well, I'm not sure about graphical 'oomph', I would just like some overall 'oomph'. As I continue to use my Mac I'm running into more and more problems with applications which I've never had before. I use blender heavily, I'm having to go back to an older eMac to do anything at the moment because it just crashes (usually at a critical point), general usage is getting worse! there is a second or so delay between clicking a button and it actually doing anything. Actually a lot of Blender users seem to be pulling their hair out about this, so I'm not loosing the plot. Parallels crashes, infact quite a few programs which have served me well seem slower, less efficient and way more unstable. I cannot render anything complex at the moment in Blender, there is no Leopard specific release, it just crashes to my absolute screaming fury. I'm working on a CGI animation and my new machine cannot cut it at the moment, I could swear profanities over it, I'm so angry about it. Parallels crashes over and over and over then suddenly works, the logic fails me, I go into XP do something, quit, do something else, go back to XP and Parallels has given up the ghost. Productivity is suffering.
I need efficient productivity and power, THATS what I've shelled out cash for - not flippin eye candy!
I would like to see Apple bring a Leopard 'Lite' minus all the superfluous guff, quick look is HARDLY a wow factor, come on, be serious! - sure its useful but I've managed so far without it and really dont NEED it. If I could uninstall that feature I would. Spaces, nice but I had a 3rd party app in Tiger which frankly was far better, even then I eventually stopped using it. I don't NEED to have pretty reflections on the dock, I'd prefer to save the processing for more important things. Don't get me wrong, I like Leopard but it certainly does NOT deliver the over-hyped wow factor I've been reading about. iTunes, iPhoto, iWork, iWeb etc. ARE DEFINATELY slower opening on my Mac now than under Tiger - WHY? These apps launched fast before, now they feel like they did on my old G4, that is cr@p in my view and sorry if I invite a flaming for it. Since starting out with Mac OS X, it always seemed to get better and better, even faster. It's taken a retrograde step from where I'm sitting, I dont feel like I've got my money's worth and my dissapointment is growing daily - sadly.
Yeah I know the flaming I could get for this, but I am a mac fanatic and I have to be honest when I feel that things aren't as good as they should be. It's my opinion based on my experiences so far. My MacBook does not feel like the dual core 64bit cutting edge power-beastie it should be, I cant say how much better things like rendering are because I cant do any. Video encoding and ripping music IS faster - obviously, but I do feel loading times are slower than Tiger, sometimes there are lags, that damn spinning ball of death still appears. I'm beginning to miss my old Mac, all the money I spent could have gone on a holiday or something.
Hopefully some more system updates will improve things, I remember being equally vexed at Tiger at first - I miss it now. Even a fellow Mac user who has my old Mac mini (G4 1.25, 512MB RAM) and Tiger wasnt overly impressed, infact he said he has asked me not to install Leopard because he likes the performance he has at the moment. I dont really blame him.  |