, I've noticed resource management is also much improved over Tiger.

But then, creep in, a few more caveats...

Despite setting my web browsers' preferences to download files directly to the desktop, they will, about half the time, continue downloading to Leopard's stupid Downloads folder instead. I don't want to rummage through the filesystem to get to a downloaded file. If I want my downloads on the desktop, and I set them to save to the desktop, then that is where they should be. I hate being overridden, especially in my own workspace, especially for such a common and simple thing.

Then there's the weird behavior from Mail 3. If you're using a Gmail account with IMAP, and Mail throws a hissy when you attempt to delete an email using the keyboard, try deselecting 'Store deleted messages on the server' in Mail's Mailbox Behaviors settings. Your deleted messages will still be moved to and stored in the Trash bin of your Gmail account until you purge them, as usual, but Mail will stop throwing a tantrum. No, it doesn't make sense to me either :o/
There are, apparently, notes and to-dos added to this version of Mail, but I can't see what good it does an email application. I feel like those features would be better suited to iCal, or some other software designed for tracking projects and appointments. YMMV.

There's an issue I encounter now and again with putting the computer to sleep, by which it wakes itself immediately after. I believe this has something to do with the Bluetooth software, as it complains after waking that it has lost its connection to either my keyboard or mouse. In System Preferences, I have the 'Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer' option disabled, so neither my keyboard nor my mouse should have anything to do with waking my machine. I tested this by turning Bluetooth off, as well as the keyboard and mouse, before sleeping the machine, but had the same issue, even if I closed the lid on my MacBook Pro. Oddly enough, however, the issue went away the second time I closed the machine. This has happened to me twice since upgrading.

Griping aside, I must say, performance-wise, Leopard is definitely a winner. Applications launch more quickly (coupled with my still fairly new SSD, speeds are amazing, nearly instantaneous for most) and the Finder itself is altogether more responsive. Some online benchmarks show specific processor and memory-related tasks in the 32-bit space to be quicker in Tiger than in Leopard, but the differences in numbers are negligible, and I'm not certain they hold up to real-world tasks, where the entirety of the operating system comes into play. However, I look very much forward to Snow Leopard's rumored superior 64-bitness. Hopefully, we'll then also see 64-bit Photoshop on the MacIntosh, along with more performance benefits for those of us with Core2Duo processors and better.