Apple Archive

Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) Looks Promising, But What About the Little Stuff?

- 2004.07.07

Apple recently previewed the new Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" software. It seems to include some great new features that users might find very useful having built into the operating system.

The big new feature is Dashboard, where you can access "widgets," which are similar to desk accessories in the Classic Mac OS, just by pressing a key on your keyboard. This certainly sounds like a great feature, and I can't wait to try it out. There have been cases where I want to access something, like a calculator, without going through the Finder to find it.

Going through the Finder is time consuming, especially when you have four or five other applications open and all you want to do is a simple math problem. On my G4 it usually takes a few seconds to open a new Finder window, then another few seconds to list all of the applications in the Applications folder. Sure, you could put some of these applications in the Dock - but you really can't keep an infinite number of things there.

Spotlight is another big feature, allowing you to search not only your hard drive, but your Address Book, Mail messages, and Calendar in order to find something that matches the text that you typed in. For those who use Mail, Address Book, and iCal, it's a great feature. Unfortunately, since I don't use Mail or keep my addresses and calendar on my PowerBook, it won't help me too much.

Another new feature is an RSS reader built into Safari. I've never bothered with RSS in the past (for those who don't know what it is, RSS allows you to receive a brief summary of the latest updates to your favorite weblogs and websites) - but perhaps I'll start now that it's going to be built right into Safari.

While this is fantastic, there are some other enhancements I'd really like to see from Safari; namely the page number and Web address on printouts (every other Mac OS browser that I've used has this) and the ability to sort bookmarks by name (even Internet Explorer in OS 9 has this capability).

I hope this isn't another one of those "one mouse button" issues where Apple thinks that it's easier and more elegant, whether that's to have one mouse button or, in this case, not to display the page and address on printed websites.

The other issue is that, according to several things I've read on the Web, the OS 10.4 Developer Preview is now shipping on a single DVD. I'm hoping that the final release will be available on CD as well; given many recent Macs don't have DVD drives. For instance, my mom's 500 MHz iMac from 2001 shipped with a CD-RW drive, not DVD.

It'd be a bit disappointing if OS 10.4 weren't installable on that machine - it more than meets the hardware requirements - given that it's just three-years-old. My blue G3 tower would be out as well - it only has a CD-ROM drive. And I don't think 10.4 would run too terribly on it, given that it has plenty of RAM and almost 30 GB of available hard drive space.

As I've come to realize, it's the small enhancements that really matter when it comes to a major OS upgrade such as this. In Panther, it was the "password required on wake up" that I liked, since I didn't want someone getting into my PowerBook if I left it sleeping on a desk for a moment.

In 10.4, I'd really like to see something done about the Open/Save dialogue boxes, as they tend to be slow and a little bit difficult to navigate. And, of course, I'll welcome any other small improvements as well. Overall, the central features of OS 10.4 look interesting.

Now, let's see if Apple can start thinking about some upgrade pricing plans.

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