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Mac OS X Leopard

Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard is the sixth major version of Mac OS X and includes innovative features like Time Machine and Spaces. Apple Mac Leopard release date is Spring 2007.

Mac OS Leopard was announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 6, 2005 and was shown to developers for the first time at the 2006 Worldwide Developers Conference on August 7, 2006. Leopard will be available for both Intel Macs and PowerPC Macs (will support PowerPC G4 and PowerPC G5 processors, PowerPC G3 processor not known yet).

Time Machine

Time Machine is a new way to automatically back up and restore everything on your Mac with its unique ability to let users travel back in time to find deleted files, applications, photos or other digital media. The software automatically backs up everything on the Mac to an external hard drive or Mac OS X Server. In the event a file is lost, users can search back through time using a time-based visual display to find and then instantly restore the file. With one click, Time Machine can restore anything from a single file or photo to everything on a Mac.

Spaces

Spaces (virtual desktops/screensets) is a new way to instantly switch between groups of applications required for various tasks. Users can get a bird's eye view of all their Spaces and choose where they want to go next with just one keystroke or click of a mouse.

Dashboard Enhancements

Dashboard is an application that is used for hosting mini-applications known as widgets and was introduced in Mac OS X Tiger. Widgets perform common tasks and give you fast access to information on the Web. With Mac OS X Leopard, you get even more widgets, plus .Mac syncing that keeps all your Dashboard preferences on all your Macs.

Ever wish you could make your very own Dashboard widget? Say hello to Dashcode. With it, you can get a widget up and running in minutes, even if you’ve never written a line of code in your life. Choose from a handful of Dashcode widget templates — including a countdown timer, RSS feed, photocast, podcast, or gauge — or create a widget from scratch with a blank template. Drag in an RSS link and your widget populates with a full feed. Drag in a photocast URL and your widget transforms into a self-contained slideshow. Drag in a podcast link and you can start playing the feed right from your widget.

When your widget is ready for prime time, Dashcode packages up all the your files and the Apple-provided resources required to deploy your widget to Dashboard or submit it to Apple.com.

Get yourself a .Mac account and your Dashboard preferences can follow you from Mac to Mac. With Dashboard syncing in Leopard, when you make a change to your Dashboard preferences, Leopard automatically keeps everything in sync across every Mac you use.

A new Movies Dashboard widget for movie times and Web Clip for clipping any part of a web page as a live widget.

Create your own website widget using Web Clip in Safari for Leopard. Just visit your favourite site and click the “Open in Dashboard” button in Safari. Dashboard launches a new clip of the site in a customizable widget. From there, you can resize your Web Clip and choose from a handful of window themes. And since your Web Clip is always live, it acts just like the website it was clipped from. Dashboard for Leopard also introduces a movie widget that finds movies and show times in less time than it takes to make popcorn.

Leopard's iChat

Apple is taking communicating with friends, family and colleagues to an entirely new level. iChat now makes video chats more fun with the ability to use Photo Booth effects and put images and videos in the background. iChat Screen Sharing enables users to share their desktops with others to work together in real time on an activity, such as editing an iPhoto book, or helping a buddy get the most out of their Mac. With iChat Theater, users can share an iPhoto slide show, a QuickTime movie or a Keynote presentation within an iChat window.

Mail Enhancements

Leopard's Mail includes new features that have never been seen before in a Mail application. Mail Stationery includes more than 30 customizable stationery designs to create emails enriched with photos and graphics. Templates include photo collections, invitations, birthday cards and other greetings that look great when received on either a Mac or a PC. With Mail Notes, users can quickly jot down thoughts and ideas, add graphics and attachments and use the familiar Mail application to manage them like an email message. In addition, To Dos can be created from any email message or note and viewed in iCal or sent to friends and colleagues. RSS news feeds now appear in Mail, allowing users to receive news in their inboxes, receive notifications when new stories appear and use Smart Mailboxes to organize news about the same topic in one place.

