Ah, at long last, we get to review Leopard! Leopard, of course, is Apple’s marketing name for Mac OS X version 10.5. If Apple didn’t opt for keeping the OS X moniker, we’d probably be up to version 12 or something by now. But I digress.

We plan on offering our review in multiple parts, since there is a ton of material to cover. And no, before anyone asks, we’re not planning to out-Siracusa our friend over at Ars Technica, whose gigantic Leopard review went up Sunday night. This review will be targeted towards the enthusiast: someone who is a very tech-savvy end user but doesn’t necessarily need to know extensive under-the-hood minutiae (besides, it would be foolish to go up against the likes of Siracusa--his reviews kick ass!).

This first part will focus on the most immediately obvious changes to Leopard: the user interface. There is a reason why I start almost every review I write with a discussion on the user interface. If you’re going to stare at a computer screen for hours on end, you had better enjoy the software you’re using, and much of the enjoyment factor rests on the interface. Does the interface enhance or detract the software’s usability? Is it ugly? Is it attractive? Are there areas that seem awkward and need tweaking? Why should I care? These are the sort of questions I hope to address in this first part of our review of Leopard.

A quick note about the score at the bottom of the page: this score represents the score for this part of the review only, not for Leopard as a whole. When our review is complete we will give Leopard a cumulative score.

Anyway, enough of the formalities. Let’s take a look at Apple’s latest big cat.

Ch-ch-changes

Leopard represents, without a doubt, the single biggest overhaul to the Mac OS X UI since OS X was released in March 2001. There is nothing necessarily groundbreaking or earth-shattering, but anyone who has used OS X before just needs to take one look at Leopard to notice the difference. Some of these changes are for the better, some are for the worse. We’ll start with everyone’s favorite whipping boy, the Dock.

Dock fun

I’m not going to get into too much detail over the Dock because that would be like beating a dead horse. Repeatedly. With a mace. So I won’t discuss some some of the issues others have brought up. I will say this much, though:

The 3D Dock, well, needs some help.

First, let’s talk about some good aspects of the Dock. Leopard’s Dock uses a classy 2D Dock similar in nature to Tiger’s Dock for when it is placed on the sides. The side Dock uses a semi-transparent black background (similar to the semi-transparent “Heads-Up Display) palettes Apple has taken to using) and a small pale blue LED-like light to indicate running applications. This design is attractive and understated, and makes it easy to distinguish running apps from non-running apps at a glance. If you ask me, it’s what the Leopard Dock should have been all along.

The pop-up titles which appear when you hover over Dock icons are now set on a black semi-transparent background, making white label text more readable against a while or light-colored background. It’s a nice improvement.

The 3D “shelf” Dock style.

The 3D-style bottom Dock makes a great demo, sure, but as for actually using it, the 3D Dock leaves something to be desired. I’m not talking about inconsistent shadows or lighting, or skewed perspective, either.

Open applications are denoted by a pale blue LED light, but instead of being on a high-contrast background, they lie on a highly-reflective silverish floor, and have to compete with reflections from Dock icons, windows, and the desktop background. For me the problem isn’t so much the look, but the fact that the running application indicator gets kind of lost in all that shiny. This is my biggest problem with the 3D Dock. For some, this won’t be an issue. For others, it will be, which is why there is an alternative Dock style.

The slick 2D Dock, on the bottom.

If you don’t like the 3D Dock it is possible to use the 2D Dock at the bottom with a simple Terminal command: type defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES into the Terminal then press return, then type killall Dock to restart the Dock. If you want to return to the shiny Dock, type defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean NO instead.

The menubar

Yep, the menubar is now semi-transparent in Leopard. the effect is one similar to that of frosted glass. Depending on your desktop background, this could be a major usability impediment or a non-issue. But that is exactly the problem; OS features should not degrade in usability simply because you use a certain desktop background. So far this hasn’t been a major issue for me, but I can see where it could be for some.

