Mac Box Set [OLD VERSION]

I had put off upgrading my aging iMac G5 to Leopard for fear that I'd upset the apple cart, and because none of the features sounded like things I couldn't live without. (Time Machine? Sounds great, but I already have a serviceable automatic backup program.)

Then I finally had to upgrade in order to run a certain application for work. I'm glad I did.

The Cover Flow option brings the excellent user experience of iTunes to the desktop, letting you "flip" through large preview icons of all sorts of files. The ability to easily page through a PDF without opening it is another nice time-saver, especially if you have several documents that have similar cover sheets and might otherwise be hard to differentiate from one another as icons.

I was worried that the newer OS would run slow on my four-year-old 2GHz Mac, but I need not have worried. If anything, it seems speedier than Tiger and even seems to have resolved a few conflicts I had with the old OS.

Best of all, this bundle gave me an excuse to upgrade iLife, which I hadn't upgraded in at least three versions. I was impressed by so many of the more recent features in iPhoto, including a feature called Faces (which does a decent job of "learning" the names of who's in each photo) and another called Places, which lets me locate photos taken with a GPS-enabled camera on a map. Easy posting to Facebook is also a nice time-saver. The animated slide show templates that it provides are fun and turn your vacation photos into virtual scrapbooks.

I don't use the other iLife apps as much as iPhoto, but even a simple tour has left me inspired. The latest version of iDVD provides several very professional-looking user interfaces, or Themes, for your DVD. And GarageBand and iMovie look like a lot of fun to try out, if only I had the time.

I haven't taken the time to install any of the iWork applications, because I frankly don't think I'll use them: I'm locked into the Microsoft Office death-vice and rely on seamless compatibility with those applications.

Nevertheless, if you plan to take advantage of even a third of the hundreds of new features in the Mac Box Set, it would seem to be a worthwhile upgrade at a good price.

I was ready to buy the Mac Box Set (includes Mac OS X Leopard, iLife' 09, and iWork '09) from my Apple store to install the following week with my trainer. When I went to buy the Mac Box Set, Apple no longer had them to buy. I was so disapointed and upset.....
Decided to check Amazon.com. Not only did they have the one I needed but the price was $108.00 + free shipping.

WOW!!! $61.00 less than Apple. Same product with a price label on the box showing $169.00.
Thanks Amazon... Will always check your site before I buy anything in the future.

Susan C., California

I've been reluctant to upgrade my Mac to Leopard. I have a Power mac with a G5 processor & I didn't think that I would notice much of a difference from Tiger. I'm glad to say that I was wrong. The upgrade is worth it. It does take about 2 hours to upgrade the operating system, i life & i work and download all of the updates. After re-booting a few times after the downloads, you're ready to go. The OS just responds better & all of the ease of use functions, like cover flow make browsing & searching for files on the computer very easy. There are a couple of aesthetic changes in some frequently used apps like mail, but they're easy to adapt to. Spaces I'm sure will come in handy when working with multiple windows, I just have to remember to use it.

As for the i life & i work, the upgrades go smoothly. I photo is greatly improved with the faces & places feature. You find yourself going through all of your photos all over again tagging them with a location. This fun program suddenly seems a lot more fun. I web's added widget function will make building a web page just that more fun too. The only downside is that the garage band learn to play feature only seems to work with an intel based mac. My G5 won't cut it. Oh well.

The i work apps work as well as before. They have some added templates & features that make working with the programs fun. Work doesn't seem like work with these apps.

Overall, the upgrade was well worth it. The operating system is solid & the applications make using a Mac even more fun & inviting. I'm glad that I was able to get my hands on one before they were no longer available. Not paying retail also made me feel good too.

I've been using Tiger for so long, it seems. Installing this was such a great thing. It's faster, more up to date, more streamlined, and having the latest versions of Pages and iCal really makes my life easier, especially with iCal as I use my iPhone for all my scheduling these days. The newest version of iPhoto is great as it categorizes photos into "events" for easier location. Not only that, it uses facial recognition to categorize, if you desire, by people. This also allows you to include the person's full name and email addy in the information for direct upload to Facebook so that the photo is tagged. Quite intelligent.

