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As promised last week, I will be rounding up everything we know about the majestic creature that is Leopard. Steve Jobs was notably thin with details during WWDC citing Microsoft’s busy Xerox as the reason (with, I’d imagine, tongue firmly in cheek). This column lags behind some of our more regular comrades, indeed some of you with the time and inclination may have even installed the developers DVD that was leaked onto the torrent trackers in the last few days, so you may a more hands on experience of what I’m writing about.

From what we’ve seen at WWDC, Apple seem to be making attempts at further improving the usability and general user experience of Mac OS X. One of the major new additions to Mac OS X will be Time Machine that will seek to increase the paltry percentage of people who backup their system to 100%. Time Machine creates a backup of your entire system at midnight (customisable) onto an external harddrive (or another partition on your internal harddrive). This combined with some superfluous and quite possibly absurd effects allows you to go back in time (hence the name Time Machine) to restore or recover any file on your system. This feature will be welcome to those of us who don’t backup at all or do so sporadically – because the process is completely automated so it requires little or no user intervention to carry out.

Also featured was Apple’s long awaited incarnation of multiple desktops. There have been numerous applications available (e.g. VirtueDesktops) for years that do the same job but the addition of the feature built into the operating system will bring the world of multiple desktops to a whole new audience. Spaces will allow you to organize your windows into make-shift categories, for example Mail.app and iChat could be placed on one desktop (solely for communication applications) while Microsoft Word and Safari could be placed on another desktop (for that assignment you¹re researching and writing). There’s also the ability to move windows to other desktops for some reorganizing or convenience (e.g. you want to chat to a school buddy about that assignment; it would be easier to do that while looking at what you¹re writing).

Mail.app. What have they done to you? From the distance it looks like they’ve bloated you out some more. Why has Apple decided that we to have another implementation of RSS in Mac OS X? I don¹t know about you but I¹ve always thought that one method of reading RSS feeds was enough. Anyone that is truly serious about RSS has already got a decent enough RSS reader already (or uses Safari).

Ever email yourself a quick reminder that ends up lost in your inbox?

No. I don’t as it happens. I tend to either use an application like Sidenote or if it¹s especially important I write it down somewhere using an actual pen and paper (remember those). I don¹t really need yet another way of recording notes, this just confuses me even more.

Last but by no means least, is the inclusion of To-dos in Mail.app. I don’t know if anyone told Apple, but they have this application called iCal that by some amazing coincidence also has the ability to record To-Dos.

Ok, all this would be great if Mail.app was some sort of email-cum-Personal Information Manager like Microsoft Entourage but it isn’t. It is just an email application with some abstract bells and whistles tagged onto the end with no regard for duplication or continuity.

iChat on Leopard introduces a new innovative feature, tabbed chat windows (because you know, other 3rd party Instant Messenger clients haven’t had this feature for an age). Aside from that, the main focus of the next update of iChat is overwhelmingly video chatting. Apple has now included useful features such as video backdrops, which make it look like you’re chatting from somewhere you’re not. So you could take that much needed vacation you’ve been promising yourself and have a backdrop of your office so that your boss thinks you’re working (I don’t know how you would explain the fact that you are not in your office whenever he comes to see you in person). Apple also has made laziness the focus of iChat. With iChat Screen Sharing, you don’t now don’t have to turn around to look at your colleague¹s computer monitor because you can have it displayed right on your own. Can’t be bothered to turn up to that presentation? No problem, iChat Theater is here to rescue you. You can now present that Keynote slideshow from the comfort of your own bed, which would no doubt impress your boss or your teacher.

So, that was just some of the features of Leopard. We’ll have to wait and see if there will be any improvements to the Finder and Spotlight. Apple has bought themselves some time by stylishly delaying the release of Leopard without many people noticing.

Hopefully any future announcements will be as exciting as what was announced last week as WWDC.