The big three geekmeisters have been released from their embargoes and the first Leopard newspaper reviews are out tonight. Uncle Walt even favored us with a cheery video rundown that appears to have been filmed in his rumpus room. A brief summary:Look out Microsoft. You're falling way behind.For those about to upgrade, we salute you, and we quote Mr. Mossberg on the topic of upward compatibility:
- David Pogue from the New York Times: "powerful, polished and carefully conceived." The respected Mac writer gives big points to Time Machine and Quick Look, while skeptically eyeing some lesser additions to the list of 300 (Danish
localizationspell checking comes in for Pogueian scorn).- Edward Baig at USAToday: "Apple's operating system widens its lead aesthetically and technologically... Leopard is one cool cat." Baig gives a pretty comprehensive rundown on new Leopard features and notes some hiccups with Back to my Mac vs. network firewalls.
- Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal and allthingsd.com: "Evolutionary, not revolutionary... I think it's better than Vista." The headline says it all: Faster, Easier than Vista. Walt took the time to go through scores of features and even do some startup timing tests with a Vaio (the Mac came out well ahead). He also noted a couple of neat features, such as Google Talk support in iChat and instant access to shared folders on Windows machines.
[E]very piece of software and hardware I tried on two Leopard-equipped Macs - a loaned laptop from Apple and my own upgraded iMac - worked fine, exhibiting none of the compatibility problems that continue to plague Vista. My old Hewlett-Packard inkjet printer, for which Vista lacks the proper software, worked instantly in Leopard, even over the network. And, unlike with Vista, it was able to print on both sides of the page. I popped my old Verizon cellphone modem card into the test Leopard laptop and it worked, too, with no software installation or tweaking.Your mileage will almost certainly vary.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
First Major Reviews of Leopard Hit The Streets
NYT, WSJ and USAToday all like what they see. Watch this video review by Walt Mossberg. I'm particularly impressed with being able to look at all of your files with the CoverFlow interface and the new QuickLook to glance at a file without opening an application.
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"Way behind" is being way too kind to Microsoft. I believe at this point that Apple is competing on an entirely different planet than Microsoft. Microsoft is about mediocrity these days; Apple is about excellence. There is no comparison and the gap is widening.
Most people who buy computers do so to surf the web, do email, maybe some word processing, chat online, store digital photos, and maybe run a few other basic apps, like a personal finance program, etc. At this point there is no reason to purchase a Windows machine over a Mac, because a Mac can do all of those things and do them better than Windows.
In the past the argument was that you needed Windows to be able to run the software apps you wanted, because they were only available for Windows. But that gap has narrowed, and in the areas most important to people, is nonexistent. Indeed, with many popular software apps, the version for Mac is better than the version for Windows. That's true even for Microsoft Office!
As the popularity of Apple increases and more and more people get to know the brand through the iPhone and iPod, you will see Apple gobble up more and more market share.
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