It's very important when installing system upgrades (and new versions of software) to know beforehand what your intended goals and purpose are. This review may "apply" to some prospective buyers and not so much to others. Each Mac user has their own purpose and "philosophy" regarding these things. Mac OS X provides the full range, from beginner to professional, of utility - and at one price.

My situation: I have a Mac Pro (2007 model) with 4 internal hard drives and 5 GB RAM which I use primarily for personal and professional digital imaging (photography and photo restoration). I also have a full tool kit of digital imaging software: GraphicConverter, Photoshop CS, Photoshop Elements and other related applications.

My purpose: When Apple announced that OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) would be released in September (2009) priced at $29 for those running 10.5 (Leopard), I understood this is a key upgrade with technical improvements "under the hood" well worth having. But I was running 10.4 (Tiger), so I set out to find a "good price" for the 10.5 upgrade disk. Found it here at Amazon.com - through retailer Office Supplies Outlet. Others are correct: the after market price of this boxed set with 10.5, iLife 09 and iWork 09 makes this a real bargain (without strings attached). I got the right item(s) at the right price and at the right time (I scheduled a day during my vacation to install the new system and other app suites).


I also purchased and installed a new 1TB internal drive on which to install Leopard and the new app suites. This is called a "Clean Install" - which must be followed by migrating all your files and applications to the new hard drive. (Optional with Mac Pros: you can either keep the old system and files on another of the four drives or just erase that drive and use it for storage, etc.) I chose to keep the "original drive" and Tiger running so as to have a way back if something went wrong. This also gives one the ability to boot to the old system easily if needed.

Installation: Went well - though it took a long time (roughly an hour). But - warning - I made the mistake of accepting the option presented by the 10.5 installer to create a new user account part way through the installation. What this did was to create "complications" with permissions (access to files, folders and applications). Even with the help of Apple Support, it took three days for me to decide to erase the new drive and start over. I recommend against creating new user accounts during installation: just do this step (if desired) after installation is completed and after considering the complexity that may result. The one issue I couldn't resolve was getting my iTunes Library migrated to the new drive, but there were other "inconveniences" created as well.

2nd Install: Went well and was a complete success. I got my iTunes Library (easily) migrated by simply using the iTunes
"Create a New Library" process from iTunes menu. But had I not "kept" the original drive running with 10.4, I wouldn't have had an "old" library from which to create a new one! The Library "restore" disks I had made wouldn't work with the new iTunes on the new hard drive. See - it gets complicated.


The Leopard Experience: certainly, I'm glad I gave myself a month or so to learn and get used to the "Leopard Way" of doing things. It changed the way my (Logitech Laser) mouse works, for one thing - even though I updated the driver and
control software. The new version of Mail.app works a little differently, it took time to find the way to change some settings and it doesn't recognize the security certification of my ISP (which is a good, national brand ISP). One of my digital editing applications will not run on Leopard. I am looking for a suitable (more up to date) replacement right now. But Photoshop and the other major "legacy applications" all run quite well on Leopard.

Overall, I "like" Leopard and am glad I finally made the jump. Since the user interface is supposed to remain largely unchanged in Snow Leopard, I think working with Leopard will be (as originally guessed) good training.

iLife 09 and iWork 09: For me, iLife has always been a mixed bag: I'm mainly interested in working with iMovie 09 but have no use for Garage Band and just a little use for iPhoto (since I use Adobe Photoshop and Bridge for photo work in place of iPhoto most of the time). QuickTime: yes, that's an app I use all the time and the transfer of my QT "Pro key" was made w/o trouble.

iWork: I never tried it until now. So far I think it may finally replace the assortment of apps I use as my "office suite." (I have always avoided MS Office for Mac because it's too costly.)

I recommend installing Leopard - especially if you already have a Mac with Intel processor(s) and especially if you want to prepare now for the September release of Snow Leopard. iLife and iWork are good "basic" applications suites suitable for a wide range of uses. Just be sure to think through what you want and need from such upgrades. The Mac Box Set is available at a bargain price so that part is a no-brainer.

PS: For those who are savvy about maintaining Macs, the repair utility, DiskWarrior®, is well known as "essential." I found in this case that DW had to be updated before it could be used on Leopard. Running DiskWarrior after such a system upgrade is, in my experience, an important step to ensure trouble free operations.
Alsoft DiskWarrior 4.0: Mac Universal Binary WDD105