As for why Apple opted for the semi-transparent menubar, I think there are two reasons for it:

1. To keep up with Windows Vista’s eye candy. If you watched the WWDC keynote video you may remember that some people actually laughed when Jobs unveiled the new Desktop, thinking it was a jab at Vista.
2. To make the front window more prominent by making other elements less apparent. I guess if this were the case, whoever designed the 3D Dock eyesore missed the memo.

Seriously, would an opacity slider or on/off control have killed Apple?

The menus themselves have changed slightly as well; they are still semi-transparent (though nowhere near as transparent as the menubar), but they too now have a frosted effect. It’s subtle and doesn’t seem to seriously affect readability.

An inactive and active Finder window compared.

New window dressing

After years of Mac geeks complaining about the inconsistency of the Mac UI, Apple finally picked a look and stuck to it, and it is slick. The frontmost window uses the unified dark gray gradient look first introduced in iTunes 5. The window control buttons (close/minimize/zoom) are brighter in color (incidentally, iTunes still sports the Tiger-style window control buttons). Toolbar buttons for the most part inherit the medium gray iTunes 7 button style. Window borders have been eliminated from the sides of windows in built-in applications.

Background windows use a light gray variant of this look. Also, other UI elements in background windows, such as buttons and the sidebar, use this light gray shade as well. With these changes, Apple brought some much-need coherence to the user interface and did indeed make the front window more prominent. The color difference is more effective than the deeper drop shadow. In fact, under normal usage I don’t even notice the ridiculously huge drop shadows. Under Tiger I would get confused by all the metal windows and how distinguishing inactive metal windows from active ones relied mostly on the window control buttons. I couldn’t tell you how many times I have hit command-T in iChat thinking I was creating a new tab in Safari. Leopard’s window changes should address this sort of thing.

All in all, it was a good change, unlike the Dock and menubar changes. I was afraid that Leopard would end up feeling dark and heavy when I first heard that Apple would be going with a darker look, but thanks to the lighter background windows this isn’t the case.

Bits and pieces

Folder icons have seen a refresh too. They’re a good bit more subdued than Tiger’s icons were. At first I thought that they were hideous, but I’ve grown to tolerate them. Some have raised the issue regarding the embossed symbols on certain folders (e.g. Applications, folders inside a user’s home, etc…). From an aesthetic standpoint, the embossed symbols aren’t necessarily ugly, but I do agree with others who have said that the poor contrast between the folders and the embossed symbols makes them hard to make out at smaller sizes. Personally I miss the more colorful icons. WIthout that little splash of color, the Finder feels a little drab at times.

Oh! I do have one more thing that I want to mention. Sheets in Leopard are now spawned from below the toolbar for some inexplicable reason, complete with an out-of-place drop shadow. Huh?

So what?

All right, now that I took you through a tour of the UI changes made to Leopard, you may be wondering, “Okay, what does any of that crap you just rattled off mean for me?” Overall, I think the good outweighs the bad in Leopard’s UI. I think by and large users are going to be pretty happy with Leopard’s new look. From a usability standpoint, Leopard’s menubar and Dock can be a bit of a downgrade, but the overall impression I get from using Leopard that it is that everything is one cohesive, coherent unit. Everything just fits together. Apple finally picked a look, and Mac OS X is better as a result. The Leopard UI is one slick, polished beast that is a joy to use for the most part. Tiger simply looks dated and sloppy by comparison. If nothing else, it gives users the impression that Leopard is something fresh and new, and that there are a lot of new features in store.

UI Wrapup

It seems that each Mac OS X release brings its fair share of UI changes. And of all the OS X releases thus far, Leopard’s UI changes are probably the most controversial. As I mention above, there are some usability issues present, but I think in time these issues will be worked out, either by Apple or third-party developers. As it stands, the score for the UI section is a 3.5 (solid, but some weak spots).

Last but not least, we have a screenshot gallery set up for your viewing pleasure.

Articles in this series

• Part 1: The Leopard UI
• Leopard screenshots
• Part 2: Spotlight and the Finder