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With much fanfare, on Friday, April 29th at 6 P.M., Apple Computer released the latest incarnation of it's Unix based operating system, OS X 10.4, or Tiger. The question on many people's mind's is: "Is it worth the upgrade?"
Since many members of RetroKitten are artists and photographers, and the Mac has always been more common in the art/design world, we thought that a short review would be appropriate.
First and foremost, I'd like to emphasize that even though I consider myself a Mac user, I have a dozen years of experience supporting other systems. Windows, VMS and a veritable alphabet soup of others that you have neither heard of, nor care about. When RetroKitten became my full time job, I swore that I would never support systems again. My first choice for the office? Apple's OS X. We made the leap to Unix and we never looked back.
Be that as it may, the real question here is simple. Is Apple's $129 worth it to me? To answer that question, I merely have to say one word. "Spotlight".
Spotlight is Apple's solution to ever growing hard drives and way too much data to manage. Spotlight, in essence, is a constantly, automatically updated index of your hard drive and literally every file, address book entry, calendar event and email on your system. By merely clicking the icon in the upper right corner, you can instantly find precisely what you are looking for.
Apple claims that there are over 200 brand spanking new features in this release, but honestly, Spotlight alone is worth the price of admission. I've never found using my computer this simple or hassle free. Suddenly, the drudgery of managing tons of data is back under the hood of the operating system, right where it belongs. My world will never be the same.
Add to this, the fact that Apple has a habit of releasing new operating systems that are FASTER than the previous version (unlike Microsoft) and that in addition to enhancements more numerous to count, they have added functional eye candy like Dashboard and you have a grand slam home run out of the ball park.
Mind you, the price of admission is steep, and you need a G3 or better and a system with USB ports and a DVD drive, but aside from that, isn't it about time you upgraded that six year old system anyway?
I'd love to see Tiger running on one of the new 2.7 GHz G5's, but it hauls on my pokey little 1.5 GHz G4. Apple has also improved mail and a host of other familiar applications. My only complaint, is that I really wish they would pick a consistent interface and stay there. Striped, Drawers, Brushed Metal. All of these different looks masquerade throughout the system and though you know that the UI team carefully thought out all of these details, they didn't merge them together into a cohesive unit. But yeah, thats really my biggest complaint. Thats sort of like complaining that you wish the volume knob on the radio in your new car were on the left and not the right.
So is it worth it? Yes. If you want a faster easier way to manage everything, than run, don't walk to your nearest Apple store and snag a copy. If you aren't ready, then wait until 2007 for Longhorn when Microsoft MAY eventually release HALF of these features. Until then, I'll be over here with my stable operating system.
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