Apple's Leopard arrives in San Francisco
As Yogi might say, it was deja vu all over again on Stockton Street as Apple released Mac OS X Leopard to the general public.
(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET Networks)It wasn't exactly iPhone Day, but hundreds of people lined up on Stockton Street on Friday outside the San Francisco Apple store to get their hands on Mac OS X Leopard, the newest version of Apple's operating system.
Tyler Howarth (middle) is psyched to be first in line in downtown San Francisco for Leopard.
(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET Networks)About 30 minutes before the doors of the store opened at 6 p.m., the line stretched up Stockton and around the corner onto O'Farrell Street, maybe two-thirds as long as the iPhone line at its longest on June 29. Still, prospective customers waited hours in line to buy Leopard, even though they could have preordered a copy from Apple or Amazon.com and have spent that time installing their new OS.
"That's kind of lame," said Tyler Howarth, first in line, referring to those who took the preorder route. Howarth, a student at San Francisco State University, arrived at 2 p.m. to start waiting in line, although the actual formal queue wasn't set up until 3 p.m. He planned to use the $100 store credit he received after the iPhone pricing snafu to defray the cost of the Leopard upgrade (click for CNET's review) for his Macbook Pro.
Granted, standing in line on a cool autumn evening in San Francisco isn't exactly as demanding as dodging raindrops on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. And it's really, really hard to run out of software; I'm pretty sure you'll be able to walk into any Apple store later tonight or tomorrow and pick up a copy without a wait. But line-waiters seem determined to be part of something, to have an actual experience associated with their upgrades that's a little more interesting than signing for the package.
Apple's retail employees do everything they can to deliver that experience, cheering the early adopters like they just completed a 14-point comeback with 2 minutes left on the clock. The free coffee went quickly, but the first 500 people in line were given T-shirts to mark the occasion.
Apple retail employees welcome Leopard customers with a standing ovation and T-shirts.
(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET News.com)Several of those in line cited Time Machine as the single most important reason they're rushing out to get Leopard, sheepishly admitting they don't regularly back up their system. Not many people do so on a regular basis, even if they've taken the step of purchasing an external hard drive or going as far as to set up a home server.
Amadeus DeMarzi, about halfway back in the line, was relatively new to the Mac, having purchased his first Mac about a year ago. He was also planning to use his iPhone credit on the purchase of Leopard, and cited Time Machine and Spaces, a feature that lets you switch between four separate work areas to help organize your thoughts when working with multiple applications.
Passersby gawked at the crowd as things backed up in the area in front of the Apple store, which is adjacent to entrances for the Powell Street transit stop. "Ooh, I think they're giving out free iPhones!" one woman exclaimed as she passed by with several shopping bags. At around 6:30 p.m., the line was still around the corner onto O'Farrell, but things were moving in an orderly fashion.
It was probably a pretty good night for Apple's retail operation, but we'll get a better sense of the pace of Leopard adoption over the next few weeks and months. I'll check back over the weekend to see how the installation process is going for the early adopters. If you run into any problems, let me know in the comments below.
iPhone Day it wasn't, but foot traffic still backed up in front of Apple's downtown San Francisco store around 6 p.m. as commuters tried to figure out what was going on.
(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET News.com)
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom.
under a minute to about 7 minutes. That rocks!
(BSD) when Leopard boots up for the 1st time. It turns out that
quite a few people have had the same problem (check out the
apple discussion forums). This only happens with upgrades.
There is something called APE (Enhanced Applications or
something like that). The fix is to boot up with another disk and
manually remove the 4 files that cause the conflict. Then
leopard will boot up correctly. A total pain, but much better than
when I've gotten the BSD with a windows machine!
BSoD is much better on a Mac, this is so funny to me and so typical. Everything is sensationalized with mac fans, even a turd from Jobs is golden. I go to school with a whole gang of mac groupies (graphics design, internet communications, and media arts) and the things some of them say are so funny. One girl actually said that she had a hard time organizing her folders but since she got a Mac it's much easier. Mac and Windows use identical file systems, there's absolutely no difference, so why is it all of a sudden better on a Mac?
