Nice kitty...

Poor cats. What royalties do they get when a big company like Apple uses their names to sell its products? Cheetah. Puma. Jaguar. Panther. Tiger. Leopard. They all make any product, especially operating systems, sound fast and fierce.

Apparently someone in Apple didn't do his/her research properly and named the slowest and most un-fierce version of OSX Cheetah. Puma and Panther apparent belong to the same family of cats called the Cougar. Tigers don't run too quickly but has been the quickest, until Leopard came along. Well, at least they got Leopard right.



Since OS9 died and OSX took over, these cats have been helping Apple push up their stock prices and Steve Jobs buy more black turtle necks. Apple should set up a fund to help these dying species. Build a cat zoo on their premises at Cupertino, collect entrance fees and match whatever earnings they get from it and put it back into the cat fund. Give the money to people who actually help ensure these cats from becoming extinct.

Imagine naming an OS after an extinct species of animal. It just somehow doesn't have that zing, like "Welcome to Quagga" or "Enter Stellar's Sea Cow".

Anyway, I'm always a reluctant adopter of new operating systems. That's why I've waited so long to migrate to Leopard. Tiger was so nice. Fast, stable, efficient. I was totally happy with it. I've lived with it for quite some time, a year perhaps? But Apple being Apple, always comes up with something that requires you to learn more stuff when you get so comfy with something. They come up with snazzy ad campaigns, pack their products in irresistable boxes, surround their showrooms with the right lighting and music to make you do things you don't really want to: spend money and learn new tricks. I'm an old dog, and dogs have no money.

The first few versions of OSX were an absolute pain. Nobody made any software to work with it. The OS itself was unstable and slow. I still worked in OS9 and OSX was just for surfing the internet and eye candy. But it got better and better. By the time Panther was introduced, things were looking up. It was reasonably fast and stable and software developers finally caught up and gave us software that we could actually do real stuff with. With Tiger, I was absolutely elated. It was by far the fastest and most stable version of OSX.

I haven't even enjoyed enough of Tiger's company when they decided to move on to a new cat. Checking in with internet forums once in a while, Leopard seems to be pretty problem free. Most users report improvements.

Ah well, what the heck. It's still OSX. Can't be that different. Better late than never.

Attention to detail on the packaging has always been an Apple trait:



Installation was a painless process. Although I backed up everything, it proved to be unnecessary. Using the "Archive and Install" method, the computer does everything for you. You get a new operating system with your old settings, passwords, music, videos, documents, emails, bookmarks, cookies...etc with just a simple click.


A nice big green tick makes you feel like a little school kid when your teacher praises you for being smart.


A picture taken from outer space prepares you for the experience.



So how is it?

Well, it's certainly prettier with lots of cool details like the mirror reflections of the dock icons at the bottom of the dock. It responds faster, just slightly. You can have a fan in your dock if you want. You can preview your files with coverflow without actually opening them.

I'm sure there are many more cool things you can do with it, but it's only been a few hours since I installed it.

The cats are definitely getting fitter and faster..

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