No Leopard, No problem

Now that all those sweet Leopard features Apple had us so pumped about are out of the picture for the next six months we find ourselves so unsatisfied. How ever will we get by…

Spaces
Multiple virtual desktops are not something new, but the decision by Apple to integrate them at the system level signifies a maturing user base. Apple’s description of Spaces “You do a lot on your Mac. So what happens when all those projects pile up? Easy. Use Spaces to organize all your windows into groups and banish clutter completely. A Space for everything and everything in its Space. Only with Mac OS X Leopard.”
Alternatives
Virtue
http://virtuedesktops.sourceforge.net/
Desktop Manager
http://desktopmanager.berlios.de/screenshots.php

Time Machine
Bringing background backup to the masses is was an inevitable progression into the operating system as hard drive capacities only continue to grow. While TimeMachine does it the Apple way there are still alternatives!
From Apple “You back up your system regularly, right? Well, you would. If you had a better way to do it. With Mac OS X Leopard and Time Machine, not only can you back up and preserve everything on your Mac — including priceless digital photos, music, movies, and documents — without lifting a finger, you can go back in time to recover anything you’ve ever backed up.”
Alternatives
Super Duper
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
Deju Vu
http://propagandaprod.com/

iChat 3.0
iChat has been around for a while and has been more than overdue for a facelift for quite some time. New features that we will be missing out include ( Tabs, Photobooth Effect, and the most forgotten about feature ScreenSharing!) From Apple: “Filled with fun new features, iChat turns any mere video chat into an event. Video backdrops, Photo Booth effects, photo slideshows, Keynote presentations, or an entire Mac desktop — you can share it all with iChat in Mac OS X Leopard.”

Alternatives
Chax
www.ksuther.com/chax/
ChatFX
http://www.scriptsoftware.com/chatfx/
iCar

The best we can do for screen sharing….
Screen Sharing

Dashboard
Not much new here except the whole WebClips integration with safari, which I can say from personal use is definetly something that will be used frequently. From Apple “Create your own website widget using Web Clip in Safari for Leopard. Just visit your favorite site and click the “Open in Dashboard” button in Safari. Dashboard launches a new clip of the site in a customizable widget. From there, you can resize your Web Clip and choose from a handful of window themes.”

Alternative
Dash Clipping
http://www.fondantfancies.com/blog/3001239/

Accessibility
The coolest new feature from the accessibility library has got to be the new text to speeh voice Alex, for a sample of it click here. From Apple “The new synthesized English voice in Leopard, Alex, uses advanced, patented Apple technologies that deliver natural intonation, even at very fast speaking rates. And Alex works with any application that supports Apple’s speech synthesis.”

Alternatives
Cepstral Voices
http://www.cepstral.com/demos/

Mail
Mail has more new features than you can shakes a stick at! The two main ones however are easily obtained through 3rd party additions. From Apple “With Mac OS X Leopard, Mail transforms mere email into personalized stationery. A virtual memo pad accessible from anywhere. To-do lists that can change as often as your errands do. For everything you do with email — and some things you haven’t thought of yet — there’s Mail.”

Alternatives
Mail Template
http://mailtemplate.mactank.com/
MailTags
http://www.indev.ca/MT2Beta.html

There have been plenty of articles speculating the reasons for the Leopard delay, many of which point to “Top Secret” features that Jobs hasn’t told us about yet. I believe the explanation is much simpler - Apple not only has to implement all these new features but for both PPC and Intel still - turns out it was more time consuming than they planned for! My 2 cents!