Reasons to not get OSX Tiger
 

1. My system is already perfect. Why rock the boat?

2. The new features aren't that groundbreaking. I think the current search is okay.

3. I don't use Mac Mail.

4. The Dashboard widgets are pretty, but not really needed.

5. Will it still have a "classic" mode?

As user BarryJayLevine said, "If you look at the Apple's web page showing Tiger's System Preferences, there is no "Classic" pref. Leads one to wonder whether Classic support is being dropped from Tiger (or they just don't have an updated System Pref screen shot to show us yet)."

6. Panthers are much smoother than tigers.

1,2,3,4 each to their own :)

yes it has, if you look at the image at the bottom. 2nd from left.

=> Coat Room.

Rationally and logically, I really do believe that there is no reason to upgrade.

Then the geek takes over and realizes I was just being stupid in saying that.

It's tough having both geek and business personalities.

Upgrade? Definitely!
 

I will give you one simple reason why I am upgrading: SPOTLIGHT!

If it holds anywhere near what is promised, it’s going to save me loads of time. As a copy writer and translator, I will suddenly be able to find phrases and terms in past documents that are relevant to the text that I’m working on.

I skipped Panther, but I’ll definitely go for Tiger.
When? As soon as the pundits on MacOSXHints agree that it’s stable.

Best regards,
ArcticStones

Exactly. The only reason I'm not buying Tiger is because it isn't out yet and so nobody, including Apple, really knows just how good it will be in the real world.

About a week after it's out, if there are going to be problems we'll know. A week or two after that, the first fixes. That's when I'll be willing to buy it. I'm actually going to try to wait (I'm trying to develop my patience) until early June, so that any significant flaws will be discovered and fixed.

Geekme
 

Well I reckon the pre-sale price is as good as it's gonna get and that any fixes will be in the MacSoftware update in any case.

So why wait?

:D

I'm a copywriter, too.

didn't think of that. If the search works like the one in iTunes, you may have a great point.

i've already pre ordered it. #1 reason why is because i have a G5 and tiger runs in 64bit platform. though none of my apps run in 64bit, i would still like to see the difference. i just hope it won't be a similar experience when i ran windows XP during its first couple of weeks of release. doubt it though, which is why i switched to macs :)

I’ve always dreamed of having instant access to all the data on my computer. Through the years it’s been one heckuva lot of adverts, campaigns, articles, presentations and books. To me, SpotLight really does sound like a miracle.

Haven’t done my homework on Tiger, but that’s the only feature that catches my eye. That said, it has me awestruck with expectation.

:)

I'm taking the smart approach suggested at another board. I'm pre-ordering to take advantage of the $99, but I'm going to leave it in its unopened box until Mac tech sites and my working colleagues give it a thumbs-up. If it takes waiting for 10.4.x, I'll do that. Getting the jobs out has to take precedence over x.0 version headaches. Plus Tiger looks like one of those upgrades where you get the biggest bang if you bought the baddest machine. I don't yet own any Macs with a G5 or enough video RAM to get the most out of Tiger.

I think I may well follow your example. :cool:

Sissies. No guts, no glory.

So my OSX Panther is designed for a 32-bit platform? That's pretty crappy.

Then again, I think my OS runs smoothly and quite perfectly... I can't imagine it being any better. Will my windows open more gracefully? I mean, what exactly is going to make the OS seem any greater with Tiger than with Panther on an iMac G5 with 512RAM?

No offence, but you're brand new to OS X.. I think it's a bit premature to be attempting to openly debate upgrading versus not upgrading.

Personally, I will be upgrading because (in no particular order):

• I like to stay close to the cutting edge. It helps me in my vocation.
• The appearence of Tiger-only applications is sure to follow.
• I get Tiger cheap.
• The evolution of the "species" (Puma -> Jaguar -> Panther) has been asounding, I have high hopes that the next iteration will be another leap forward.
• As with Panther, I think the changes behind the scene will make a larger impact on me then the ones touted on Apple's website. After all, a lot of that promotional stuff is targeted at non-professionals.

Two Words:

Cool Factor

If tiger is how it is made out to be, I think that the main feature will be its ability to make observers unable to stop themselves admiring it very vocally. And then they will be forced to purchase it, like in a hypnotic trance. ;)

Much like what people do when they first discover the demoscene...

"5 minutes of incredible full screen 3D video in 64 KB??? Coooooooool...." (salivates)

Other then that, I hope tiger looks good. I happen to like the jaguar version of aqua better then the panther version, so, apart from the effects, I think the look of the interface (for me) has gone backwards.

