Prince McLean

Latest Articles from Prince McLean

An Introductory Mac OS X Leopard Review: Present & Future Value

Mac OS X Leopard delivers performance enhancements, new apps and features, and exposes new functionality for developers to exploit in their own applications. How much is that worth, and where does Mac OS X have to go in the future? In this final installment of our Leopard series, we offer a roundup of the value presented by Leopard, how it compares with Apple's previous efforts, and what users can expect over the next year of Leopard and into the future.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

An Introductory Mac OS X Leopard Review: Developer Tools

Among all of the new and improved applications Apple delivers to users in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, some of the most important are those that developers can use to build applications of their own. If you're not a hard core programmer, Leopard also offers a variety of more accessible tools: Automator for scripting, DashCode for building widgets, and Quartz Composer for creating audio and visual plugins, screen savers, image filters for iChat and music visualizations for iTunes. Here's the trail Apple's developer tools have followed, and how Apple nearly killed itself several times by not providing adequate tools in the past.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

An Introductory Mac OS X Leopard Review: Core Graphics and the New UI

Beyond the desktop and main applications in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, its most obvious advancements are related to graphics and the underlying performance improvements that speed up everything being displayed on the screen. There are a number of aspects to why Leopard's graphics feels faster, and some interesting notes on how the graphical user interface is changing in Leopard. Here's a look at how everything works.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

An Introductory Mac OS X Leopard Review: Address Book and iChat

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard comes with a selection of entirely new or greatly improved applications. The new system is designed to be flexible to fit your needs, so you can import the data from existing apps you currently use into Leopard's, or alternatively continue to use your own preferred alternative apps on the new OS. It also exposes new functionality for developers to allow them to extend upon, replace, or collaborate with Apple's supplied applications. Here's a look at how the new versions of Address Book and iChat work.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

An Introductory Mac OS X Leopard Review: Mail and iCal

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

An Introductory Mac OS X Leopard Review: Meet Your New Desktop

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has two audiences: those who already own a Mac and are interested in upgrading their experience, and new buyers investigating a Mac purchase. This review series is designed primarily toward Mac users looking to upgrade but includes notes of interest to new Mac buyers as well. This segment provides a 2-page introduction to Leopard's overall features and an introduction of the desktop, with real world usage notes about its peculiarities so you can decide if Leopard (and the Mac) is right for you.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

Road to Mac OS X Leopard: QuickTime, iTunes, and Media Features

In addition to the new searching, browsing and back up features for office documents (Finder, Dock, Quick Look, Cover Flow, Spotlight, Time Machine) and new support for collaborative information sharing (Mail, iChat, iCal, Server), Mac OS X Leopard also advances support for audio and video media in QuickTime, iTunes, Photo Booth, Front Row, and other applications. Here's what's new in Leopard and where the ideas behind rich media on the desktop came from.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

Road to Mac OS X Leopard: System Preferences

Many functions in Mac OS X are only exposed to the user via System Preferences, so as you might guess, a lot of new things in Leopard show up there. Among them are a few of the "secret new features" that have never been previously announced in demonstrations of Leopard, laying to rest the hopes of certain critics that Steve Jobs somehow failed to deliver upon his assurance that the new system would deliver a variety of other new features Apple was keeping under wraps so that competitors wouldn't copy them before they were released. Here's a look at where System Preferences came from, and what's new.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Parental Controls and Directory Services

Mac OS X Leopard not only makes it easy to do new things, it also allows you to restrict functions based on permissions. In home settings, this feature is presented as Parental Controls. In business settings, the same technology is used to provide Managed Preferences, essentially setting up controls and guidelines for employees rather than children. This is another example of applying technologies in both the client and server side of the product, and how Apple is leveraging its strength in its core markets to expand into new areas. Here's how the features work in Leopard and Leopard Server, what you can do with them, and where the ideas behind managed preferences — and the underlying directory services supporting them — came from.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

Road to Mac OS X Leopard Server: Collaborative Info Sharing Services

Leopard sports a series of changes both under the hood and in its user interface that improve the performance and usability of the Mac desktop for individual users, and combine to deliver new collaborative server features for networked machines in office settings. Servers and shared services are also moving into the home; here's a look at what's new in Leopard and Leopard Server related to file sharing and collaborative information services, and where the plumbing inside Mac OS X comes from.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Dashboard, Spotlight and the Desktop

