Leopard vs. Vista

Ken Doyle

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In August, Apple held its Worldwide Developers' Conference that began, as usual, with a keynote address from Steve Jobs. Most of the attendees expected announcements of new hardware, and Apple obliged by introducing the Mac Pro workstation, as well new servers, built around two dual-core Intel Xeon chips. With these new machines, Apple has completed the transition to Intel chips that began in January this year.

However, it was software that stole the show. After setting the stage with banners that proclaimed "Hasta la vista, Vista" and taking other digs at Microsoft's forthcoming version of Windows, Apple unveiled a sneak preview of Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard." Leopard is due to be released in early 2007, about the same time as the retail release of Windows Vista.

The highlight of the presentation was a new application, aptly called Time Machine. Built within an impressive, three-dimensional interface, Time Machine provides a complete backup of the operating system and user files to an external hard drive or network server. The driving force behind the development of Time Machine was Apple's research: Only 26 percent of users back up their files, and less than 4 percent do so on a regular basis.

While the concept behind Time Machine is hardly newsworthy, it was the implementation and ease of use that wowed the crowd. The interface features a vertical scrollbar that allows the user to "go back" in time, while the center of the screen contains floating windows representing successively earlier versions of the folder or application being examined, extending backward and fading into the past. Some common scenarios were demonstrated, such as recovering a file that the user had accidentally deleted several weeks earlier, retrieving deleted entries from Address Book, and bringing back long-lost photos.

Another new feature in Leopard is virtual desktops, or "Spaces," something that Linux users have long enjoyed. Spaces allows the user to group commonly used application windows together in each of four desktop spaces, and to switch among them easily. Apple also demonstrated improvements to existing applications for e-mail, Web, video chat, search and accessibility. As expected, Leopard incorporates Boot Camp technology, allowing Intel Macs to boot natively into Windows.

So is Apple's taunting of Vista justified? It's true that Vista has become an easy target because of repeated delays and the omission of key features that were expected years ago, such as a brand new file system. Many of Vista's promised improvements in the user interface are already present in the current version of Mac OS X — fast systemwide search (Apple's Spotlight), Windows Flip's navigation (Expose), and the Aero theme (Aqua). So it's likely that Vista will at least bear a superficial resemblance to Leopard, if not a functional one.

However, Steve Jobs also mentioned that he was withholding information about several "top secret" features in Leopard that were slated for the final release, to prevent the competition from catching up. It's those secret features that could deliver the knockout punch when both systems ship next year.


Ken Doyle is a principal consultant for Loquent LLC, a Madison-based company that offers technology training and consulting services.

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