OS X Leopard: Apple's Official Guided Tour
With less than a week before OS X Leopard ships, Apple (AAPL) has published a video guided tour of the latest version of its flagship Macintosh operating system. It’s available here as a Quicktime download or streaming file.Clocking in at more than 27 minutes, it’s a long slog, delivered by a black-shirted actor in the cloying up-beat tone that has become Apple’s house style for these presentations. This actor has unusually expressive hands; try not to be distracted by them.
Despite its glacial, Mister Rogers pace, the video is worth watching, especially if you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing one of Steve Jobs’ Leopard demos. Graphical user interfaces are built on layers of increasingly sophisticated visual metaphors and this, the sixth iteration of OS X, has refined some of the old ones (like Desktop, Dock and Sidebar) and introduced a number of important new ones (such as Stacks, Places and Quick Look). The changes will take some getting used to before they become second-nature.
But maybe next time Apple could take pity on those of us with short attention spans and provide an alternative guided tour for users trained by MTV and the company’s own iPods ads to absorb visual metaphors as fast as Apple can dish them out.
Places?? Surely you mean Spaces…
ex ped: No, I meant Places. It's one of the new categories on the finder sidebar, along with Devices and Shared. –Philip Elmer-DeWitt
The guy was so steve jobs, yert such a common man, they really nail simplicity, and know how to slow down media for us laymen and aorking class people.
I watched it twice and sent the link to a number of people. My attention span is that of an adult who grew up with actual books, lectures, classical music concerts and Iive in the country with wild animals who do not necessarily do their tricks and acitivites at my command…I am 66 and if I can concentrate on the demo after all those neurons have dropped off into my spinal fluid over the years,I figure it is not unduly slow.On the contrary, I think that the demo moves at a careful pace that allows one to actually get something from the demonstration!
I felt that the video was quite long too, but worth it.
True, some of the features in leopard are a little advanced, but I think that's also what we said about vista, tiger and all of the OS's before it. Good post.
FYI, I've blogged this over at TheGrahamBaileyBlog with a discussion.
Hit the link if you're interested: http://www.thegrahambaileyblog.wordpress.com (try typing THAT on an ipod touch)
Yes it was a bit long but there's a lot to cover. It sold me on the upgrade. I just hope MS doesn’t copy too much, I could b out of work at my MS based job….
Having used Mac for about 20 years (I also use Windows), it is still a great learning experience to watch the Apple presentation and discover the features that I might have missed.
Yes, some might think it long, but there is not a minute of wasted band-width.
Like so many 'Wags' today, the only people who will find something to dislike, are those who are paid to do so.
One question. How is Safari 'Crippled'?
I use it on both my Mac and Windows machine. It is beta, but I still find it more intuitive than IE6 or IE7.
If the largest complaint is about Safari, use FireFox.
It will take MS years to copy features, security, and power of 10.5. Bad news is by then Apple will be releasing 10.7 or, if MS past performance is an indicator, 10.9.
I just watched it and thought it was a bit long, but necessary to get the message across. I was most impressed with the new mail features which brings the package from well back to the front of the pack!
My understanding is that Apple partenered with both Nasa and IBM in order to produce Time Machine. I believe that IBM provided the eludium pu36 explosive space modulator while Nasa contributed the flux capacitor which is what makes Time Machine possible.
I think there's a bit too much hype here: It's an operating system, not a cure for cancer. The new tools added to the package are mainly beyond the sophistication of most users; and, it still has a crippled browser.
As a 2 year MAC owner, I was kind of bummed about time machine..I mean it only goes into the past.. how come you can't go into the future to see the stuff on your machine? Pretty lame if you ask me.. C'mon Apple.. get it together.
It is long, but it's not different than going to the store and sitting in a OS X orientation. Familiar Mac users may not want to watch it, but if you do you'll learn a lot about some of the new functions leopard has to offer. If you watch it again, you may learn something else. A lot of people are visual and prefer to have a class than just reading from a book. Usually, I don't watch these videos, I just wait till I get the OS, but then I found that I miss out on a lot new features because I neither read or watched a video. This would be great for any one interesting in the software and Mac computers. Anyone can also read the booklet it comes with, but if your visual like me, you may enjoy the video. I think my favorite is the Time Machine and new Mail applications.
This is great…. but should be cut down or reworked and put on the iTunes 'marquis' for millions to see and get a free download to share anywhere with friends. (Wow.. show off Leopard OS X on your iPhone and iTouch), what about Starbucks… shouldn't they be helping to get this going as well! This demo should ring around the world 24 hours a day next week. Come on Apple, Inc. (marketing is at your doorstep with iTunes).
I would agree with this analysis and propose that Apple quickly (QT no pun meant) get a snappy version together on Sunday and re-release it ASAP on iTunes (not just here and on the Apple home page). Why not go back to 1984 Super Bowl Mac intro to the world as an example and create a Leopard Roar over the iPhone, iPods, iMacs…… the whole family should be involved in this wonderful event that could very possibly be up there with the intro of WYSYWYG phenomenon that Apple lauched back then in the ancient times of 3.5 disks.
I just spent the time to watch it and was impressed. Mac heads will love it, Winholes folks will want it, so Gates will copy it. I thought it was a little long also but thats ok.
Very informative — not too long considering all of the new features. I'm sold and ready to upgrade.