October 17, 2007

Mac OS X Leopard - 300+ New Features

Apple has announced that Oct. 26 they'll begin shipping the new Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) system software. I am excited about this release; and have been patiently waiting on its arrival to make some purchases.

Apple has a a nice list of new features on one page: Mac OS X Leopard - 300+ New Features

I am especially delighted about some Applescript enhancements. Unicode string improvements!!! Woo hoo!
• Scripting Bridge for integrating support for ObjC, Ruby and Python!
• Better Object models for referencing processes...
(I know none of this excites many of you, but we all have our own wish lists. :) And some of you will benefit from these additions down the road with better Quicksilver scripts and more.
I'm also looking forward to:

  • Automator Recordabilty to see how robust it is.
  • DVD Player's scratched disc recovery because I have little kids.
  • Instant screen sharing among Macs to be able to access my Macs.
  • Photo Booth Backdrops and Video record because, once again, I have little kids.
  • Preview's Instant Alpha removal for quick work on graphics.
  • CUPS 1.3 to improve use of printers at the office.
  • Location aware printer selection for my MacBook the moves around.
  • Guest Log-in Account that gets auto purged, which will be handy for the new iMac we're buying for our church library.
  • Hot corner for Sleep Display, which I'll use alot.
  • Automatic Backup of Time Machine, to improve my backup habits.
  • Alex, whom I've heard sounds great. I write alot of little applications that let my kids play with the computer speaking what they type or click on, etc.

You'll notice I'm not interested in alot of the eye candy that's coming... coverflow in finder, Quickview, stacks, etc. But, some of them may surprise me.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

"Scripting Bridge for integrating support for ObjC, Ruby and Python!"

FWIW, you can already do this - see my sig for links.

HTH

has
--
http://appscript.sourceforge.net
http://rb-appscript.rubyforge.org

Joe Weaks said...

Thanks for the note, has. I have actually played around with "appscript" in the past. I'm curious to see Apple's implementation.