Cheers,
Christopher

You may have a point. I'm still new. I guess I'm just trying to make myself feel better about not waiting to get my computer until Tiger came out.

The new Spotlight thing does seem pretty cool now that I've researched it more, but not entirely necessary. prolly because I label things in a detailed way.

Again- how wil lTiger make use of the 64 bit processor? Will there be a night and day difference between how the interface is for me now with Panther?

I still think the Dashboard isn't so hot (Konfabulator does that stuff, and it's fun, but nothing I can't live without).

I like how this thread started out as reasons to not get Tiger, but has ended up with us all stating that we're itching to get it!

What's demoscene? I clicked the link and I'm still clueless.

Access Control Lists (ACL)
Go beyond the limitations of traditional UNIX file permissions and enjoy greater flexibility over assigning access permissions to files, folders and network services.

HFS+ CLI file commands
Use command line file commands on HFS+ items with proper results — utilities such as cp, mv, tar, rsync now use the same standard APIs as Spotlight and access control lists to handle resource forks.

From the Tiger site...

Hugh

Eeh... There's no reason for large portions of the OS to be 64-bit. The finder is a pretty good example. The code for the menu bar and the dock is another. They don't need to access more than 8GB of RAM at a time (I HOPE!). There are core components in Panther and certain applications that take advantage of the G5 if it is available. Tiger adds more.

Tiger?
 

What Yellow said: Unlike Yellow, I'm retired. It would have helped me in my vocation, just as moving up to new operating systems did over my quarter century of working with Macs.

I'll add one more reason to Yellow's: I love the challenges, excitement and learning curve of working with operating system advances. Yeah, even the thrill of daring the different and risking bugs as I see how Tiger plays with my hardware and software configurations on my G4.

Even more risky, but rewarding to contemplate, is installing Tiger on a Beige G3 (rev A) that is not supported by Apple beyond Jaguar. I had the fun of doing alpha and then beta testing of Ryan Rempel's XPostFacto software that enables me to run OS 10.3.8 and all the same apps as I use on my G4 on the legacy, pre-builtin-USB-era Beige. Ryan's next challenge: upgrade XPF to allow Tiger to be installed on Beiges and other legacy pre-builtin-FireWire-era Apples.

But although I'll be installing Tiger on my G4 on delivery, ahem, I'll still keep Panther on another boot volume for any occasions when the Tiger snarls instead of purrs.

Respectfully, Norm

At the end of the day
 

You’re darned right, CAlvarez.

In terms of OS I’m definitely a follower, not a leader. I do not have anywhere near the IT knowledge that you and many other MacOSXHints contributors do. So that’s why I listen to the pundits.

Thought: Those who really go for glory avoid temporary saves. They only save the documents they have on screen at the end of the work day. :D

It's a really good question. 64-bit seems to be the biggest buzzword of the year for Mac fanatics. Yet in maybe a majority of general uses like Word and iTunes, 64 bit might not make any difference in their lives. For a small minority, it will greatly extend the capabilities. But only in the same way that a 16-lane highway is "faster" than an 8-lane highway. The 16-lane is only faster when more than 16 cars need to move through at the same time, only a few times a day. At many other hours of the day, the extra 8 lanes are a big empty unused occupation of land resources, yet the government has to maintain all of it anyway. (That is a very loose amateur paraphrasing of the additional overhead of pushing 64 bits of data around all day just to check e-mail, organize playlists, and buy stuff from Amazon. I'm not an engineer. Feel free to point out where this paragraph is flawed.)

I'm probably one of those people who will get some benefit from 64-bit whenever I get around to having a G5 with more than 2GB in it. But I have read engineers saying that 64-bit isn't going to do that much for most people, and if not implemented correctly some operations could actually slow down. I'm more interested in Spotlight and the multi-user iChat.

Perfect! Labeling things in a detailed way should enhance your experience with Spotlight. Imagine you use keywords in your filenames, for example. You could make Smart Folders that sort stuff using those keywords, and use Boolean operators to arrange them in different ways. You could have, say, a folder of "'keyword(kw):movies' AND 'kw:humor' NOT 'kw:animated'" or "'kw:confidential' AND 'filetype:.doc' AND 'date: older than 1 year'"

Where do I find that deal?

EDIT ADDING:
To answer my own question... Amazon :)

Here's a benchmark of Tiger vs. 10.3.8 on many systems. There seems to be some great gains from Tiger itself.

http://www.mactouch.com/IMG/gif/Tige...s_MacTouch.gif

Oh, I got mine at macsales.com. I saw it somewhere else too. As long as we're all saving $30, yay!

