The interface is definitely an improvement. The Finder enhancements are also pretty nice. I generally use Path Finder but I really like the new Finder. Spaces is also nice. Finally OSX has a basic function that most Linux distros have had for years.
After 24 hours of experience with Leopard I can sum up my initial reaction (based on expectations) like this.
- Speed: Snappier than Tiger. Not a lot, but feels more … fluid. Mail and Safari are definately faster.
- Look: Mature, consistent - I like it a lot.
- Finder: Yes, Cover Flow is more helpful than I expected, and the new sidebar seems to be useful, too.
- Spaces: Not as useful as I had imagined, but I think it’s a keeper for my way of working.
- Stacks: BIG disappointment. Earlier Apple had advertised them like this: Drag a few files in the dock and they become a stack. Not anymore - only possible with folders. And they work WORSE compared with Tiger - you can’t browse through subfolders anymore. You can work around this by using aliases … which is exactly how configured my Apple menu back in OS 8.6 … great.
I hope stacks improve over time. They better do … - Killer Feature: For me that’s Quick Look, when I realized it does not only work in Cover Flow, but with any selected object anywhere on the desktop or in the finder. I don’t use Spotlight that often, I rather dig through folders and files, because I usually keep everything in place.
Quick Look is the perfect help.
Haven’t used Time Machine yet, but will add another external drive for this purpose sometime … my 4th. Hm … I AM paranoid.
In the end - another release that successfully distinguishes itself from its predecessor by adding new features and offering general improvements in speed (at least in my case on a Core Duo) and UI. For my way of working it’s an improvement for sure.
This is worth a look if you are thinking about holding off on installing Leopard.
guides.macrumors.com/List%3AAppl … th_Leopard
Jolanth, the widgets I use on my laptop are Backpack, Weather, and Gmail. On my desktop, it’s also EasyEnvelopes, Delivery Status, and something else I can’t remember.
I’m loving Time Machine just because it’s there. Chronosync was my backup plan of choice most recently, but I like that TM does it pretty much all by itself - no real set up or anything other than to designate which hard drive to use.
What I was most looking forward to and what I’m now most enamored of is a combo of Coverflow and QuickLook. Even though I name my research files with fairly clear content names, I have so much that a quick flip through CF/QL will reveal the file I’m looking for remarkably fast. A great number of my research files are in the form of PDFs and it’s fantastic to be able to page through a PDF to find the info-bit I’m looking for without having to open any other program.
(Yes, I also use Devonthink Pro Office, but for a quick look nothing beats Quick Look. )
I jumped in with both feet and installed Leopard on Friday. Yes, it looks nice - I love the new Finder experience, but I had a pig of a time with the installation on my iMac and, judging from the Apple Support forums, so did many others. With hindsight, I wouldn’t be so quick to install a new OS next time!
My advice to anyone thinking about installing now would be:
(1) Do thorough backups first. I know this seems obvious but it’s easy to cut corners in this area, especially if (like me) you assume that because it’s Apple it will ‘just work’. This time it didn’t and I had a few anxious hours thinking about the stuff I hadn’t backed up!
(2) Read some of the discussion forums. It seems that the problem-free installs are those where an ‘archive and install’ is done, but this is not the default setting (standard upgrade is the default).
I’m not knocking Leopard, it’s really nice - I would just advise some caution and some good housekeeping before you dive in 
As has been mentioned on another thread, the source of many problems when “upgrading” (as opposed to a clean install, or archive and install) is older versions of Unsanity’s APE haxie framework, or other low-level system tweakers that play around with OSX’s internal organs, so to speak.
Anyone who’s ever run something so low-level on their Mac should of course do either a clean or archive installation, to avoid system problems.
The Upgrade method of installation assumes two things: [a] that your system is clean, and [b] if your system isn’t clean, then the haxie authors should at least have written their code so that it won’t work on a non-recognised system. Unfortunately, older versions of APE don’t do this :\
Spaces rocks. I love having my work in one window, and still keep my email and browser open, neatly arranged, and completely out of the way. And what’s even cooler? I can have Scriv (or WriteRoom) open in full-screen mode and still switch to another desktop-space-thing. I love, love, love it.
Quicklook is also very, very nice, and it will encourage me to do some of the cleanup I’ve been avoiding on my hard disk (I have a couple hundred articles downloaded from JSTOR all with stupid filenames like “0-1.pdf”). And it turns out that Coverflow in the finder is really useful.
The now super-speedy Spotlight and Dashboard have made my computer-life much easier, too. I’m using the Dashboard 10x more than I had previously, and it is fast enough that I don’t regret every time I tap F12.
Like Keith, I’m quite sad that the text system isn’t improved. I was hoping (and hoping and hoping) that Apple would support footnotes. Alas, they continue to thumb their collective nose at me.
Oh, of my installs (3 of them), two were default upgrades and they both went flawlessly. I’d recommend it again. The third, I’m blaming on playing with Linux via Bootcamp: the installer couldn’t install on my main partition at all. Luckily I had a 100% up-to-date clone, so I just wiped the drive clean, installed and then ran the migration assistant. The net result is virtually the same as a default upgrade.
Unless you’ve installed haxies (I have not), I wouldn’t worry about the default upgrade. Just run it and be happy. But as with anytime you’re making massive changes to your computer, back up first. You should back up anyway, as Time Machine seems to be teaching us.
Wanted to add that I did do an Archive and Install, not just a plain Install. I read around first to discover what was recommended; most of the geekier sites I read said to do a Clean Install (after a backup, of course!) but I just couldn’t bring myself to do that.