Enhancements to Mail including the additions of RSS feeds, Stationery, Notes, and to-dos. To-dos use a system-wide service that is available to all applications.

Full Native 64-bit Support

Full native 64-bit support that allows applications to take complete advantage of 64-bit processing while maintaining full performance and compatibility for existing 32-bit Mac OS X applications and drivers. Leopard delivers 64-bit power in one, universal OS. Now Cocoa and Carbon application frameworks, as well as graphics, scripting, and the rest of the system are all 64-bit. Leopard delivers 64-bit power to both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs, so you don’t have to install separate applications for different machines. There’s only one version of Mac OS X, so you don’t need to maintain separate operating systems for different uses.

Xcode is the fastest way for developers to create Mac OS X applications and the easiest way to take advantage of new Apple technologies. Xcode 3 has full 64-bit support.

Boot Camp

Leopard will include a software assistant called Boot Camp that assists in the installation of Windows XP Home or Professional Edition (SP2 only) to a separate partition on Intel-based Macs. Boot Camp was first previewed as a public beta in April 2006.

Enhanced Spotlight

Improved Spotlight searching that's even faster, provides richer previews, and lets users search across network mounted folders on other machines.

Leopard introduces Quick Look, a new way to preview a document, picture, or slideshow in a single click, without opening an application. Select a search result and Quick Look displays the result — an iPhoto snapshot, a PDF, an Address Book contact — in a graphic overlay. Quick Look even plays your QuickTime movies, right in the preview window.

Also in Leopard, Spotlight provides a richer syntax so you can search for more specific sets of things. Use new boolean logic to narrow search results by entering “AND,” “OR,” and “NOT” into a search request. You can also search using specific file attributes such as author, type, or keyword.

Core Animation

Core Animation is a new graphics technology that makes it easy for developers to create stunning visual effects and animations without needing to know esoteric graphics and math techniques.

Creating dynamic scenes can get confusing without a systematic approach. Using Core Animation, Mac developers can create snazzy animations in their programs using different media types, such as text, 2D graphics, OpenGL renderings, and video, simultaneously. Core Animation dynamically renders these media layers together, complete with transparency effects and Core Image filter and effects. When content changes, Core Animation updates it, automatically.

Built for Braille

VoiceOver in Leopard also adds new support for a variety of refreshable Braille displays and note-takers. Leopard dynamically translates VoiceOver output into standard, Grade 2 contracted Braille, so you can attach any supported device and start using it right away.

New Synthesized Voice

The new synthesized English voice in Leopard, Alex, uses advanced, patented Apple technologies that deliver natural intonation, even at very fast speaking rates. And Alex works with any application that supports Apple’s speech synthesis.

iCal 3 (Personal Calendar Application)

iCal 3 with group calendaring capabilities, event drop box, and standards-based CalDAV support.

iCal for Leopard introduces a new way to share the files and information you need to carry off a successful meeting or event. With the event dropbox, anyone attending an event can share documents, contacts — even video — by simply dragging them into an event. Not using an iCal server to schedule your event? You can still stay organized by dropping files into your events and sharing them by sending invitations that contain your dropbox contents.

Front Row and Photo Booth Built-in

Both Front Row and Photo Booth are currently only available with the purchase of a new Mac will be included with Leopard. Front Row allows Macs to play back digital content, including video Podcasts using the simple Apple remote. Photo Booth is Apple's fun-to-use application that lets users take quick snapshots with an iSight video camera, add entertaining visual effects with the touch of a button, and share them via email.

Other Features

1. New parental controls including curfews, time limits and remote administration.

2. Security enhancements including anti-phishing protection in Mail and Safari.

3. An automatic firewall that limits network resources available to an application.

Mac Leopard Links:

Apple - Mac OS X - Leopard Sneak Peek: Official Site

Dashboard Widgets: downloads page at Apple.com offers more than 2,000 widgets and counting.

Apple previews Mac OS X Leopard: from Appleinsider.com

Apple Leopard Picture: Source of Picture with Steve Jobs in the Background.

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