So now that I’m home and awake and together enough to write about it, here’s what happened on Leopard day!
I met up with a friend and we drove out to the Apple Store to pick up Leopard. We hadn’t really anticipated a large crowd or anything, but when we got there, that’s exactly what we found. There was a pretty good-sized line that wrapped around the outside of the store and around the corner. We went to the end and prepared to wait forever.
But we definitely didn’t wait forever at all – the line moved really quickly, which was great. All the while Apple store employees stopped by to ask if people needed anything, were buying anything besides Leopard, or would like some bottled water. There were chairs set out for people who didn’t want to stand. Very thoughtful, I thought.
We finally got around the corner and could see the entrance, and then we saw that they were handing stuff out to some people. We assumed it was something for Leopard purchasers, but we couldn’t tell what was going on. So we waited. Then we noticed that someone had wandered over to the Dell kiosk across the way and had loaded up the “Mac and PC” commercials on their biggest display. The Dell employees didn’t seem to notice. I was definitely very amused. 
When we got to the head of the line, we had to wait briefly while some of the other people already in the store cleared out. I definitely have to commend them on their crowd control tactics; an extreme difference from an experience I had at Wal-Mart about two years ago. So while we were waiting, we chatted with the guy guarding the door, a young-ish, shaven-headed Apple lackey clad entirely in black, grinning painfully from ear to ear.
“I love seeing the store like this!” He said with barely-contained glee.
The store itself wasn’t crowded, but it was extremely busy. People everywhere, crowds building outside. I couldn’t blame him for his excitement (I was pretty excited, too) but I also don’t think I could have kept up with it all, either. Soon enough, we got inside.
We were met by yet another giddy Applehead who asked us “why we were there today,” in a very leading sort of way.
“Uh, to get Leopard?”
Which was apparently the right answer, as she passed us each our very own Leopard t-shirt. Awesome. Then she directed us to the back of the store, which had been converted into “mission control,” as it were, a real Leopard launch HQ. There we picked up the goods and headed back out.
On the way back to the car, we saw a guy in his car, with an Apple store bag and his Macbook already out and installing. This is serious business, people. Though if I’d had a full battery at the time, I might have considered doing the same.
After that, it was time to pizza it up and install. Install was painless – as an OSX install almost always is. A bit of a longer process than the Tiger install, but ultimately very similar, as it should be. Then a long restart, and Leopard was up and running. Hooray! I had done an upgrade rather than a clean wipe and full install, so all my stuff was still there, and lucky for me, everything still seems to work. There are reports afoot on the internet of botched Adobe CS3 installs, broken Adium, and other horrors, and even Leopard discs that just won’t read at all, but somehow I’ve bypassed them, by some stroke of luck.
Leopard itself so far is very different, but very familiar at the same time. The visual style is much like Tiger, but with a lot more flair. The Finder has changed quite considerably, but it’s still very suggestive of the old style. Before I did the Leopard install, I took a head of screenshots of various elements of the old interface for comparison, so that will be an upcoming post.
Meanwhile, off to see what other new details there are to find!
