It’s been done, the unthinkable. I upgraded my OS on the day of release! I was expecting the worst, backing up everything, double checking things, etc. I cautiously inserted the DVD install disk into the drive and committed to the install.One hour later and it’s done. I waited for it to reboot back into the new Leopard. And to my surprise it booted into a OS that felt different but a workspace that was exactly the same. The Leopard upgrade never even wiped my system as per usual.So after that initial shock of realizing that I now had all afternoon to dig into the OS, I have had a chance to mess with some of my most anticipated programs - mail, ical and ichat.

Mail: There were some much needed upgrades to this program. The most obvious for myself was the addition of RSS feeds, To-do’s and Notes. With these additions I hope to remove myself from 3rd party apps for organization, note taking and feed reading.

iCal: Opening up this program was a shocker! It felt useful and simplistic to use! Goodbye are the days of a clunky UI and terrible controls. It’s smooth, finished and integrates amazingly with Mail. The To-do’s that are created in iCal immediately go to the To-do’s in mail and vise versa. Finally some much needed integration of this program.

iChat: This program has disappointed me. I was expected a simpler polished iChat that felt useful. But all they seemed to have done is revamped the UI and that’s it.

As I was writing this I had a conversation with a fellow Qwanoes employee who reminded me of the screen share part of iChat. A feature which I have yet to use. This could be huge and possibly the best part to iChat.

There we have it, my first hour impressions of Leopard. I am sure this will change, but as for now, I’m really enjoying the snappier system! What have your experiences of Leopard been? Do you have any gripes as of yet? Any programs not run properly?