I’ve been using Leopard now for around 3 months, and to be honest, I’m really not impressed at all. It’s an extremely buggy OS with a bunch of mediocre improvements, many of which I haven’t really found a use for.
Spaces? I actually thought these would be cool, but I just haven’t been able to find a good use for them. In fact, I find myself accidentally switching between spaces from time to time thanks to how heavily I rely on the control and option keys for other things.
Stacks is another completely useless feature, mainly because you can’t really see enough icons. Plus, it’s generally a stupid idea to present multiple conflicting UI designs (the box in stacks and the curvy expandy thing) for the same feature, especially if you switch between them from time to time.
I am currently on the 10.5.1 update of Leopard, which is basically the first major service pack after the OS release. Ever since upgrading from Tiger to Leopard, my Macbook Pro refuses to connect to my Wireless N WRT150N router at home. Even though it has great signal strength, it generally always comes back with a self-assigned IP address. It would seem I’m not the only person having this problem.
Without a doubt though, the biggest complaint I have with Leopard is that they’ve completely destroyed iChat with it. Nearly every person I know who uses it routinely has suddenly found it nearly unusable. It seems with every application update it just gets a whole lots worse.
I looked so much happier when iChat actually worked
Tonight I tried various iChats with a few people, and pretty much all of them failed with a communications error. Looking at the logs, it appears that iChat is having problems determining which IP addresses to use. I tried on two different computers in two different network topologies with multiple people. You know how many iChats we successfully pulled off? Zero.
I’ve gone through every thing I can think of, and every suggestion other users in the forums have come up with. I’ve disabled uPNP, played with my Leopard firewall settings, tried various AOL servers, all with no luck. You know what pisses me off the most though — how you can’t find any information from anyone at Apple. Clearly this must be a known issue, so at least fess up to it and tell people you’re working on it. Ignoring the problem just seems arrogant, and is leading to frustration all across the board.
When I first installed Leopard it worked slightly better, and I even had a few opportunities to try out the screen sharing feature. But now, it’s basically completely broken — not just for me, but for many people I know and usually talk with.
I used iChat fairly frequently, so having it out of commission is a pretty major pain in the ass. To top it off, Apple isn’t really talking about many of these problems openly, even though many users are reporting these same problems. I bought my Mac because it was supposed to “just work”, but with each new update I take from Apple, the situation just gets worse and worse. Before spending anymore time putting out new technologies such as the new Apple Air, they really need to get their shit together and shore up this OS in a hurry.
I’m going to add a few polls here to get some feedback. First, what do you guys think of Leopard?
[poll=3]
And second, if you’ve upgraded to Leopard, let me know what your experience is with the new iChat:
[poll=4]
I dunno dude….I’ve been rock solid on Leo since it came out on my two year old iMac Core Duo. iChat has never been an issue at all with lots of video and audio chats. Even on my 3 1/2 year old Powerbook was pretty solid for the few months it ran Leopard before I sold it.
I think we talked about it before but the clean install is probably the solution for you as much as it sucks ass to go through that….format and start over. Upgrade installs never work for me.
One way to test the theory without spending too much time is to use an external drive and install Leopard clean on that and book your MBP off the drive…see if that is the prob or if it’s just a bad lappy you have (despite what Apple service says).
Do you have the iChat/stability issues on your laptop and the iMac?
Have you tried taking your computer to the Genius Bar? That is always my first stop and they haven’t failed me yet. 🙂
worst OS since Windows ME! Worst of all… Apple thinks it’s great – unwilling to even listen to the wireless network problems. The problem appears to be that they’ve decided to do away with security altogether. Wireless connects and runs just great – unsecured. “Firewall” ??? hmmm…what’s that? Eh Apple??? Leopard is mostly eye candy and little else. Even System Preferences is constantly “not responding” and the keyboard (MacBook) goes “out-to-lunch” at least once-a-day; won’t type anything unless the numlock is on. What a pile of overpriced crap!!!!
I’m overall satisfied with Leopard, and when I think back to Tiger, it had it’s fare share of issues earlier on. I have faith that Apple will address major issues in the next OS update, and possibly even add a few more.
You’re right, Duane, when it comes to Apple publicly acknowledging iChat issues- there is no excuse, and it’s a bad move- if they tell us they’re working on it, then there’s some relief in knowing that the issues will be resolved.
I’m on the side of doing a complete re-install. A tip for those with enough disk space- do an archive & install. It will allow you to freshly install a new OS while also keeping all your personal files, settings, applications etc.
For me (iMacG4 1.25G with 1.5Gb RAM) iChat on Leopard uses 60-100% of CPU to the point that audio and video loose sync. I reinstalled Tiger on a small partition in order to be able to iChat again (partitioning without erasing thus turns out to be the most useful feature of Leopard 🙁
About 8 years using macs….
Guess how many successful connections via ichat video… big fat ZERO.. Never connects… rubbish… Gave up on ichat…
All skype video now… connects 100% of the time…
I agree 100% with what you said about apple not publicly acknowledging that they have a problem with ichat.. Really annoys me when you look at tv commercials showing the ichat off.. then again I start to laugh cos I know THEY know it does NOT work properly as they show it to… FALSE ADVERTISING if you ask me…
I love apple products… but slowly they are starting to annoy me… They are slowly turning into the “big bad wolf” of Microsoft… They need to treat their regular customers much better… I called them once before regarding sending me a new startup disk as mine got damaged… They acknowledged that I had purchased (from their records)… 6 macs.. 3 ipods…. 1 iphone…. And yet they still charged me for the startup disk…. unbelievable They need to fix things like this or they will lose that “cult” following slowly but surely…
Sorry just venting,
Stephen