Amazing still photos of a Leopard taking a crocodile — a scenario not believed to have ever been observed before. Visit site »
I’ve only played with it for about 60 seconds, but this little app looks great, so far. Simple, fast, and uses the built in Leopard system-wide To-Do service. Love it, so far. Thanks be to Gruber. Visit site »
This is a freaking great idea. Sadly, it’s a pain in the ass to implement, so I won’t bother. But this is exactly the sort of thing Apple should have built-into Stacks to make them better. I love the concept of Stacks, but the implementation is definitely lacking. I’m sure it’ll get better over the next few releases of OS X — just like everything else has. Visit site »
Matt Nuberg on what makes Leopard’s Spotlight so great. I agree with every word: Spotlight in Leopard is freakin’ badass. Love it. Visit site »
Phill discusses the (apparent) new direction for the visual design of OS X in Leopard — an outer space theme. Personally, I like the futuristic look in general, but I’m a bit dismayed by the outer space photography as backgrounds in time machine and on the desktop. It’s just too over-the-top for my tastes.
Then again, I usually roll with a solid color for my desktop background. So I guess I’m dull. Visit site »
Gruber has basically the same take as me on this year’s WWDC: meh. Leopard looks neat enough and I certainly do want it, but there’s nothing I’ve seen that really feels revolutionary. Everything is just nice incremental changes. The one exception — maybe — is Time Machine, but we saw that a year ago, so it didn’t feel that exciting this time around, either.
The iPhone-doesn’t-require-an-SDK thing was pretty lame. We’ve all known that you could — and that people will — build web apps targeted at the iPhone for six months now. That’s neat, but it’d definitely not the same as writing apps for the iPhone. The lack of real third-party development on the iPhone isn’t a deal-breaker for me, but it’s certainly a bummer. And it just doesn’t make very much sense. Every other mobile phone on the market today has downloadable third-party apps. Every single one. Steve’s lines about it reducing stability or security are bullshit. It’s god dammed Mac OS X, right? If so, then it has memory protection. If allowing third-party development for the iPhone is unreliable and insecure, then so is allowing third-party development for Macs. And yet, Apple allows that.
Apple should just say what it means: It is going to ride out the iPhone as a closed platform for as long as it can. Eventually, they’ll probably let some choice companies in on development for it. This is exactly the plan Apple has used with the iPod, and it’s worked beautifully. I don’t blame them for wanting to repeat it with the iPhone. But why can’t they just say it?
Safari on Windows was a nice surprise. Doesn’t affect me a lot personally, but I’m glad to see it happen.
And finally: does anyone else think that Steve Jobs is personally obsessed with Cover Flow? In reading the MacRumorsLive coverage of the Keynote today, almost every line ended with “Cover Flow.” Pretty much every app on Leopard and the iPhone now include some for of Cover Flow. Hell, even the Apple website now includes Cover Flow as a means of navigation. It’s just starting to feel like Steve’s pet gadget and I just have this impression of the designers at Apple rolling their eyes every time Steve asks for it again. “Well, guys, Steve pretty much liked the new version of iCal. However, he wants you to be able to browser your to-dos using Cover Flow. Yeah, I know. But, Steve said. Sorry, guys.” Visit site »
I wish I could go, just for Developing Cocoa Applications with Python and Ruby. It’s so awesome that Apple is making these two languages first-class Cocoa development environments with Leopard. I really hope they take off. Visit site »
If this is accurate, it means Leopard will either be disappointing (it certainly wasn’t ready for primetime last time we saw it publicly, and there hasn’t been any evidence to suggest it is now), or freaking amazing (in the case that Apple has been keeping major tricks up it’s selve for launch). Visit site »
I hate to say I told you so, but…well, I told you so. :) “Everything I’ve learned says that it truly does run Leopard, the upcoming 10.5 OS that will be released for the Macintosh late in the spring.” A lot of other great iPhone stuffs here, too. Visit site »
Cabel finds and analyzes Apple’s patent filing for a resolution-independent user interface, which includes screenshots of their internal theme creation tool. I stand by my prediction that we’ll see a whole new visual look for Leopard, probably tending more towards the darker look of Apple’s “Pro” apps like Aperture and Final Cut. And yes, it’ll be resolution-independent. Visit site »
THis totally paves the way for an Apple tablet and other small-screened devices…not to mention a 300dpi 30” cinema display. :) Visit site »
A nice video of someone using Spaces and Eposé in Leopard. I think this is pretty amazing. Virtual desktops have been around so long — I remember using the with WindowMaker under RedHat 4 is about 1997 — and yet it’s taken this long for someone to put a face on the concept that will make it palatable to the masses. Further proof that Apple is still the king of the GUI. Visit site »
Fuck yeah. This is the one killer feature I really wanted. I don’t think most typical users are capable of comprehending just how kick ass this will be — but they’ll love it when they actually get to use it. Leopard will also include a system-wide feed database (RSS/Atom/etc.) and grammar checking utility. Visit site »
Time Machine alone ought to be worth the price of admission. The Mail.app improvements are welcome, but I’m still not sure they’re everything I’d hoped for. iCal looks to be exactly the same so far — I hope that’s not the case. Spaces looks very nice, if not revolutionary. And the new iChat features are really amazing, even though I probably won’t find a lot of use for them myself. All in all, Leopard looks good — and it sounds like Apple still has more up its sleeve for release time. Visit site »
This is great news, IMHO. As a member of the Django community, it’s easy to see Rails as the competition, but it’s important to remember that in the end, the two projects are trying to do mostly the same thing (make web development faster, better, and more fun) with mostly the same philosophies (MVC, dynamic languages, ORM, etc.). This is just one more step to a better web world for all of us. Here’s to Django in Mac OS X 11. Visit site »
Not sure this is more than rumor, but it certainly all sounds feasible, and there’s screenshots, to boot. All in all, sounds like a good bunch of changes. I hope this is the real deal, as I’m personally more excited about Leopard than any possible hardware announcements. Give me a great new iCal, improved Mail, and good integration between them and Address Book, and I’ll be thrilled. Visit site »
This seems really far-fetched to me, but if it’s true, it’s pretty darn interesting. Visit site »
I’m calling bullshit on most of this, but it’s an interesting read, nonetheless. Visit site »