(Review) - After much anticipation and hoopla, the next version of Mac OS X known as Leopard has been released, and the early verdicts are in. To sum it all up, people are liking what they’re seeing. Even though I was looking forward to it, I didn’t plan on picking up a copy of Leopard until at least a couple of weeks after its release, but certain circumstances intervened that caused me to purchase Leopard only a few days after its debut.

I’ve known for a couple of months that my primary work computer (which was an iMac G5) was getting ready to die a painful death right before my eyes, but I never expected it to happen as soon as it did. My wife and I recently went on our first wedding anniversary trip, and when I turned the computer off before our departure, I thought that I would come home to a functional computer that would enable me to catch up on the inevitable backlog of work. Man, was I wrong!

When our trip was over, I went to turn the computer on, and nothing happened. I disassembled the computer and quickly found out through Apple’s support materials that while my power supply was just fine, the logic board had died and needed to be replaced. It really felt like my computer was in some way set to fail as soon as the new version of OS X came out so that I would almost be forced to upgrade. Since there was no way that I was going to pay to have something major fixed on a computer that was already expiring quickly and needed Leopard anyway, I opted to bite the bullet and purchase one of the newer iMacs, and in turn, get Leopard included with the computer. Yes, the computer is amazing, and I’m actually enjoying the glossy screen, but that’s another story entirely.

One Reason Why Leopard Trumps Windows

This tale of financial realization leads us to my first impressions of Leopard. Once I had the initial installation and configuration setup and explored what was new, I was left feeling exactly how I thought I would feel about Leopard. The bar had been set high, but I was realistic, and I felt that while this latest OS probably wouldn’t be a drastic change from Tiger, it would still be a worthy upgrade, and sure enough, that’s how I now feel after having used Leopard for a few days.

It may not look very different from Tiger despite the changes to the menu bar and the Dock, but it doesn’t have to. The visual appeal is there like it has been since the beginning of OS X, and this is one tight package that performs tremendously. Apple has continued to make what they have with OS X even better, and I’m definitely satisfied with their efforts.

Major features, such as Spaces and Time Machine, continue to get most of the attention by reviewers, and while these are tremendous improvements, some of the other features have already made me more productive and enhanced the way I use my OS. For example, Stacks, the new Finder with Cover Flow, and Quick Look are all extremely impressive additions to an already fantastic operating system.

Even small things make a difference. By default, in the new version of Mail, I had an e-mail sitting in my Inbox that casually made reference to a meeting on a specific day in a couple of weeks, and when I hovered over that exact text with my mouse, it was automatically recognized as an event that could be scheduled, and I could easily add it to iCal. Now, I don’t use iCal, but even though that may be so, that experience alone made me want to use iCal.

Everything works together so well in Leopard, and if you’re in the market for a new OS today, or even months down the road, then it should come as no surprise that I highly recommend this latest version of OS X.

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