Leopard, Apple's new Mac operating system, hits all the right spots

— -- When Steve Jobs unleashes Mac OS X Leopard on Friday, Mac fans and others considering an Apple computer for the first time will have questions. Is the new Leopard operating system worth the $129 upgrade price? Is it the reason to splurge for a new Mac?

Long before Leopard pounced onto the scene, I rated OS X superior to Windows for most consumers. With Leopard, Apple's operating system widens its lead aesthetically and technologically. Whether the sixth major release of OS X in as many years puts a dent in Microsoft's dominant market share is another matter entirely.

Moreover, people who need Windows at least some of the time can take stock in the fact that Boot Camp is included in Leopard; Boot Camp is the Apple program that lets anyone with an Intel-based Mac run Windows XP or Windows Vista. You'll still have to buy a copy of Windows.

Also, Boot Camp still doesn't let you run the two operating systems simultaneously. And at year's end, Boot Camp will no longer be available as a free beta program to people who don't upgrade to Leopard; you're fine if you already installed Boot Camp.

I migrated to Leopard from the last OS X version, Tiger, without pain on a MacBook laptop and my own iMac desktop; there's mercifully none of the software driver and other hassles associated with a Windows operating system upgrade. Leopard was pre-installed on an iMac that Apple provided for testing. Apple says Leopard has more than 300 new features in all. Here are highlights:

Time Machine

The Time Machine feature automatically backs up your computer on an (optional) external hard drive. From then on, recovering lost files is — thanks to beautiful special effects — like flying back in time.

Say you're peering at your inbox through Time Machine. You can see what the same inbox looked like days or weeks ago, to restore any missing e-mail. You can move the mouse along a visual timeline to land on a specific date. Or you can use Spotlight search to find where and when a file last existed.