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Steve Jobs and his creative team in Apple always dazzle us with their innovations. Mac revolutionized the computing world and from then on they never looked back. Apple impressed us with their hardware and with Tiger they literally went in for the kill.

The highly anticipated and well-selling Leopard operating system has been getting some fabulous reviews from the professionals, but will the regular user really notice the difference?

We’re Mac fanboys here, and we’d like to think that everything Apple produces is the best. Unfortunately, Apple’s newest operating system doesn’t live up to its hype. Across the Apple/Mac rumors and new websites, Mac OS X Leopard has been getting fabulous reviews. Many have highlighted the new Spaces and Time Machine features, but here’s what we found.

The installation took a bit longer than one and a half hours. The upgrade makes a disc check that takes about 45 minutes (thankfully it’s optional). Then, a long process of installation begins. A calculating time feature doesn’t even show the estimated time until about one hour. After a stop and start installation, the installer says that the upgrade is complete.

The computer then restarts into the new Leopard operating system. A slow initial startup begins. Afterwards, the installation process is complete. After the install, you may want to do a “Software Update…” under the Apple icon. We found about 16 to 17 MBs of new updates after the installation of Leopard.

For most Mac users, the bottom bar of icons holds every application that they’ll ever use. There are noticeable changes in the design of the desktop, a translucent top bar and a 3D reflective bottom bar. Both changes are minimal and are neither positive or negative. iCal is cleaner and operates slightly quicker, but isn’t any major upgrade. Apple Mail gives users templates for creative e-mail design that is a practical feature. iChat allows for greater compatibility with chat applications and now incorporates Google Talk accounts. The Finder is interesting, as the upgrade makes the finder more like cover flow in iTunes.

One of the most functional and pleasant upgrades was the upgrade to iTunes. Now, when files are dragged onto an external music player, like an iPod Shuffle, users can operate iTunes without waiting for a short freeze in the program. This change not only saves time, but doesn’t result in the annoying hassles like before.

Time Machine’s features are quite revolutionary, allowing the user to backup files and literally go back in time to when certain files were deleted or added. In order to backup the entire computer’s file systems requires ample hard drive space or a well-sized external drive.

Unfortunately, the operating system’s new Spaces program is a semi-pointless feature. The different “Spaces” are really only a way to “hide” (Apple Command + ‘h’) programs. The new visual spots assign different Spaces for programs and as you switch between different programs, the computer switches to different desktops. All in all, it’s interesting, but by no means a necessary part of Leopard.

Leopard is definitely an interesting upgrade, but hardly worth the $129 it costs to upgrade. As stated before, most users will find the upgrades fun and interesting, but hardly necessary or time-saving.