The Leopard Features I’m Looking Forward To

Apple has finally announced that October 26 will be the release date for Leopard, the new Version of OSX. According to Apple there are over 300+ new features (316 apparently). Most keen Apple users already know about the big new features, like Time Machine, Stacks, Spaces and the cute iChat enhancements. So, here’s a brief rundown of some of the rest of the features that most appeal to me at the moment.

1. Address mapping will take you to Google maps, wheras it currently takes you to MapQuest, which for me has never worked.

2. Automator UI recording should make it easier to create more workflows – something I sense should help me become more productive, but I’ve yet to explore fully.

3. Dashcode promises to make it relatively easy to roll your own widgets. Here’s hoping that is true!

4. .Mac syncing the dock layout across different machines is helpful and yes, I do use the dock – a lot.

5. Finder will now let you see the file path in a bar at the bottom of the Finder window and allow you to drag a file to any point on that path.

6. iChat recording presents all sorts of great possibilites for podcasting and vidcasting.

7. Instruments has me fascinated, especially the ability to monitor relationships between UI actions and CPU usage.

8. Amazingly, I’m interested in the new input modes for Chinese.

9. PDF manipulation is an amazing feature and I don’t understand why it hasn’t been hyped more, especially the ability to merge PDF files and re-order pages!

10. Printer Driver updates via Software Update is a nice touch and saves time.

11. Spotlight will now let you keyword search through recently viewed websites in Safari.

12. Guest Log-In accounts look like a good, clean way to manage visitor usage of your machine. You can now create a guest account that is purged when the user logs out.

13. Automatic activation of fonts is something I have craved from the first day I started using Apple. Apparently you can now deactivate fonts and if an applicaiton needs them, they will be temporarily activated for as long as the application is running – smart.

[tags] Leopard, OSX, Apple [/tags]