After all the wait around Leopard’s official preview, I must say I’m a bit skeptical about whether this should be called a major release or not. Steve Jobs demonstrated 10 “major” features available in Leopard during the Keynote Address at WWDC 2006.
Let’s analyze them carefully:

• 64-bit: Who really cares?
• Time machine: Effortless back-up. Good effort and impressive UI. Let’s see if the need is really here and how much space and ram this eats up.
• Mail: Stationary? Outlook express (ok I hate it) has had it for years, not as clean, but was present. Notes? Notes and todos, this is are neat little features.
• Spaces: Virtual desktops become a standard feature. Oh Unix, when you hold us… Great old feature, not sure it should be one of the 10 key Leopard features…
• Dashboard: Very clean & useful to be able to turn any web page clip into a widget, really. What about the ability to have these widgets where they are meant to be: the desktop?
• Spotlight: Minor enhancements but nothing really new here
• iCal: “
• Accessibility: For this one and their claim to have a fantastic natural voice, please check Apple’s sample and Loquendo to hear the difference. Apple’s new voice sounds like a 60’s robot (and I’m pretty sure that this robot hasn’t been taught foreign languages).
• Core animation: These new visual effects and animation libraries sure look like a cool toys.
• iChat: Video backdrop, photobooth effects, theater and the screen sharing sessions are no doubt stunning, very fun and useful BUT in a world where 97% of the users have PCs with windows, we would’ve liked to see native support for Yahoo! and MSN voice and video features.

What would’ve been cool to see is:

• Finder: Tabbed browsing
• iChat: As I mentionned above, Voice & Video interoperability
• Dashboard: Display them on the desktop, dammit!
• Accessibility: Hablas Espanol ? Parlez-vous Français ?
• Bittorrent integration: With reward system for people sharing bandwidth for Updates, iTunes (Music) Store…

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first one to install it whent it becomes available, but I was expecting more, expecting to be surprised, as it was the case when I discovered Tiger’s features set.

Well, I guess (or more exactly I hope) I’ll be surprised when the so-called “secret features” arrive.

Anyway, if you want your dose of info on Leopard, here are some useful links:

• Apple’s site
• Early hands-on on Macfixit: Safari 3.0, Various utilities

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technorati tags:apple, leopard, ichat, timemachine

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As seen here on O’Grady’s PowerPage , Leopard’s (Apple’s next mysterious Operating System) features seem to be revealed partly.So if we sum-up, ere are the new features:
• Spotlight 2.0: Instant search, nicer presentation; direct link with the parent application
• Dashboard 2.0: Yeah, now you can put them on your desktop! Overall empahsis through the release on widgets
• Safari 3.0: Integrated FTP, super security, Exposé for the tabs
• iChat 4.0: Yahoo! & MSN compatibility… Will this include voice & video, I doubt
• Automator 2.0
• QuickTime 7.2: Inclusion of Real & Divx codecs??? Strange
• Mail 3.0: HTML composition, at last, Gmail-like thread system; iCal integration

Anyway, rendez-vous on Monday to see exactly what happens.

technorati tags:apple, leopard, rumor, wwdc

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Thanks to this great little app, now bundled on newest macs, you’ll be able to transform your life in a comic strip in 3 clics.

With its super easy user interface and great capabilities, you can then export your photos to any media (PDF, Web, .mac, images…). What sets this piece of software apart is also its great integration with the rest of your digital life and especially iphoto. It took me no time to use it and 20 mins to create a 5 sheets comics story.
If you have a mac and haven’t tried it yet, give it a try here.

technorati tags:comics, graphics, apple

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Big news in the small Mac world, there is now an official preview version of Skype for mac with video support!
For those that don’t know Skype, it allows you to voice call any machine equiped with Skype for free and call land lines and cellulars all around the word at very interesting rates.

Follow this link for the preview.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Skype, Video

Here is what I consider to be the best IM (instant messaging) application, all platforms together. So, here are some of its features that set it apart.

• A perfectly clean and completely customizable user interface
• Compatibility with all the existing IM systems (thanks to the gaim library mainly)
• Perfect integration with Mac OS X (Address book integration, Completely aqua interface, Webkit display, Growl notifications support…)

Adium is available as a free download in 1.0 Beta 6. Grab your copy here.

technorati tags:adium, apple, mac

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