A BSoD is a BSoD, I don't care what system you get it on, they suck and they're disappointing.
stayed for several minutes. I shut the iMac down and restarted and
Leopard opened as it should. Magnificent!
spinning gear appeared and stayed for several minutes. I shut the
iMac down and restarted and Leopard opened as it should.
Magnificent!
It worked fine before using OS 10.4 (Tiger).
I hope HP will take note of this and get a new driver very soon as I now need to figure out what scanner to purchase that would work with Mac OS 10.5
Chris
help your problem. they are found under optional installations
Where are all the complaints...ooppsss...this is an Apple release not Microsoft. Sorry
Apple store we drove a bit farther to CompUSA. As I figure there
was no line and we swiftly made our purchase. Not only that but
CompUSA had a $30 rebate. This may be the only advantage of
shopping at the KMart of computer retailing.
I've checked at CompUSA- they only sell Leopard at full list price only.
There wasn't any line though, you're right about that. There wasn't much demand or interest. Admittedly, CompUSA doesn't do much to promote it- they spend more time promoting digital cameras than Apple products. :/
I was not too upset as I had been backing up all my user data with Backup. Unfortunately, when I tried to restore my account, Backup complained that it could not find all backup catalogs! As it turned out, when I cleaned up the backup hard drive and asked Backup to do a full backup, it just continued doing incremental ones.
As a result, everything was gone. I am missing a ton of purchased music and videos from iTunes. A bunch of source code, etc.
Not a very happy Leopard experience.
If I'm correct, you tried installing Leopard on a regular desktop PC.
It is possible, but with Mac you get a lot of driver issues, since Mac only distributes drivers for their chosen hardware which comes in a Apple PC. Result: Most of the times you don't have sound or internet because drivers are not supported.
Other thing, you need a alternate ROM chip, which is designed for Mac PC's. Without it, you can't use BootCamp.
:::BACKUP LESSONS:::
If you go backup your files. ALWAYS store it on an external drive, USB stick or whatever you can detach from your computer. I myself don't use the fancy backup applications. If you have your PC organized a little you don't need it.
My standard routine is "My Documents", "Non-default folders in C:\" and eventually if there are any "Savegames in Program Files or application settings."
So far for backup lessons.
When you install OSX on a regular system your hard drive needs to be formatted to the Mac format. Result: You lose all your files on the hard drive.
Next and last thing, OSX messes up your boot order acting as if it's the only OS on your system.
These points considered, you can't complain about Leopard erasing your HD.
If you weren't using another system but just OSX, my sincere apologies for calling you a *******. You might though consider going for an external HD...
Upgrades of existing OS's are just basically patches that can and will fail on you over time. A clean install is always the most reliable method.
Get a life people.
I ordered mine at Amazon: $109 + $0 for overnight shipping + $0 tax + 0 hours spent on line.
surfing the internet. Get a life
a line during the Vista "WOW" (^0^)/
HL-2070N). Brother has no plans to create a driver for this printer
and Apple Store sells it. Adobe GoLive CS will not launch. Most 3rd
party apps not working. Time Machine needs a wired external drive
in order to work which is truly a "step back in time" considering
this is the era of wireless. AppleCare ($$$) not accepting calls
today. This is a sure sign of some major problems. If your a beta
tester jump on it. If you're a regular user wait to get it!
I refer to this comment:
""That's kind of lame," said Tyler Howarth, first in line, referring to those who took the preorder route. "
Yeh, all the cool kids are lining up at the Apple store for their new OS.
noon with no problems, a good 6 hours before Tyler even got thru
the front door. This kids a college student? What a waste of
money.
How does this rate as news?? Doesn't CNET know that the operating system wars ended about 15 years ago and Windows won by a landslide. The current score is 95% to 3%. Yawn.
lack of knowledge.
Comparing Leopard to Window 98, is like trying to compare
Vista to Apple's Tiger operating system -- there is no
comparison.
Tiger Wins. Leopard Wins.
Marketshare means nothing: Toyota has the largest car
marketshare but they don't compare to Hondas or Porsche's.
I'm all for the advancement of any OS as it keeps progress going forward.
gotten much better. Apples corp. worth (160 billion +) just passed
HP and Dell. Money talks phony 3% BS walks. Go away troll.
my copy of Leopard and walked out 10 minutes..no waiting.
