Leopard Review: First Apple OS X Leopard Reviews by The Mainstream (Verdict: It's Good)

from Gizmodo by Jason Chen

Three reviews are in from USA Today, WSJ and NYT and they're all positive (though some more positive than others). That's Mossberg's video, above, but the rest of the reviews are summarized below.

USA Today Review: Ed Baig says it "hits all the right spots"—a obvious pun, but it gets right to the heart of his review. He continues to say that OS X is superior to Windows (especially with the latest iteration), but points out the Boot Camp feature for people who need both. Upgrading for him was super easy, as was using Time Machine for backing up or migrating files, the iChat video chat/theater, the upgraded Mail.app, and the improved desktop, Finder (file browser), and .Mac features. It reads like a shortened Leopard feature checklist with the praise preceding or following each item, which shows how much of a thumbs up Baig is giving the new OS. [USAToday]

Mossberg WSJ Review: After his headline ("Leopard: Faster, Easier Than Vista") and on a short history tour of Apple as a company, Mossberg moves on to say that while Leopard is good, it's evolutionary, and not revolutionary—but still manages to keep Apple's "advantage over Windows". He does have some gripes. He says the menubar is translucent (it's actually not, in the final version), the icons are "dull and flat and less atractive than Vista's" (we disagree), Time Machine, although described as "sexy", has limited backup locations. And that none of Apple's 300 new features are a major breakthrough. However, Leopard doesn't have any of the upgrade problems (when upgrading from Tiger) that Vista had from XP. Mossberg then goes into feature list mode, but ends by saying that Leopard isn't a must-have, it just adds a lot of value on an existing machine. [WSJ]

Pogue's NYT Review: After spending half the first page (and 1/4 of the whole piece) talking about how Time Machine works, Pogue moves on to Spaces, parental controls, Boot Camp, screen sharing, and iChat upgrades. Although backup features and virtual desktops have been around for a while, Pogue says the point of Leopard is that Apple takes all those apps, improves on them, and integrates them well into the OS. But he too has complaints.

Stacks are a bit awkward and inconsistent, see through menus are hard to see (he may be using an old version because the final version looks fine), as well as occasional glitches in Spaces and program switching. Final thoughts: it's polished and offers few disappointments. Looks like a buy from Pogue. [NYTimes]