Sean Sperte noted that Core Image now makes it possible to use an interface depth of field to distinguish background windows. This would probably work great for many users, but as his readers commented, it wouldn’t work well for heavily multitasking users who use several windows simultaneously, such as a researcher reading from a background browser window while writing in the foreground.

The problem this addresses is real. Leopard’s improves things with stronger shadows, lightened window titlebars and other cues, yet it can still be hard at times to notice which window is frontmost.

These two screenshots illustrate the problem. Beyond a little overlap between the two lower windows, there aren’t many cues to help you appreciate which is frontmost. (These are Photoshop-ed, so slight inaccuracies exists, but you get the idea.)

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You know how sometimes choosing Sleep from the Apple menu takes forever to actually go to sleep, and even then you can still hear the fan whirring and the hard disk spinning?

There’s a great keyboard shortcut that’s faster and quieter:

This puts your Mac into a sleep so deep there’s no noise of any kind. No fan. No hard disk.

Searching in Google for text you read in a window somewhere else usually goes like this: Select the text, copy the text to the clipboard, open Safari, create a new window, click in the search field in the upper-right corner of the window, paste in the copied text, then hit Enter to start the search.

There’s an easier way.

To search for text you read in another window, right-click that then choose Search in Google to open a new window in Safari and start a Google search.

This also works in Mail, Preview, and most other applications in Mac OS X.

Leopard’s Preview application animates the transition while rotating and resizing images—a relatively small amount of work thanks to Core Animation, but you appreciate the difference when you see it.

And it’s useful as well as attractive because the brief visual cues link the old and new visual states so you don’t have to. You notice immediately if you accidentally rotate left instead of right, for instance.

Here’s how rotating an image in Tiger looks:

And here’s how it looks in Leopard:

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You know how you can choose Get Info to see detailed information about the items you’ve selected in Finder?

That works great for one item, but if you want to Get Info on many items, one after the other, that means opening and closing a lot of Get Info windows.

There’s a better way: use the Inspector. Unlike the Get Info window, which displays the information for one item only, the Inspector changes dynamically to reflect the current Finder selection.

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In a fine Businessweek article exploring the difficulties competitors face in trying to compete with Apple, writer Sohrab Vossoughi defines the Apple ecosystem:

Surrounding a successful product like the iPod is a complete ecosystem that includes content and services, software and interfaces, retail experience, Web site experience, and an army of accessories.

He adds a great analogy:

Imagine competing with NASA by designing a better space shuttle—but ignoring the launch pad, ground control in Houston, or the facilities at Cape Canaveral. Apple is successful because all of the elements of its ecosystem are in place—and are consistently meaningful and relevant to its target consumers.

And ties it all in to the Apple brand:

In the hands of an artful company like Apple, design is the vehicle for driving meaningful, relevant experiences that are authentic to the brand. It’s not about paring product lines or making cool stuff. Done right, design can add value to the bottom line and the brand. Design done right goes beyond the appearance and behavior of the object itself. It takes the entire product ecosystem into consideration. Design done right sees technology as an enabler, not the solution.

This is Apple’s great strength: the Apple brand. No matter whether you first purchased an iPod or a iMac, first smiled at the “Get a Mac” or dancing iPod ads, or first felt your attention drawn to the fluid grace of the animated iPhone user interface—no matter what first drew you in, what likely held you was the Apple brand.