I did do a full bootable backup using SuperDuper! first. I also checked for any of the files that seemed to be causing problems. Since I rarely install anything other than main programs (I read about them, I just don’t install them), I didn’t run into the APE problem.
One note of ‘awareness’: toward the end of the Install it will say “about one minute” remaining. IT LIES! That one minute was 14 minutes long for me. Good thing I’m patient.
In concert with what others have said, I agree with the disappointments over TextEdit. I was hoping for some additions, not just tweaks. Alas…
I love love love Time Machine. I am one of these stupid people that never backs up because it’s too hard, or I don’t have any CDs on hand, or “My Mac never has problems!” I love that I just plugged in the external hard disk and my Mac asked, “Wanna use this for Time Machine?” And away it went… taking care of everything for me.
I really like Stacks, particularly in concert with my Downloads folder. I just click on Stacks to see the last thing I downloaded (which isn’t always at the top of the folder view).
I haven’t quite mastered Spaces yet, probably because I put all my work stuff (Scrivener, Word, Yojimbo) in one space and all my Internet stuff, like chat, in another space… and I am constantly switching between them. But when I’m not chatting with someone, the work space is quite nice.
QuickLook (which lets you peek inside a document without having to open the app) is wonderful.
But Time Machine is made of win, as far as I’m concerned.
ETA: I forgot the biggest win feature of all!
In mail.app now, if you get a mail message with a date or time in it, you put your mouse over the date or time and a little pop-up menu appears with a menu item “Create new iCal event…” Adding stuff to my calendar is now 100 times easier!
The most annoying thing about this whole APE situation is that a lot of people don’t even realize it may be installed. It’s all too easy to let oneself sound like “Bwahaha, you fool, installing unsupported haxies on your system, you deserve it!,” but that’s not always the case.
I haven’t installed Leopard yet, but on some weird whim I did a search on my fairly new and tidy iMac for “Application Enhancer,” and – lo and behold, it had been installed. Apparently Logitech’s mouse driver installs it, and I had briefly installed it before deciding not to use that mouse on the new machine. I’d uninstalled the Logitech driver, but it left the APE stuff installed.
Fortunately it was the “new” version that wouldn’t have caused the BSOD, but still, I stripped it out of my system. I would bet a lot of people suffering the BSOD problems don’t even realize they have a haxie installed on their system or that it’s something they should have looked into updating. 
Absolutely correct, cooner. I’m a big fan of Unsanity - WindowShadeX is invaluable to me - but they screwed up big time here. And Logitech should be hauled over the coals for using something so potentially disruptive and wholly unsupported in their products without at least informing the user first.
Gruber has a good overview of the situation:
daringfireball.net/2007/10/blue_in_the_face
Wow, that’s insane that Logitech would base their driver on a haxie.
Antony - I miss the window shade feature available on nearly every unix window manager except OSX but have always been fearful of the APE. Now that I’m running Leopard I’m even more weary.
Well, to be fair to Unsanity, the Tiger version of APE has never caused me any problems. I’m confident that when they produce a Leopard version, it’ll be perfectly stable. And WSX really is brilliant.
Heh heh, Gruber is THE MAN. I was reading a bunch of Leopard reviews that afternoon but I’m pretty sure it was his article that got me to check for APE on my system in the first place …
I must agree,That was a cool interview :: I also encountered the same problem, although with the help of many people.
But I do not always feel satisfied.Apart from the outside you.
thanks!
I bought a mac a couple of months ago after years of using windows. It was hard to get used to and Windows for Mac was a bit screwy, but I’ve installed Leopard today and now it all works wonderfully. and through Boot camp I can still hold onto those things I like in windows. Now I’m very happy.
Deb
Like a fool, I installed Leopard on the first day - and got lucky. The install went beautifully (I had a bootable backup in case it didn’t), and all my critical apps - MS Word, Scrivener, RapidWeaver - worked.
No hassles at all, thank heavens.
Biggest advantage after almost two weeks of Leopard: speed. Almost everything happens faster. I had printing slowdowns in Tiger, they’ve vanished. The Finder is faster. Everything’s faster. “Speed” is my choice of killer feature. 
Also -
-
I love the new Finder and Cover Flow, I’ve been able to browse folders and toss old material. And I’ve found lots of nuggets and treasures I’d forgotten I have;
-
Time Machine - brilliant!
-
Spaces. Not as useful as I’d hoped, but helps my workflow.
What disappoints me?
Spotlight. I was hoping that Spotlight would work like Google. Instead, I’m finding that for me, it’s not working as well as the Tiger version. Sad.
My favorite search utility, HoudahSpot doesn’t work in Leopard, and hasn’t been updated yet, so there’s no help from that quarter.
As a work around, I’ve created some Smart Folders in the Finder, and these are superb, so they do (most) of the job, and I’m not unhappy.
If I were giving Leopard marks out of ten, I’d give it nine.
So, I’m pleased I installed Leopard, love it, and wouldn’t go back.
Cheers
Angela
Ouch! 
What exactly does that mean? I’ve read Spotlight was improved, and now you say it was better in Tiger? How do I have to imagine this “disimprovement”?
For me, Spotlight is one of the cornerstones of working with my Mac.
I’ve been using Leopard on a new MacBook for the past couple of days, and I love it. I’ve even gotten to quite like the translucent menu bar
Spotlight is much faster and more useful, for me. I’d also be interested to hear why Angela thinks it’s worse - I almost never used Spotlight under Tiger because it was so slow, but the speed increase under Leopard, coupled with the new boolean search and launching shortcuts, means I’m using it a lot more now.
Andreas, have you tried Quicksilver? If you rely on Spotlight so much, you might find QS does a better job…