Hullo,
I have been using Tiger preview for about a day now. It first would not install on my eMac, so I installed it on my Smart Disk and am running it from there.
The speed and responsiveness seems to be comparable to that of Panther. Window moving and minimizing might even be slightly smoother.
As others have said, I have not been able to find anywhere near 150 new features. I realize there is a year to make tweaks to this OS, but I still find it incredibly underwhelming.
I am curious as to why this release warrants a ".1" upgrade in comparison to the previous ".1" upgrades which seemed to have far more dramatic improvements. I am also curious as to why an upgrade that seems to not have that dramatic of changes is going to take so long to complete. Perhaps there are even more changes coming. I am also curious as to why Apple would choose to verbally attack Longhorn with *this* version of Mac OS X. Why not Mac OS X in general?
As for the new features:
Spotlight. Spotlight does give fast responses. However, Panther's built-in search box was never too pokey for me either. Spotlight is available in the extreme right hand corner of the menu. The menu icons have traditionally been classy and minimalist. This search icon, however, looks exactly like the Start menu icon from Windows XP. It looks disjointed from the rest of the menu bar which is by now getting rather crowded. So, you search right from that box and get menu results. You can also click on Show All Results which brings up a window that has a GUI inconsistent with the rest of Mac OS X. It looks much like a window in Windows XP as well in that options are presented as hyperlinks. You can also use spotlight from a Finder window which works pretty much the same way it did in Panther with the addition of a blue bar appearing at the top of the window where you can modify the search parameters. Of note, the blue is very similar in appearance to the selected song in the Party Shuffle mode of iTunes. And then finally, there is Spotlight within Applications. The example built in is the spotlight functionality in system preferences. The spotlight effect on my eMac is not smooth like other GUI motions--perhaps because of my graphics card, or perhaps it is written that way. Either way, the graphical use of spotlight seems odd, and inconsistent.
Safari: I can't review because it would not open on my system (I am writing from Internet Explorer).
iChat: I can't review the new video audio multiple connection feature because no video or audio icons show up on my computer.
Dashboard: I have used Dashboard. It works. It does what it claims to do, which is perhaps the problem. What is it really good for? I could imagine this being a piece of shareware add-on, which I have learned it apparently was (Konfabulator). The ripple effect did not work with my graphics card. Apple seems desperate to demo some visual effects with this. I didn't see a need for Dashboard and I don't see it filling a need that people didn't know they had. Perhaps it is an interesting way of looking at how applications will work in the future as far as appearing and disappearing, but that is all.
The GUI: I was hoping that Apple would choose a GUI (Aqua or Metal) and run with it. That didn't happen. Aqua is even more subdued in this release. I supppose eventually it will return to Platinum from Mac OS 9. In a way its milky appearance is a mix between Aqua and metal. Even worse is that the Aqua interface seems to have split. Some windows have clearly marked off title bars, and some like Sys Prefs and the Search Results window just run right into the window (as do all metal windows). Like Windows, the GUI is becoming more complicated, less classy, and for those inclined, you might have to selectively lick your screen.
The finder looks exactly the same. I prefered the classier look of Jaguar's finder window, which followed Apple's interface guidelines. Appple seems intent on breaking each one of their own GUI guidelines at this point in the game.
At this point, Tiger to me looks like a ".5" upgrade that I might have even considered not downloading. This upgrade is uncharacteristically nonevolutionary, nonrevolutionary, and gimicky.
At least they have a year to work on it.
My reccomendations for Panther:
Choose one GUI.
Be simple.
Be elegant.
Be consistent.
I have been using Tiger preview for about a day now. It first would not install on my eMac, so I installed it on my Smart Disk and am running it from there.
The speed and responsiveness seems to be comparable to that of Panther. Window moving and minimizing might even be slightly smoother.
As others have said, I have not been able to find anywhere near 150 new features. I realize there is a year to make tweaks to this OS, but I still find it incredibly underwhelming.
I am curious as to why this release warrants a ".1" upgrade in comparison to the previous ".1" upgrades which seemed to have far more dramatic improvements. I am also curious as to why an upgrade that seems to not have that dramatic of changes is going to take so long to complete. Perhaps there are even more changes coming. I am also curious as to why Apple would choose to verbally attack Longhorn with *this* version of Mac OS X. Why not Mac OS X in general?
As for the new features:
Spotlight. Spotlight does give fast responses. However, Panther's built-in search box was never too pokey for me either. Spotlight is available in the extreme right hand corner of the menu. The menu icons have traditionally been classy and minimalist. This search icon, however, looks exactly like the Start menu icon from Windows XP. It looks disjointed from the rest of the menu bar which is by now getting rather crowded. So, you search right from that box and get menu results. You can also click on Show All Results which brings up a window that has a GUI inconsistent with the rest of Mac OS X. It looks much like a window in Windows XP as well in that options are presented as hyperlinks. You can also use spotlight from a Finder window which works pretty much the same way it did in Panther with the addition of a blue bar appearing at the top of the window where you can modify the search parameters. Of note, the blue is very similar in appearance to the selected song in the Party Shuffle mode of iTunes. And then finally, there is Spotlight within Applications. The example built in is the spotlight functionality in system preferences. The spotlight effect on my eMac is not smooth like other GUI motions--perhaps because of my graphics card, or perhaps it is written that way. Either way, the graphical use of spotlight seems odd, and inconsistent.
Safari: I can't review because it would not open on my system (I am writing from Internet Explorer).
iChat: I can't review the new video audio multiple connection feature because no video or audio icons show up on my computer.
Dashboard: I have used Dashboard. It works. It does what it claims to do, which is perhaps the problem. What is it really good for? I could imagine this being a piece of shareware add-on, which I have learned it apparently was (Konfabulator). The ripple effect did not work with my graphics card. Apple seems desperate to demo some visual effects with this. I didn't see a need for Dashboard and I don't see it filling a need that people didn't know they had. Perhaps it is an interesting way of looking at how applications will work in the future as far as appearing and disappearing, but that is all.
The GUI: I was hoping that Apple would choose a GUI (Aqua or Metal) and run with it. That didn't happen. Aqua is even more subdued in this release. I supppose eventually it will return to Platinum from Mac OS 9. In a way its milky appearance is a mix between Aqua and metal. Even worse is that the Aqua interface seems to have split. Some windows have clearly marked off title bars, and some like Sys Prefs and the Search Results window just run right into the window (as do all metal windows). Like Windows, the GUI is becoming more complicated, less classy, and for those inclined, you might have to selectively lick your screen.
The finder looks exactly the same. I prefered the classier look of Jaguar's finder window, which followed Apple's interface guidelines. Appple seems intent on breaking each one of their own GUI guidelines at this point in the game.
At this point, Tiger to me looks like a ".5" upgrade that I might have even considered not downloading. This upgrade is uncharacteristically nonevolutionary, nonrevolutionary, and gimicky.
At least they have a year to work on it.
My reccomendations for Panther:
Choose one GUI.
Be simple.
Be elegant.
Be consistent.