Thank you for posting that! It shows that even G4-based systems like my PowerBook will be faster, holding up the tradition of major OS X upgrades making older machines go faster, not slower, and those of us without 64-bit machines still get a big performance boost. Excellent.

You guys are funny! Another reply to CAlvarez would be to quote P. T. Barnum and say, "There's an early adopter born every minute!" :-)

... although this time it looks like I will be one of those suckers. A client has ordered a copy of Tiger for me and I expect I'll be installing it that weekend after I do my backup.

I hardly ever do a search on my Macs as I pretty much know where everything is, so Spotlight isn't an urgent need of mine. Back in the "Classic" days, I skipped a major upgrade every now and then -- like OS 8.5, with Sherlock and Application Switcher (oooh . . . aahhh ;)) -- for $95.00! So I went from OS 8.1 to 9.0, which wasn't really much better than OS 8.1; actually, it crashed a lot more, at first.

I don't use Safari or Mail, so the prospect of new version of these is no great shakes either.

I tried Konfabulator once and decided I really didn't need all that info; I'd probably feel the same about Dashboard.

Stability . . . hard to imagine anything better than the Panther set-ups I've got; no crashes in months.

Speed . . . decent! No real complaints.

64 bit apps. . . I don't have any. Does anyone?

I could go on, as I have in other threads, about how it will probably take one or two upgrades for Apple to correct problems, how many apps will either break or need to be upgraded. The geek factor always begs to question the above, however, and that will be the case with me as well, I'm sure. Maybe later than sooner this time, however. ;)

Your welcome. I was happy when looking at that, but i can't wait to see what it is like in real life. Two weeks!

Rather than try to generate reasons not to do something, I'll just make a simple prognostication, in honor of Da Vinci's birthday: all of you will upgrade before the year is out. ;)

I agree with you on all your points, Phil. The other day, in the depths of a pre-tax-day depression and running on too little sleep, I made a similar statement and said that I might sit out. However, I got to thinking (and getting wrapped up in the excitement of everyone else here) and recanted. What I was thinking was that many of the things I like best about Panther were not among the big items mentioned initially:

Expose: I almost never use it (I have Virtual Desktop)
Quartz Extreme: I don't notice it on the machine that can use it and I don't miss it on the machine that can't.
FileVault: I've never used it.
iChat AV: I don't use any apps of that nature.

Things that do endear me to Panther (even though I don't 'notice' some of these directly, I do think that I'm benefitting from them all the time):
Hot Adaptive File Clustering,
Defragmenting on the fly,
It returns swap (pretty readily) when it is no longer needed,
Preview got much, much better (search function, ability to cut, etc.)

I'm not saying that those first 4 aren't great and useful for others, just that even though the big-ticket items weren't for me, the under-the-hood things and all those little touches that makes Apple Apple and Macintosh Macintosh made it worthwhile to me anyway. I'm guessing that it will be the same with Tiger. Also, since their development pace will be slowing, it might be 2.5-3 years before the next one comes out.

So while I haven't ordered it yet, I'm almost certain that I will. I'll have to use the media exchange program (and a story on Macintouch today said that that program will expire on July 1 or so). At Education pricing, it is not as tough of a decision.

Some of the big items I did appreciate: FUS, and the new X11.

In the meantime, 10.3.9 is out!!!

Was anyone else surprised that the box looks an awful lot like Panther's (and no Tiger stripes)?


[Oooops!! Apologies to yellow. I had not been back to this thread in awhile and read Phil's post and then made mine before I read through the middle posts and saw that yellow had already said much the same thing.]

There are also those of us that don't maintain, manage, fix or troubleshoot Macs for a living (nor for the pure joy of it) and just need them to work reliably so we can get through our days and digital workflows that can either break our banks or brains if not running smoothly/properly. As such, I will wait a few months before upgrading my 2 main machines to learn and hear more about Tiger's functionality, compatibility, and overall performance. I waited about 1/2 year to upgrade to Panther and never had to sweat a drop over unknown software blips or peripheral incompatibility. So, sissies or not, I'm happy to wait the same on Tiger ... :rolleyes:

I agree with you 98%. I think Apple's done a great job with updates since the beta, so I think we'll know within a few weeks if there are going to be any significant issues with Tiger. We'll also have a good idea about when they'll be fixed.

