Still getting used to Leopard, which continues to impress. A few observations, mostly visual.

Spaces

It’s curious that tiny representations of the individual spaces are not displayed on the overlay when you invoke Spaces. They were likely considered, but if so, why weren’t they adopted? They’re not as clean-looking as the flat white that was used, but they provide additional and useful information.

[Leopard's Spaces is on the left. An altered version with representation is on the right.]

Mail

Placing Mail Activity in the bottom of the sidebar seems great, but that pane looks rushed. Why is it lighter in the middle, for instance?

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Leopard brings big improvements to most applications in Mac OS X, including 13 new features in Safari and 15 in Mail. But iChat gets the most love with 24 new features:

Some of these showcase Apple’s new technology:

Others show Apple playing catch-up:

But what about those last two?

According to Apple, iChat Hot Key lets you “bring your iChat window to the front anytime with a dedicated keyboard shortcut”, while Set Default IM Application lets you “set your default instant messaging application from within iChat”.

At first glance, both seem intended for heavy use. But what if they’re positioned for new uses? The only reason you’d need a default IM application now is if someone clicked your IM address, perhaps in Address Book. You’d be unlikely to do that on your desktop machine—but you might on your iPhone or iPod touch, if they included iChat. And you might if you could access iChat from your AppleTV.

Take a look at that list of new features again. iChat has the most new features of any application in Leopard. That’s extraordinary. The decision to devote that much engineering effort to iChat must have been based on something more than a desire to woo young IM-using buyers, especially since those young buyers already have access to other excellent IM clients.

The deep improvements to iChat in Leopard may show that Apple is shaping a new communication medium, something more than the IM and VoIP chats we have now. Perhaps something related to a secret iChat hardware feature in Leopard.