It's not just major applications that are getting updates in Mac OS X Leopard. Apple has updated and expanded the Desktop, Spotlight, and Dashboard, adding new features, graphical flourishes, and new performance enhancements that add functionality and polish to every app running on the system. Here's a look at what's new in the overall desktop environment of Leopard.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Safari 3.0

Apple has made significant changes to Safari in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, introducing integration with Dashboard, smart drag and drop of tabbed windows, full text searching of your web history, and more. Here's a look at the birth and maturity of the online web browser, as well as a look at what's new in Safari 3.0.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

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Road to Mac OS X Leopard: iCal 3.0

Apple has made major changes to iCal in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, introducing integration with its own new WebDAV-based iCal Server included in Leopard Server. Here's a comprehensive history of software-based calendar applications and a look at what's new in iCal 3.0.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

A comprehensive list of Leopard features and surprises

Apple claims Mac OS X Leopard includes "over 300 new features," but how many of them are significant reasons to upgrade? And how many of those 300 new features were revealed for the first time today? Here's a comprehensive list for those readers who don't have time to scour Apple's various Leopard pages on their own.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

Road to Mac OS X Leopard: iChat 4.0

Apple has taken iChat instant messaging in interesting new directions with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, introducing support for video effects and screen sharing. Here's a look at what's new.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Mail 3.0

Mail in Mac OS X has progressively grown from the simple mail client Apple included with the first builds of Mac OS X into one of the best email solutions for the Mac, and certainly the most popular. As the default app for email on the Mac, Mail gets lots of feature requests and lots of complaints when things don't work as expected. For example, Mail 2.0 in Tiger drew gasps from its use of nonstandard toolbar icons that grouped functions together in bubbles. Apple has significantly updated Mail for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, introducing support for Notes, To Do reminders, RSS feeds, Data Detectors, and HTML Statonery. Here's a look at what's new.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

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Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Time Machine

Time Machine is one of the most visually prominent new features demonstrated in Mac OS X Leopard, even if the core idea of backups is as old — or perhaps older — than the concept of having any data worthy of being restored. Here's a look at what's new and different about Apple's approach with Time Machine, why backups are a problem to be solved, and how well Leopard's new Time Machine actually works in practice.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

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Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Spaces

Spaces is an entirely new feature in Mac OS X Leopard, but the idea of virtual desktops — and multiple desktops — has been around for a long time. Here's a look at what's new and different about Apple's approach with Spaces, why virtual desktops have run into problems before, and how well Leopard's Spaces actually works in practice.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

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Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Dock 1.6

The Dock in Mac OS X is unique in comparison to the user interface of Windows, most Linux distros that emulate the Windows desktop, and previous versions of the Classic Mac OS. Apple has significantly updated the Dock in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Here's a look at what's new and different in our 3-page report.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

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AT&T's $2.5B spectrum deal to expand wireless network

Apple's exclusive U.S. iPhone service provider AT&T said Tuesday it has agreed to purchase spectrum licenses from Aloha Partners LP totaling approximately $2.5 billion, expanding its ability to deliver wireless voice, data and video services to customers.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Finder 10.5

The Finder in Mac OS X has long been reviled as the most glaring problem in the system, earning it the "Fix the F-ing Finder" meme. Apple has significantly updated the Finder for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, introducing some things old, some things new, some things borrowed, and, well, the icon is still blue. Here's a look at what's new.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

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ZFS to play larger role in future versions of Mac OS X

Sun Microsystems' relatively new ZFS filesystem will see rudimentary support under the soon-to-be released Mac OS X Leopard, but will eventually play a much larger role in future versions of the Apple operating system, AppleInsider has been told.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Dictionary 2.0

Apple has significantly updated Dictionary 2.0 for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, expanding it from a simple word lookup into a complete multilingual reference tool. Here's a look at what's new in Dictionary.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

Apple considering Intel chip for future iPhone

Apple may eventually abandon its custom-designed Samsung system on chip (SoC) found at the heart of the iPhone for one developed by Intel, according to a new report.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

Road to Mac OS X Leopard: an extensive look at Preview 4.0

Apple in a matter of weeks will roll out Preview 4.0 as part of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, a significant update to its homebred media viewer that will see the application expand from a simple PDF reader into the beginnings of a full-fledged image editor. Here's an extensive look at what's new in Preview.

Prince McLean | 17 years ago

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