With all the press they've been getting lately and the momentum from the Mini & iPod, this is an important upgrade for Apple. You can be pretty sure they've done a good job with it, and will be quick to fix anything that does come up. :)

I, for one, am grateful to all the early adopters of OS changes who risk discovery of issues and then report back in these forums and take the trouble to file incident reports with Apple.

That's how Apple learns what adjustments need to be made for the many different hardware and software configurations of users that were different than those of the beta testers. And that's how all of us learn how to prevent preventable problems and do workarounds with others.

Respectfully, Norm

Kindly said, Norm.

The first ones to install Tiger while their external Firewire drives are connected will be brave souls, indeed!

Well someone's got to do it, and my geek factor makes it easy for me to not really mind. I figure, i back up all my stuff daily (with Apple Backup 2, god i love that software), and it's not like i'm doing anything too crazy anyway with my computer.

It's for personal use. So yeah, i'll risk it to get Tiger on the day it is released. I have done it with Panther and Jaguar, and haven't had a problem. I'm hoping Tiger is the same. :)

I might do that actually. Just aquired a new 250GB firewire one, so if I backup my 120GB one onto that, I could test it with the 120GB one.

The 120GB one was actually connected to mothers iMac when I upgraded it to Panther, and it still works perfectly...

I guess I was just lucky...?

I'll be doing my first the morning of the 30th, after the HitchHiker's Guide and the release party on the 29th. :)

I can't wait for that movie. I hope it's as good as the BBC series, which was almost exactly how I envisioned the book (very cool). I'm going to read the book again this week.

April 29th is going to be a great day, and i doubt i'll even make it to the bars that friday night ;)

What I like about Tiger?
 

I like the fact that Tiger can search my comments in the get info section. That's pretty cool. I tend to write a lot of stuff in the comment section so being able to search this with Tiger is a plus. I wish that spot light would color label the files as they are in Finder, that would make it even better.

I also like the fact that we now have the option to encrypt the swap file. This issues came up in the past and has been addressed.

Hats off for Apple in implementing these needed solutions.

I also like the way they improved the script editor dictionary. Check it out, it is pretty cool from the way it use to be.

In the future, I just hope that on the exchange server side, they make some significant improvements in automount, hyperlinking, etc...

I would also like to see the ability to save work space prior to a schedule shutdown.

thx
RLC

My reasons for not using Tiger yet [we've got it, but I mainly still boot Panther]:

- Hash's Animation:Master isn't ready for Tiger yet
- My company requires me to use their virus protection software [Norton], and they haven't provided a Tiger-compatible version
- Konfabulator is now free, courtesy of Yahoo! I LOVE that part ... now I can enjoy an even niftier Dashboard than, um, Dashboard.

Well I did end up getting Tiger, but that's because it came with the Powermac. The hardware upgrade was sorely needed, but I still haven't really found a whole lot that I use in Tiger that wasn't available in Panther.

I don't use Spotlight, barely use Dashboard (I have a weather widget, an 8-ball widget, and a Sokoban (that's a simple game) widget). Mail's upgrades are nothing to squeal over, as far as I can tell.

When I upgraded from Puma to Panther, I noticed a huge (huge!) difference in OS speed. I did notice a huge difference between Tiger and Panther, but there's that whole hardware upgrade thing that makes it hard to discern any difference in overall OS speed improvments.

Overall, though, I think I would have been perfectly happy with Panther if my iMac had been able to keep up with everything that I was doing.

Having had Tiger since it was first released (mainly for Automator and Spotlight) I have to say that I am glad I did. In my archive I have 6,000 family photos that date back to 1910. Thanks, in a large part, to my Dad who was a shutterbug and used Kodachrome film! After a few months of intense mouse and keyboarding, I have finally put in Spotlight comments on 95% of the photos. Now if I want that one illusive photo of my Dad during WWII, I can put in "Berlin" and "1945"-- boom, 4 pictures show up with my Dad training for the Berlin Airlift and posing with his buddies. I put in the word "portrait" and I see all the professionally posed photos from my great grandmother, to my own kids.

Thanks to Automator, I was able to right-click on a large number of photos and enter in information globally, such as "1987 Christmas".

Dashboard comes in handy for when I want a quick spelling of a word. I did not want to mispell words in my metadata. It's also nice to have Dashboard come up as a screensaver for quick access to time, date and what is on TV tonight.

The only thing I do not like about Spotlight is there are not enough preference settings. For example, I would like to do a search when I hit RETURN rather than every time I type a letter.

For me, Tiger was worth it.