Apple is famously cautious about things like this, but if not now, then when?
If you’ve got a Mac, buy Leopard. It’s worth it just for Spaces. Spaces is the Leopard capability that allows you to have multiple desktops. If you have sufficient memory (my advice: always buy as much as you can afford) then it improves your productivity in a clear and obvious way. It is like having multiple Macs. You just go from one to the other with a single key-stroke.
Before I bought Leopard, I tried two OS X freeware apps, Virtue Desktops and Desktop Manager, which provide a similar kind of capability. I eventually settled on Desktop Manager. It made a difference. Spaces is better than both of these. Apple has done its usual competent design job of improving on someone else’s idea.
Once you get used to multiple desktops, the productivity impact is dramatic. When it comes down to it, it’s about multi-tasking and screen real-estate. Right now I have a 30 inch screen with 8 desktops. That adds up to 22 sq ft of screen space. You can use it all, believe me. Spaces allows you to allocate applications to specific desktops - primary applications like Mail, Pages (or Word), Numbers (or Excel), Keynote (or Powerpoint), Photoshop, BBEdit (plus other web development products) and Parallels (for Windows legacy apps) can all be allocated to a specific space. Pervasive apps (like Safari or Firefox) can be allocated to run in every space. The effect of doing this is that tasks or activities get assigned to spaces and you can move freely from one to another.It’s one of those things that you just have to do to understand the difference it makes. Imho, Leopard is worth $129 just for Spaces and the Coverflow on the Finder - which is also a genuine productivity aid.
OS X in a Virtual Machine
News emerged this morning that Apple will allow its server version of OS X to run in virtual machines. This is a surprise, but it makes business sense as far as I can see. First of all it keeps the Apple desktop proprietary, but allows OS X to compete with Windows, Solaris and all the other server OSes. In a sense it’s risk free and more revenue at no extra cost.Nevertheless, Apple may be preparing to let Leopard roam free on the desktop too. Apple must realize how far ahead of Vista it is and the reward for directly competing with Windows would swamp the risk. Apple is famously cautious about things like this, but if not now, then when?
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I’m warming up to Spaces as well. I had never felt the need for multiple desktops before - I just fired up all of the applications I needed and then cycled through them as needed. I cycled through either by commmand-tab or by just clicking on a window.
But with Leopard I set up a two-Spaces desktop, just to try it. I’ve been putting XCode and other work-type applications on one screen, and everything else (Firefox, Mail, etc.) on another. I was unexpectedly pleased at how that arrangement allowed me to focus on real work, then switch back to Mail, etc. at a time of my own choosing.
Right on. You quickly discover that your work patterns break up into several different groups of applications. For me it was complex because I use the Mac a lot, but 8 spaces was enough to encapsulate it all.
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