[Contrastique]

Ordered yesterday. It's coming finally!

 

[Wodgy]

I must say, I'm really impressed with the breadth of new features. The big ones (Time Machine, Spaces, etc.) are nice, but they aren't as nice as the slew of little things... iLife integration directly in the open file browser, system-wide grammar checking, Spotlight on network drives, remote desktop that acts as if you have a VPN, the systemwide calendar and todo shares (replicated across either IMAP or CalDAV), Japanese-English dictionary (wish they included Mandarin as well), new pinyin input methods, ColorSync info pulled from EXIF data if not already assigned, PDF page alteration and reordering right in Preview... it goes on and on. OS X is really maturing into an impressive system.

I know Blessingx already posted it, but it's worth repeating the link to the feature summary:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html
There's something there that will interest everyone, even if the big marquee features don't interest you.

 

[rsaavedra]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx /img/forum/go_quote.gif Subtle countdown on the homepage.

LOL!

 

[RYCeT]

Finally, still waiting for new edition macbook which supposed to come out this november though. It's better worth the time waiting for it while I'm stuck at my P3-850 192RAM vaio laptop.

 

[Wodgy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RYCeT /img/forum/go_quote.gif Finally, still waiting for new edition macbook which supposed to come out this november though. It's better worth the time waiting for it while I'm stuck at my P3-850 192RAM vaio laptop.

November isn't that far away, at least

I'm not sure though how much stock you can put in rumors of a major Macbook refresh/redesign. Certainly there will be a minor update to Santa Rosa at some point, but beyond that, the Macbook is still about mid product cycle. I think we're more likely to see a new Macbook Pro design before a new Macbook.

 

[blessingx]

Here's a little Infoworld article on Leopard.

 

[kugino]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bperboy /img/forum/go_quote.gif Geeze! Didn't look at the first post date; scared me a little bit! I preordered with Education discount (whoooo 15 bux! ) and backed up my Macbook Pro on 2 externals; I'm going to do a clean install!

i'm willing to bet that university bookstores will be selling it at the $69 that previous versions sold for w/education discounts. i don't know why apple is reducing (or getting rid of) their education discounts so fiercely. first, no ed. discounts on ipods...then ilife/iwork had miniscule discounts...now leopard with a small discount.

though the apple website shows a certain education discount my univ. bookstore has the new ilife and iwork for $39 each, which is a steal, IMO. i'm hoping that leopard will be equally cheap at the bookstore...

 

[RYCeT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wodgy /img/forum/go_quote.gif November isn't that far away, at least I'm not sure though how much stock you can put in rumors of a major Macbook refresh/redesign. Certainly there will be a minor update to Santa Rosa at some point, but beyond that, the Macbook is still about mid product cycle. I think we're more likely to see a new Macbook Pro design before a new Macbook.

I take any changes regardless it's minor or major

I can't stand using my old laptop. I was considering to buy a new one 6 months ago and decided to get a macbook. I didn't buy it since it didn't make sense for me to buy one when the os will be upgraded in less than 3 months (that's before it was announced it will be delayed because of iphone)

 

[blessingx]

Well there's still the rumor a new laptop will be introduced on the day of Leopard.

And it looks like Leopard will be cheaper in University bookstores.

 

[AlanY]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx /img/forum/go_quote.gif And it looks like Leopard will be cheaper in University bookstores.

That posting on TUAW about lower prices in University bookstores is inaccurate, and the blogger's theory that Apple doesn't trust its web store users to tell the truth is silly IMHO. (They'll accept your student ID number as proof for several hundred dollar discounts when you buy a system, but not for a $60 savings? Yeah sure.)

As far as I can tell, the truth is that Leopard will be cheaper if your school has a volume licensing discount agreement with Apple. If your school doesn't, you'll get the standard academic price. This is the same as Microsoft software. If your school has a volume licensing discount agreement with MS, you can purchase Office and Windows for under $50 each. Otherwise, you pay the standard academic price for Office or Windows.

Aside: At my school we don't have a license agreement with MS, and students are always complaining about how expensive Office and Windows are compared to other schools, but that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned. I don't want to be forced to fork over a portion of my tuition money behind the scenes to MS, just as Windows users would be annoyed if a chunk of their tuition money went to Apple. I really disagree with schools that sign the most expensive agreement with MS, which entitles students to buy Office and Windows for virtually no cost. That's just subsidizing the company.

 

[blessingx]

BTW, a guided tour was just posted by Apple.

 

[bperboy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx /img/forum/go_quote.gif BTW, a guided tour was just posted by Apple.

I watched the full download version, I thought it was very informative. I decided that I'll try out Mail with my gmail account instead of just using the web interface. Hopefully its not too cumbersome. I'm pretty sure I'm going to do a clean install; anyone have any comments regarding that?

 

[AuroraProject]

I preordered mine last night. Being fairly new to Macs I have two questions, will my existing software work right away or will I have to wait for updates (specifically Quickbooks Pro)? Will my hardware have any issues running it? (MacBook Pro, 2.16ghz Core Duo, 2gb ram, 17" ATI something video card, etc.)

 

[Wodgy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AuroraProject /img/forum/go_quote.gif I preordered mine last night. Being fairly new to Macs I have two questions, will my existing software work right away or will I have to wait for updates (specifically Quickbooks Pro)? Will my hardware have any issues running it? (MacBook Pro, 2.16ghz Core Duo, 2gb ram, 17" ATI something video card, etc.)

Your existing software should just work. Sometimes there are minor incompatibilities though, so it would be best to check the QuickBooks website for any compatibility statements/recommendations, just to make sure.

Your hardware shouldn't have any issues at all. That's one of the benefits of them having a fixed number of hardware configurations to test against. Also in general, OS X minimum specs are pretty honest, and your machine is far above them.

 

[kugino]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bperboy /img/forum/go_quote.gif I watched the full download version, I thought it was very informative. I decided that I'll try out Mail with my gmail account instead of just using the web interface. Hopefully its not too cumbersome. I'm pretty sure I'm going to do a clean install; anyone have any comments regarding that?

i watched it, too, and am really looking forward to this update. i think the benefits of leopard are going to be all the cool software that is developed using the various core technologies in leopard. already we see it in apps like acorn and pixelmator.

if time machine works as advertised (and doesn't require huge amounts of backup space) i think it will be very cool.

i think we're also sure to get some iphone updates, too...with all that to-do and memo stuff built into the new mail.app, it begs for compatibility with the iphone. perhaps it'll be a .mac-only feature...hopefully not, though. in any case, i've read that the no. 1 feature-request is a simple to-do list for the iphone. i think we'll see it when leopard is released.

as far as installing...i always do a clean install. just makes me feel better and it's always a good way to clean up one's crap. i clone my HD to an external drive using SuperDuper and then copy the preference files, apps, and keychains back into the new system. that's a great thing about the mac - very few apps have installers so installing apps is a matter of drag and drop. nice.