Rory Prior has a bunch of interesting points about the new Leopard appearance. (Is it still called Aqua?) There’s certainly some weirdness, but overall I think it’s an improvement over Tiger. The Dock-on-the-side is fixed, thankfully. The menu bar is only partially fixed, but we’ve finally seen the end of Brushed Metal.
Already, the BridgeSupport API metadata is used for more than just bridging languages. For example, Xcode offers Objective-C method name completion in standalone Python and Ruby source files—no project necessary—by leveraging the BridgeSupport metadata!
Leopard is chock full of details like this—little things that won’t be promoted on the box cover or mentioned in mainstream media reviews, but which, taken cumulatively, epitomize why Mac OS X keeps getting better with each major release.
I don’t think there’s any one thing in Leopard, even Time Machine or Spaces, that’s a must-have for most users. Of the major features, Quick Look will probably have the most impact. Mostly, though, it’s the huge number of smaller improvements (for both users and developers) that make Leopard a great upgrade.
