Date: Friday, October 26, 2007
Apple’s Leopard Hunts for Disappointed Vista Users
With their new Leopard operating system, Apple hope they will appeal to disgruntled Windows Vista users, as well as Mac enthusiasts.
“Vista has been quite a disappointment for many people,” said Nik Rawlinson of MacUser magazine, “and Leopard could be the reason many people make the switch to Macs.” Indeed, Apple hopes that this will drive more Mac sales. The Mac has had a real resurgence in popularity lately with record 2.2 million sales in the three months prior to the end of September. Walt Mossberg, technology writer with the Wall Street Journal, also believes that Leopard is a better system than Vista. He said: “In my view, Leopard is better and faster than Vista, with a set of new features that make Macs even easier to use.”
Leopard has a number of new features and lots of improvements on the old ones. Some of the most notable include Quick Look, which can examine the contents of a file without even having to open the related program. Another new feature, Stacks, aims to automatically group related files and folders, which helps to organise a messy desktop. Boot Camp also looks to be a useful tool, as it allows users to run Windows on the Mac.
In many ways, Leopard is similar to Tiger, which was Apple’s previous operating system. Instead of creating a dramatically different system, Apple merely refined and improved Tiger’s features to make a better overall product. This method certainly worked, as the finished software has had some excellent feedback so far. In the New York Times, technology columnist David Pogue said: “Happy surprises, and very few disappointments, lie around every corner.” Walter Mossberg was equally complimentary about the system, calling it “evolutionary, not revolutionary.”
Tiger earned Apple $120 million very quickly and Leopard is thought to rake in even more revenue. This is even more great news for apple, who only recently reported very strong profits thanks to the iPhone and iPod.
Sources
BBC
Times
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