If you only remotely followed the spreading news around the net, you should already be aware of all the good things Apple’s new operating system brought us. So I’m just gonna sum up the few things that bug me the most.
Just let me state that besides those, I really love the new things OS 10.5 Leopard provides me with.
So here are my gripes:
- Lack of Bluetooth in Address Book – Why the hell did Apple remove the ability to control my cell phone via Bluetooth from the Address Book application? I just loved being able to answer and place calls and most notably send and receive text messages via a very integrated GUI application. I hate typing messages on my phone keyboard, so this was a really nice addition and I just don’t understand why Apple considered this to be a feature that should be removed.
- Cmd+Tab doesn’t cycle anymore – In all previous OS X versions, if you pressed Cmd+Tab to switch applications, you could go left and right. Meaning if you where at the first application icon on the left, pressing Cmd+Shift+Tab or Cmd+Tab and Left Arrow you where taken to the rightmost entry. This doesn’t happen anymore. The task switcher stops at the edges, which I find very inconvenient. Now it takes me a lot longer to reach the application I was aming for, most of the time.
- Network mounts not showing up – This one is still a bit confusing. The new integration of network shares in the Finder is quite good and works very fast. But network shares do not show up as mounted volumes on the Desktop anymore. The only way to get to them and eject them, is by displaying the “Comuter” item in the finder and clicking on its icon. Alas, there are all my mounted network volumes. If Apple didn’t want to clutter up the Desktop, they could at least let those Volumes show up in the Finder sidebar, like mounted DMGs.
- FrontRow stopping iTunes music – When entering FrontRow while playing music, it stops the playback and you have to navigate to the desired song again. Quite the show stopper when moving away from your computer but wanting to have a nice readable interface from the distance.
- iTunes Artwork screensaver has a red tinge – If you set the iTunes Artwork screensaver to more than 6 rows, which is necessary for widescreen displays to get rid of the black border on the edges, all the pictures suddenly have a reddish tinge. This is confirmed on two separate installs of Leopard on my MacBook and Ollis’s MacBook Pro.
That’s it for now. I’ll add to this list, as items pop up 😉
Update: Already one more addition to the list: FrontRow stopping iTunes music
Update #2: iTunes Artwork screensaver has a red tinge
Update #3: Some quirks could be resolved via the comments (Thank you all!). Read my follow up posting.
“Cmd+Tab doesn???t cycle anymore”
I must be crazy because it works perfectly fine on my comptuer.
we did not remove Cmd+Tab capability, it works as before…
“Cmd+Tab doesn???t cycle anymore”
It does for me. I can cmd+shift+tab from the first app in the row and it switches to the last. cmd+shift+leftarrow doesn’t work though, but I never tried that on Tiger to know if it ever did!
Actually, on my install of Leopard (iMac 1.8 GHz PPC), the “Command-Tab” task switcher ribbon does cycle, both left to right and the reverse.
Perhaps this is a bug on your system? Maybe a corrupt/secret pref?
Try filing an apple bug report.
Tab switching works the same as always on my MBP 2.2 (Santa Rosa). I had a few quirks initially, but all went away after doing a clean install rather than the default OS upgrade.
Hey, Cmd+Tab still cycles like it used to; are you running a beta version (or a 3rd party desktop-extender) or something?
I haven’t modified anything to override the default setting for this, so something weird/unfortunate must be going on at your end.
(Hope it heals!)
I just checked on my mac, and in leopard the CMD+Tab works exactly as it did before! All the things you can’t seem to do anymore work just fine here!
I don’t know what’s wrong with your Leopard installation, but two of your listed quirks aren’t true on my system.
On my leopard installation, cmd+tab works just like in Tiger. When you reach the edge of the cmd+tab bar, it jumps to the other end, so it does cycle.
And if you want the network shares to show up on the desktop, it’s in the Finder preferences under ‘General’. I only have appleshare volumes, so I’m not sure whether it works with all types of shares.
As for the last one the reason for it, in Tiger Front Row merely controlled other applications on the system, from iTunes to DVD Player. In Leopard, front row is a separate application that does the work itself. It would have been nice if Apple were to have built the new Front Row to check what’s playing on the system and simply resume it when it kicks in.
if you where at the first application icon on the left, pressing Cmd+Shift+Tab or Cmd+Tab and Left Arrow you where taken to the rightmost entry
Actually, this still works in Leopard; I just confirmed it on my own installation.
“Why the hell did Apple remove the ability to control my cell phone via Bluetooth from the Address Book application?”
Raging personal opinion: Because the iPhone has Bluetooth and doesn’t support it and you would really expect to be able to do it with your iPhone just like you could with your old, far-less capable phone.
Network shares *do* show up as mounted volumes on the Desktop as before, you just need to enable the option on finder preferences.
I see the same problem with Cmd-Tab… I start it by Cmd-Tab and then cycle through the apps using the left or right arrow key. In Leopard, it doesn’t go back to the beginning when at the right side of the list and pressing the right arrow… or vice-versa. it does work using “normal” cmd-tab.
stumbled across your post as i had exactly the same issue – namely “Cmd+Tab doesn???t cycle anymore” on my Leopard, however i found a fix, may be it will be helpful to others as well.
Once i have tried “Cmd+Shift+Tab” combination and cycled across the left edge, plain “Cmd+Tab” started to work as it used to work on Tiger.
Cheers!
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