For most, the WWDC keynote was a disappointment. Few new details were unveiled about Leopard and there were no hardware announcements. I can understand that. I can even understand that someone would start selling a t-shirt that says Worst Keynote ever. What I do not agree with is that some are starting to belittle Leopard and call it a minor update. That simply is not true.From what Apple has shared with developers at WWDC it is clear that a major code cleanup is at the heart of this new OS release. After adding tons of new functionality in previous releases, that was really needed. We like to say that OS X is efficient and not bloated. A lot of work was required to maintain this assertion true. Also, computer processors have changed, they are now 64 bits and have now more cores and applications have to learn to support them. This represents a major change. If Apple had decided to focus on eye candy and had ignored this fact, OS X would have been obsolete in 18 months. Instead they focused on the fundamentals and it seems that their work is paying off.The problem, however, is that core improvements to the OS are not sexy. They are difficult to demonstrate and do not generate much positive feedback from the press. Steve made quite a good job demonstrating the value of 64 bits, however that demo did not generate nearly as much interest as the video wall demo. On the long run though, great 64 bit support for consumer applications may be one of the most important differentiators in Apple’s battle against Microsoft. Despite Steve’s problems communicating that message to consumers, Leopard is clearly one of the most important OS updates in recent history.