OK..maybe 15 because I look at some of the other stuff that there
Clarisworks Documents, and compatibility with iWorks is crude at
best. Am I going to abandon all that work because leopard doesn't
have Classic? What do you think?
Goodbye further Apple s/w and h/w purchases.
CCarlson
environment that won't even run on their currently selling
hardware?! How dare they drop support for software that is over
ten years old and has been replaced by functional equivalents?
!</sarcasm>
At some point you might think about joining the 21st century
and actually upgrade. You're complaints are equivalent to
somebody that is ticked off that they can't run their Windows
3.1 applications in Vista. While upgrading to iWork might
actually require some work with your existing files, in the end, it
would probably be worth the time.
There is even a program available that will convert the files to
present day formats and retain the formatting:
http://www.panergy-software.com/products/icword/index.html
would suggest you plan ahead and look into converting your work
over to iWork files. iWork is a great alternative to what most of
AppleWorks does.
Even most Lotus 123 users on PCs moved on to Excel. No software
is forever and advances will happen.
were just trying not to make Windows Vista look so bad. My
upgrade took me 13 hours (an unlucky number that!), but did
finally work. The take home message is:
IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE BIG ENOUGH
TO CLONE YOUR WHOLE INTERNAL DRIVE AND SOME
CLONING/BACKUP SOFTWARE, DON'T BUY LEOPARD UNLESS YOU
ARE PREPARED TO LOSE ALL YOUR DATA AND RE-INSTALL ALL
YOUR APPLICATIONS.
Here is the history of my rocky road to Leopard:
22:30 25 October 2007: Clone perfectly working 500 Gb internal
drive (247 Gb free space) running under OS 10.4.10 with latest
updates to external 1 Tb drive using Intego's Personal BackupX4
.
22:45 25 October 2007: Go to bed.
07:10 26 October 2007: Check there are zero errors in external
clone.
18:45 26 October 2007: Purchase Family 5 pack licence for
Leopard
16:00 27 October 2007: Bite lip, insert Leopard Instal DVD and
follow instructions
16:03 27 October 2007: Get warning message in window where
you choose the drive on which the upgrade is to take place: 'Mac
OSX cannot start up from this volume. The destination disk must
be erased for installation.'
16:04 27 October 2007: Reboot successfully from volume from
which Mac OSX supposedly cannot start up and check formatting
of disk - it's Mac OS extended (journaled) as it should be.
16:05 27 October 2007: Re-attempt Leopard install - result
same warning.
16:10 - 17:10 27 October 2007: Conclude there must be some
faults in the headers, tree structure, or permissions on the
internal disk, so spend an hour checking internal disk with Disk
Utility, Drive Genius and Tech Tools Pro - all of which say there
are NO FAULTS. Nevertheless, to be sure I defragment the drive.
17:11 27 October 2007: Re-attempt installation of Leopard -
result, same warning.
17:12 27 October 2007: Ring AppleCare and wait about 20
minutes listening to the world's most untuneful tunes from the
iTunes Music Store. I figure that the wait means I am not the
only customer having problems and wonder whether Apple
Customer care were prescient enough to roster extra technical
support people for the days following the release of Leopard.
17:32 27 October 2007: Technical support Assistant, Dave
answers my call and I explain the problem. Dave says, 'Oh that
means you have to re-partition your internal drive, restore your
clone to the new partition, install Leopard on the new partition
and blah de blah de blah de blah! I dig my heels in and tell Dave
that is simply not acceptable and that Apple has promised me
that this upgrade will be smooth and the easiest yet. I am not
prepared to do all that - I want another solution.
17:33 27 October 2007: Dave agrees to call a higher authority
and we try various thinks like ejecting all the external (Firewire)
hard drives to no effect. Dave's higher authority then suggests I
check the internal drive with Disk Utility again (having restarted
from the Leopard Install DVD). As soon as I click on Utilities in
the Menu bar the yellow warning sign on my internal drive
disappears mysteriously and is replaced by the friendly green
arrow saying that the installation onto my internal drive can
proceed.
