Apple’s much anticipated new version of its operating system, Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard has recently been released. This of course kept the Mac faithful happy, but is it any good?

The arrival of the newest version of an operating system, or any new version of a popular project, is always something that will create a lot of discussion and interest, often generated by significant hype prior to its arrival. When the much anticipated day of release finally comes there is often a feeling of deflation, of anti-climax, of there being something missing, or … well perhaps that is just me. Sometimes the new arrival lives up to its billing and sometimes it falls short on expected functionality. On this occasion though Leopard has stepped up to the mark.

One of the most obvious changes in a new version of an operating system is often the look and feel, and Leopard is no exception. In this case delivered through some minor visual tweaks to the interface, like a much needed clean up of the window appearance and a new look dock, which are then complimented by some interesting visual functionality like Cover Flow the well known navigation tool for your iTunes music collection which makes it as an additional navigational tool within Finder, allowing you to flip through the contents of your disks with ease. The album art from iTunes being replaced by an image of the first page of any document being looked at. There some valuable new applications too, not least the new backup tool called Time Machine that is easy to use and looks great.

You can find Leopard here and there is also a family version available which would be good value for money if you have a family of Macs. If you are like me and a rely on a clapped out laptop for your computing needs I suggest you also have a look at the fabulous MacBook or MacBook Pro. Unfortunately in my case I will be just looking for now.