I recently got a new Mac Pro, and decided–contrary to my usual policy of waiting a while when new OS versions are released–to upgrade to Leopard right away. I knew I’d be facing some incompatibility issues, but figured, as long as Logic, Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, and Word worked (which they do), I’d be able to get by.

As it turns out, most of my software either worked out of the box, or was upgradeable from company Web sites. Two rather important exceptions were Pro Tools and my Waves plug-ins (I have the Musician’s Bundle II), neither of which support Leopard. I assumed that Digidesign and Waves would have already offered Leopard compatible apps and plug-ins by now (it’s been several weeks since Leopard hit), but so far, they haven’t. Hopefully, that will change soon, but if you heavily use either Pro Tools or Waves plugs, you should definitely wait to upgrade.

Now, to Leopard itself. The following are some random thoughts about my experiences with it so far. This is not a comprehensive look, but rather just some musings on some of the features I’ve used. There are so many new items in Leopard, there are certainly plenty of new items I haven’t even tried yet.

So far, I’ve been impressed with a number of the new additions. The Spaces feature lets you designate up to four separate desktops for different applications, and you can switch between them with key commands. As somebody who often has a ton of programs open, I find this to be a very cool feature. I’m still getting used to using it, and sometimes find myself trying to open programs in the wrong Space, but it will definitely help reduce the dreaded window clutter.

Another Leopard feature that I’ve found extremely handy is Quick Look. It allows you to actually look (or listen to or watch) a file without having to open the application. I’ve found it very useful when I’m auditioning loops that are in a finder window. All you have to do is select the file and hit the spacebar, and boom, it plays (in the case of an audio or movie file) or opens a preview (in the case of a document or picture). Very cool.

One of the Leopard features getting a lot of attention is Time Machine, which is a backup utility with some pretty neat features. For instance it lets you look back to versions of backed up files previous to the most recent, allowing you to restore a file to a state from a particular date. I tried to set it up for backing up my work files, but found that it’s overly simplified interface didn’t allow for enough customization for my needs. Also, my backup drives are of the same size as my primary drives, and with Time Machine, you really need a backup drive that’s considerably larger. That’s because it’s saving multiple copies of files. So, at least for the moment, I’m sticking with SuperDuper for backing up my system drive (it also has the advantage of making a bootable backup, which Time Machine doesn’t do), and ChronoSync for my file backups.

I’m impressed with the new version of Mail that comes with Leopard. It integrates To Do items (syncable to iCal) and a notepad, and looks sleeker. In general, the new Leopard look, which includes translucent menus, is pretty cool. I’m not crazy about the new folder look, however. Apple has done away with colored folders. You can assign a label (and therefore a color) to a Folder, but it only affects the name underneath, not the folder itself. As a result, the folders are a little dull looking to my view.

From a performance standpoint, Leopard generally seems to run pretty smoothly for me. However, I have been seeing the dreaded spinning beach ball more often than I did in Tiger (I have increased the number of drives in my system, so that may be a lot of it, as the beachball appears when your Mac is switching drives). Occasionally, things seem to get hung up and there’s a little delay before my computer responds to a key press. Perhaps I need to do a clean install and reinstall the system to get it to run a little more efficiently (ugh, I hope not), but I’ll wait and see. Perhaps upcoming Leopard upgrades (I’m running 10.5.1 right now) will solve that.

Overall, I don’t regret making the move. I find Leopard’s new features to be very useful for the most part, and I’m confident that the apps I have that aren’t supported yet will be soon.