17:50 27 October 2007: Mistake #1 - I follow Dave's suggestion
and click on 'CONTINUE' (with hindsight what I should have done
at this point is to click on 'OPTIONS' and established whether of
not the radio button beside the first option that reads
something like 'Upgrade will replace existing OS and no other
files or data will be affected', but I'm a trusting person and
follow the advice of dave's higher authority. The upgrade seems
to be going OK after 5 minutes, so Dave gives me a case number
and asks me to call back and quote it if further problems occur.
19:30 27 October 2007: (Note: 90 minutes after the AppleCare
Helpdesk closes on a Saturday!) The Leopard installation
program completes and asks me whether or not I wish to enjoy
the delights of Leopard. I click 'YES' and Leopard relaunches
successfully and I check the contents of my internal drive and
find to my horror that, without warning. Leopard has done a
'CLEAN INSTALL' - all my data and applications are GONE! I am
now ON MY OWN UNTIL 09:00 Monday - I swear, pull out my
voodoo manikin of Steve Jobs and insert a few curare-tipped hat
pins into it.
19:35 27 October 2007: Feeling better, I reconnect external
hard disk with cloned Tiger OS + data and attempt to use
Migration Assistant to migrate all my families accounts and
applications to Leopard. Migration Assistant tells me that the
external clone does not have Mac OS X installed on it (despite
the fact that I can see a 'System' folder containing 10.4.10 on it)
and that it can't migrate anything. I swear some more and put
more hat pins into 'Steve' - one right through his groin!
19:40 27 October 2007: I attempt to change the start-up disk in
Leopard to the external hard disk with the cloned 10.4.10 -
everything seems to work, except when I click restart (with the
padlock item locked) the computer refuses to restart from the
external drive and defaults to Leopard (3 f**king times!). I insert
more hat pins into Steve, including an extra long one that goes
up his rectum and out of his right eyeball.
19:50 27 October 2007: Becoming desperate and not being able
to reboot from the external drive I decide to install Personal
BackupX4 on the internal drive and attempt to clone the external
drive onto the internal drive. I can't see how this will work with
the Leopard OS being needed to run PBX4 and it trying to write a
10.4.10 System folder over the top of it, but what have I got to
lose?
19:51 27 October 2007: To my complete surprise with the
source set to the external drive and the destination set to the
boot drive the clone starts as if OK. I go and work on my bicycle.
01:30 28 October 2007: PBX4 says that it has transferred all of
the files (except a couple of fonts that are apparently
incompatible with Leopard) but has entered 'flat-line mode'
where it says it is 'finishing' but not transferring any data - this
has been going on since 00:30. I try to exit PBX4 without
success - even force quit doesn't work. I turn off the Mac and
try to restart - the grey screen of death spins its little wheel for
10 minutes while I insert my remaining hat pins into Steve who
is now looking like a porcupine.
01:45 28 October 2007: I go get my trusty Tiger install DVDs for
the PowerMac (Intel Xeon x 2) and try to remember how to get
the DVD drive bay door open when the Mac won't boot. I scream
'Open the pod bay doors Hal' at Steve waking my wife and both
dog's all of whom start barking at me! I calm down, apologize to
my wife and the dogs, and try holding down the eject key when I
push the power on button. It works! I realize that the pins in
Steve are beginning to work - this is the first piece of 'good
fortune' that I have experienced for 24 hours! I re-install OS
10.4.8 (which came with the PowerMac and update it to 10.4.10
using Safari.
03:15 28 October 2007: I now have my Power Mac in the same
condition as it was at 16:00 the previous day having used
Migration Assistant under 10.4.10 successfully (Unlike Leopard,
10.4.10 DOES RECOGNIZE 10.4.10 on an external drive) to
recover all of the family's accounts and data from the external
clone. I go outside and stare up at the night sky, I see a mouse
scuttle towards the hen house and hear the click of a mouse
trap. Seizing my chance I rush to the hen house and retrieve the
still warm corpse. I prepare a small pile of twigs in the garden
under the (nearly) full moon and place Steve and the hat pins on
top of it. I cut the dead mouse's head off and squeeze it's blood
onto Steve. I light the twigs and strip naked and dance solemnly
around the sacrificial fire incanting 'worms, woolly aphids,
codling moths and all known pests of the Apple tree give me The
Power!' Lights go on in the house next door.
