This is one of those new features in Leopard which I have been most unsure of whether or not I wanted to do a Leopard Feature Presentation on. I mean, what can you say about an application called Dictionary? It’s an application that lets you look words up in the dictionary. Like, wow. But, Apple has made a few changes to Dictionary.app which probably are good enough to point out.
For one thing, Leopard’s Dictionary is now more modular, going beyond the traditional Dictionary and Thesaurus and including a number of new modules. Now, I don’t know why Apple likes Japan so much, but the new Dictionary includes Japanese, Japanese-English, and Japanese Synonyms dictionaries. Like I said, I don’t get what makes Japanese so important, but whatever.
Of more interest to the general English speaking of us would be the inclusion of an Apple Dictionary and Wikipedia. The Apple Dictionary is intended to be yet another way for folks new to the Mac/Apple sphere to find out what the heck we’re talking about when we say “Power Mac” or “Exposé,” etc. However, it’s really interesting–almost a little bit funny–to see Apple try to describe their own things so professionally. I searched for things in the Apple Dictionary mostly expecting to get big, long promotions of Apple products in return. Imagine my surprise to just get short, professional definitions that were only a few lines long, and always refer to “Apple Inc.”
I kind of have a mixed reaction on Wikipedia. First of all, I can understand its place there, in that Apple wants to have Wikipedia be able to rank along with the rest of Mac OS X’s built-in reference material. I would agree with that move; more and more people and places are starting to recognize Wikipedia as less of a joke and more of a truly reputable, diverse, and democratic source of information. Okay, let me just drop all caution and say that building Wikipedia in is a good idea. The one thing to note about Wikipedia integration into Dictionary is that it’s read-only–if you want to participate in the process and edit articles, you must hie thee hence to your web browser first. I’d also note that I tend to prefer Wikipedia’s own font than the fancier font that Dictionary applies to it. Essentially, my habits have already formed and I’ll probably keep Wikipedia-ing the old fashioned way.
Although Leopard’s Dictionary features only modest improvements, and probably will not be the deal-clinching reason to upgrade to Leopard, it still shows good evolutionary progress. It will be interesting to see what else Apple comes with for this application in the future.
Feature Satisfaction Rating: 
Be sure to check out the other articles in the Leopard Feature Presentation, occurring throughout the month of November here on Webmacster87.info.
Tags: Apple, Dictionary, features, Leopard Feature Presentation, Mac OS X Leopard, reference, review, Wikipedia
