Forthcoming highlights of Apple's Leopard
Erik Eckel
Published: 02 Oct 2007 14:09 BST
...Quick Look permits Mac users to view the contents of files (including documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs, and even videos) without having to open each file. Thus, these short "sneak peek" glimpses make it much easier for users to find specific files they are seeking quickly on a Mac hard disk.
Parental controls
Typically a consumer feature, Leopard provides expanded parental controls for Mac users. New content filters help protect children from inappropriate web content, while bedtime and usage limits can be easily configured to police the amount of time children spend on the computer. Further, Leopard-powered systems can now log the web sites children visit, the contents of chat sessions, and even the applications run.
Photo Booth
Largely a consumer-focused feature, Apple's Photo Booth adds stock photography to help dress up Photo Booth sessions. In addition to creating user photos, which might be linked as an iChat buddy image, Photo Booth also supports creating and sharing video snippets. While Photo Booth's audio and video quality isn't professional grade, the feature provides users with a simple method of quickly and easily creating basic audio and video files.
Safari 3.0
Apple's Web browser, Safari, receives an upgrade in Leopard: Safari 3.0 is loaded by default within the next Mac OS X release. Providing improved performance, additional security controls (such as a private browsing feature that disables caching of personal data, among other information), inline PDF support, and more, the browser provides Mac users with a more reliable and consistent web-browsing experience.
Stacks
Apple's new Stacks feature is among new desktop enhancements designed to add to the Mac's impressive visual appearance. As the desktop often serves as the location in which documents, spreadsheets, programs, and other files are stored, it quickly becomes cluttered. Apple's designers worked to help consolidate such files and clean up the Mac's desktop appearance in the process.
The result is Stacks, which enables users to collect similar objects in stacks or folders that live on the Mac's Dock. When a new item arrives (such as an email or document) within a stack, the Mac signals to the user that the file is present. To view the item, users need only click the relevant stack icon and an animated arc displays the contents of that stack.
Spaces
Recognising that users manage different kinds of data, from office-related work to editing personal email messages, Apple designers have included support for separate desktops on Mac OS X version 10.5. By dragging active windows into separate spaces, Mac users can segregate applications and programs by topic.
For example, an employee working from home might wish to create a work-related space in which their VPN connection is active and work-related applications are up and running. A second space might be dedicated to sending personal email and surfing the web, while yet a third space could be devoted to music or entertainment-related activities (such as viewing a DVD movie).
Navigating between spaces is simple. Leopard places place-holder icons on the Dock for each space.
Spotlight enhancement
In addition to refining Spotlight performance and the interactive menu used to perform desktop searches, Apple developers have tweaked Spotlight to support searching multiple systems in Mac OS X version 10.5. Using a new sidebar, results will be categorised in Leopard.
Time Machine
Time Machine is among one of the most important upgrades in Leopard. The new backup application simplifies data protection. Whenever a compatible backup device is found (such as a simple external USB drive), by stating that one wishes to use Time Machine, Leopard automatically configures backup operations.
Unlike Windows, which requires users to specify which files, folders, and drives should be backed up, when the backups should occur, and what type of back operation should be run (normal, differential or incremental), Leopard simply backs everything up. Everything from programs and applications to accounts, system preferences, and other data is backed up automatically.
Furthermore, Time Machine provides a feature similar to Windows Restore, enabling users to return to specific system configurations as they existed on a specific date. However, unlike Windows, Leopard enables returning an entire system to a specific date, recovering a copy of a single file from a specific date or restoring a folder or folders to a specific date. Using Time Machine, Mac users can also encrypt backups and specify storage limit settings to help manage the amount of disk space dedicated to backups.
Universal Access improvements
Leopard includes bolstered accessibility features, too. Besides adding a new voice that speaks more naturally at a faster pace, support has been added for Braille displays and note-taking devices. Further, voice-over commands can now be associated with numeric keypad keys using NumPad Commander.
Apple's VoiceOver feature now accentuates "hot spots" by monitoring for active windows and notifying users (via sound clues) whenever notifications or alerts are displayed on screen. VoiceOver also assists visually impaired users in navigating applications and onscreen menus.
Other accessibility improvements include expanded closed-captioning support within QuickTime, more applications (including iChat) that "speak" onscreen text and VoiceOver support for .Mac online internet and email accounts.
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