03:30 28 October 2007: I explain to the police patrol officer
what I am doing and why and he helps me put my clothes on
again. Fortunately he is sympathetic, because he had attempted
to install Leopard on his Intel iMac before coming on duty and
was still watching the grey screen of death when he had to leave
for work. He tells me his name is Darren and asks me if the
moonlight sacrifice has worked for me in the past. I tell him that
it did when I had a similar experience going from OS 9.5.5 to
OSX, but I add that I had to use owl's feathers on that occasion
as there were no mice in the hen house that night. Darren asks
if he might be allowed to watch as I attempt another upgrade to
Leopard on the restored 10.4.10. He tells me he admires my
intestinal fortitude for even attempting it.
03:45 28 October 2007: Darren watches as I eject and
disconnect the external hard disk, bite my lip for the umpteenth
time and close the DVD pod bay door and click on the install
Leopard icon. We get to the fateful 'choose disk for installation'
screen and this time, by the Power of all of the pests of the
Apple tree the welcome GREEN ARROW magically appears over
my internal drive. Being less trusting and more experienced than
I was at 17:50 the previous evening, I click on options - the
radio button beside the 'Upgrade will replace existing OS and no
other files or data will be affected' is highlighted. I cross myself,
throw a pinch of salt over my left shoulder onto Darren's
uniform, apologize and click 'CONTINUE'. The DVD whirs and I
pour Darren and myself a beer. We have several more and
recount Mac upgrades past over the next 90 minutes as Leopard
re-installs.
05:15 28 October 2007: While singing the third chorus of
'Eskimo Nell', Darren and I notice that Leopard is asking us
whether or not we wish to sample its features. I throw three
more pinches of salt over my right shoulder (being carefull to
avoid Darren's uniform, which is now covered with beer stains
and cracker crumbs) and click 'YES'. Leopard reboots and there
as if by magic, is my old log-in screen, and then my desk top
with all of the new Leopard widgets! All my data is still intact
(although I do have to re-install about 12 applications because
the licence key files have obviously gone missing in the
clone/migration assistant exercise. Darren shakes my hand and
we embrace. My wife enters the study in her dressing gown with
a quizzical look on her face, possibly wondering why I am
hugging a beer stained policeman in uniform. I tell her that I will
explain everything later.
05:30 28 October 2007: Darren bids me farewell and as we walk
to his patrol car I retrieve another freshly dead mouse from the
hen house and some twigs and give them to him with my best
wishes. 'Take care', he says with a tear in his eye, 'I'd better go
back to the station and clock off.'
'You too', I reply, 'Come on Honey, it's time I got some sleep, a
Leopard can't change its spots! You don't mind if I leave Tiger
on your Mac for a few months do you?'
Nicely written up and worth of Dave Barry. A good bit of parody.
far away from this kind of publicity. They couldn't even scrap
together this much enthusiasm for Vista, a "revolution" as they
called it, yet leopard is just an upgrade, in reality.
Apple's knows what they're doing. Microsoft, not so much. This
article is pretty interesting comparing the Microsoft OS after
almost a year of hindsight. I love seeing Apple move forward as
they are...
Take a look: http://anotherstinkinblog.blogspot.com/
trumpeting Microsoft's Ultimate ? victory.
In today's open market, Apple is gaining market share at +30 each
year
:-)
45 minutes. Done. Only disappointment was loss of all printer
descriptions, have to rebuild each one. But, drivers are mostly
there in the install.
- 1 somewhat major glitch.
-
by themusicmanrk
October 28, 2007 9:18 PM PDT
- I pre-ordered Leopard online then printed the Fed-Ex sign-off
-
Reply to this comment
-
(55 Comments)form to tape to the door since I would be at work when it was
delivered. The one problem I had installing it Friday night was it
took 3 reboots before my primary internal hard drive showed up to
install it on. Only my secondary HD was recognized the first 2
times. After that, it was just unchecking the printers I didn't need
(I couldn't uncheck most of the languages.) and popped in a short
movie while I waited. It's been running fine for 2 days now so far.