The Gold Master retail version of Apple's Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard was reported to have undergone a visual makeover for the OS X dock, an often-unused 3D shelf even at Apple. Perhaps Apple's been listening, or they simply didn't like the waste of viewscreen real-estate, so they've readopted a simplistic 2D shelf appearance for Mac OS X Leopard build 9A581.

This news came from an update via developer seeds for Build 9A581, and the new dock sports a 2D facelift of common OS GUI docks. There was no feedback on additional visual effects for the dock, but as long as it's no longer the older 3D dock that caused partial peripheral distractions. What was confirmed, however, is that the dock can keep the same visual style even when docked at the bottom of the screen.

October 26 still remains as Apple's release date for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in North America, and this probably would be one of some last-minute updates to 10.5 as the days crawl slowly to Leopard's lift off. More on these developments as we come across them.