I know that Apple OS X is just around the corner, and for those so inclined, I don’t actually mind if you pay for update. But what I do care about is how stuff is advertised. The Apple OS X Leopard feature page boldly claims:

Even Leopard innovations have innovations.

So, how true is that? Let’s look at innovations from the category I happen to know best, web browsers. Let’s go through the Safari 3.0 news one by one.

Fastest Web Browser

Uhm. That has been Opera’s claim for years. Apple’s claim is recent. Note, I’m not disputing that Safari is fast, but for instance these findings suggests that measured by raw JavaScript performance, Opera is faster. And so does these tests. It should also be added that not all benchmark tests may be accurate

Enhanced Find

Safari now highlights every search phrase as you search. Uhm. Not a Safari innovation. Opera has had this since Opera 9.0, and Firefox implemented type-as-you-find before that, but didn’t highlight every result instantly, something Opera also sort of did since Opera 6.0

Movable Tabs

An Opera feature since 7.0. I don’t know when Firefox introduced it, but it’s at least in 2.0, and Epiphany has it.

Pull Tab into New Window

Uhm. Yet another Opera feature. It’s been in since Opera 7.0, which is from december 2001 (The timeline chart has a few alternative versions here). In Opera this feature is called detach. The re-attaching in to an existing window appeared in Opera 7.20

Easily Create Tabbed Bookmarks

In Opera, these are called Sessions, and were introduced in Opera 2 (1995 called and just wanted its features back). In Opera you can save these sessions, close the browser, and reopen the browser at one or more points where you left off, or decided that saving state was a good idea.

Merge All Windows

See above. Opera has had the opportunity to reattach tabs to new windows since 7.20. I’ll concede that automatically merging them might be “new”, but it’s also a particular trait needed in OS X, where windows are typically created to never be found again.

Full History Search

Opera has it in public weekly releases of Opera 9.50. I can’t verify it right now, but OmniWeb has allegedly had it for three years, according to this comment

Reopen Windows

Also an Opera feature, since 7.2. Opera 9.50 also introduces the undoing of entire closed windows, with all their tabs.

Resizable Text Fields

Uhm. No, this is not an innovation. Bookmarklets and JavaScript libraries have existed for years. I do however concede that having them built-in in the browser is an improvement.

Preview Controls for PDFs

I’m not entirely sure what Apple mean by this, but I thought the Adobe PDF plugin has always been able to do this, no?

Remove History Items Periodically

Uhm. Most browsers have some way or form to keep the history size down, organized in slightly different ways. Opera by visited sites, IIRC, IE does it by days. Firefox doesn’t provide an UI, but in the days of Mozilla, or even Netscape, it used days as retention period.

Desktop Picture

On Windows, at least, this has always been a feature.

Warning Before Closing Tabbed Window

Opera can warn you whenever you close a window. Opera allows window unclosing, up until you quit the application entirely. Firefox will warn you if you have more than one tab open in a Window.

Conclusion?

Well, I have none. That’s up to you, but out of 13 “innovations”, none of them are actual Apple innovations. Makes you wonder just how many of the 300 “Leopard innovations” that have innovations. Such as workspaces.

(Note, I’m not especially claiming that my employer did invent all of what Apple didn’t, and I would appreciate it if anyone actually knows of implementations of features mentioned here that predates Opera. My disclaimer also applies).