I’ve been using the latest version of Apple’s OS X operating system, Leopard, for around three days now and I am quite sure that this is the best operating system I have ever used. It is beautiful to look at, packed with awesome new functionality and actually runs faster on my aging G4 Powerbook than its predecessor, Tiger did.

But Apple has also built some humor into the new operating system. The Finder application in Leopard is just amazing. It has been updated with a new sidebar that makes browsing around your computer and attached resources really easy, as well as the ability to flip through your files with Cover Flow – a visual navigation tool that you really have to see to appreciate. If you aren’t sure of the contents of a file, in Cover Flow mode you can actually see its contents in an icon, or hold down space in any view and a window will jump up displaying the contents of the file.

In network mode with Cover Flow activated you can flip through the computers and their shared resources attached the network. Leopard will even show an actual image, in icon form, of the other Mac computers attached that are running Leopard. But, and here is the funny part, any non-OS X PCs on the network will be displayed using an icon of a computer monitor with the blue screen of death displayed. Nice.

We like a good dose of irreverence round these parts and I think that little jab at Microsoft is good icing on the wholesome cake that is Leopard. The operating system has raised the bar on the industry and makes Vista look like a prehistoric monkey with no teeth and unpleasant disposition in comparison.