Macworld Forums: The 23rd Annual Editors' Choice Awards - Macworld Forums

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Almost all your choices are excellent as far as I can tell, having actually used only a few of them myself. The one exception is your praise for Leopard. You assert: "Users on other platforms?we?re thinking of you, poor Vista adopters?can?t take it for granted that the latest version of their OS will always deliver more improvements than headaches. That hasn?t been the case with OS X, and Leopard continues that tradition."

You obviously haven't been following the troubleshooting threads on Apple's and MacFixIt's discussion boards. Leopard is certainly a major upgrade for OS X, perhaps the most significant to date. But the changes under the hood as well as the new features have left many people struggling to cope. Problems start with the installation process which has caused no end of difficulties for early adopters. Then there are the features which take away far more than they add, like Stacks. Add to that various networking traumas and malfunctions and you have far less than a stellar new system. Leopard promises to be great but it has yet to deliver on that promise. Indeed, for headaches it compares quite well with Windows Vista, your boasts to the contrary notwithstanding.

For a daunting look at some of the issues, check out Ted Landau's MacFixIt column, Detours on the road to success with Leopard, at http://www.macfixit....07121710540526.

A great hardware list! I wish i could have everything on the list. I do have about half of it nailed down though. Software was also a well put together list. Thanks

I agree. Leopard is great, though I've been dealing with a horrible headache since upgrading. My webserver under my user account has gone haywire, a problem well-documented and solved in the Apple forums. Of course, the solution didn't work on my main work computer. It's been such a frustration since I do web design for work that I'm truly sorry I upgraded in the first place.

Of course Apple hasn't offered an official solution.

The Adobe Application you awarded (Premiere Pro) is actually a Windows Application which is packaged in OS X .app container which also abandons the entire PowerPC based Video editors being Intel only.

There were many Mac OS X native applications which are updated almost every 2-3 days to gather new functionality and fixes on the list we have chosen from. For Adobe Premiere I can say one thing. It is AVI based.

I can't begin to say how right-on-the-money you are, whitedog. I upgraded two machines to Leopard and they both were fine except for their networking issues which were persistent, predictable, and inescapable (i.e. unworkaroundable). Leopard improves on many things but many of its best features are bug fixes to Tiger.

For example, Spotlight is a piece of trash under Tiger. It is amazing under Leopard. The Finder is barely tolerable in Tiger. OK, so it still blows under Leopard, but it blows a lot less because it now implements multiple networking threads and one can stop the Finder from complaining each and every time one changes a file name (i.e. the new Finder preference to turn off "Show warning before changing an extension").

Apple also must be very aware that many advanced end-users set up their client machines as servers. By willy-nilly changing the location of some things (e.g. httpd.conf) and by renaming system-level users (e.g. _postdrop) and leaving users to discover these differences on their own does nothing more than make advanced users leery of upgrading. This is not a good thing.

UNIX functionality is an entirely different level of change than, say, adding To Do items to Mail.app and should be undertaken only when the old functionality is broken (e.g. Netinfo) and only with bolded, blinking, ALL CAPS notices about all such changes.

Leopard (client) is a work-in-progress, perfectly fine for surfing and emailing, but not yet ready for production.

I was surprised to read about the problems some are having with Leopard. I installed it on my G5, and MacBook, and have no problems with it, or my home network. So, it has been a real hit with me, and I'm sure, many others.

Macworld is under a special obligation to demonstrate the compatibility of the software under review, with Apple's software.

To wit: Lightzone is a nice photo processing application - you awarded it, I believe, 4 1/2 mice - but it does not play well with iPhoto '08. It takes a VERY long time to "import" its _.lzn file, and even longer to "convert" a file.

Photoshop, by contrast, is a quickie.

Fascinating and hungry-making, as always, but how about a photo printer for the rest of us? HP's z whatever probably is phenomenal but at $4,095 it is out of reach. There used to be a Canon recommended, but that's been discontinued. What is there out there besides Epsons (that dry out and I'll never buy another) for the rest of us?
...An editor's choice award should also go to the redesign of MacWorld.

This list is great...all except Billings 2.5. I read my MacWorld like the the ultimate guide to purchasing and using the right software solutions for my work. I started to use Billings based on their suggestion but was sorely disappointed. The support that Marketcircle offers is dismal. They never reponded when I asked for a cutom quote for a template design. While you can design your own invoices and report the user interface is confusing and there is no basic "how to" that really explains what scripts need to be used to associate the right item from various slips. Another downfall is that with this program there is currently no invoice that will bill a client with multiple projects...you have to manually create this. So....to all who are looking for a good time tracking and invoicing software I would look at iBiz...and I hope that MacWorld gives them a higher mark than Billings in teh future.