# Totally uninspired by Tiger



## habilis (Apr 12, 2005)

Apple is really reaching this time with "Tiger". Stock quotes and weather are so 1998. C'mon guys, "Handy Widgets???" - yeah we've had these barely-useful "Widgets" on my toothbrush for the last 5 years. Everything else is just a cluster of uninspiring updates and bug fixes.


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## Qion (Apr 12, 2005)

I completely disagree. The new program "Dashboard" is an extremely welcome part of the new system, increasing productivity, ease of use, better time management, and just being pure cool. I use widgets with Konfabulator, and I find them extremely usefull on a daily basis. 

Also, keep in mind that Dashboard is only ONE of the new things in Tiger.


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## Viro (Apr 13, 2005)

Things I'm looking forward to in no particular order:

- GCC 4.0 (w00t!!)
- XCode 2
- Spotlight (after using Beagle on Linux, I'm really looking forward to spotlight).
- Safari RSS.

There alone are worth the upgrade in my book. I've tested some of my code with GCC 4, and I get a rather nice boost in speed. There's a thread somewhere in the Tiger forum about my experiments.

XCode 2 looks nice, with better Java integration. Easily worth the upgrade price on its own.


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## Ceroc Addict (Apr 13, 2005)

habilis said:
			
		

> Stock quotes and weather are so 1998. C'mon guys, "Handy Widgets???" - yeah we've had these barely-useful "Widgets" on my toothbrush for the last 5 years.


Dashboard is one of the things I'm looking forward to most in Tiger - spelling checker widget alone will be a welcome addition.

Kap


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## Tommo (Apr 13, 2005)

As a Konfabulator user I too was looking forward to Dashboard, but found myself disappointed. Konfabulator is great because all the widgets sit on the desktop, all the time. I found with Dashboard that having to press a button meant I only used it infrequently.

As one of my Konfabulator widgets gives me the last ten posts to these forums I felt that was a shame.


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## fryke (Apr 13, 2005)

Well: You can still use Konfabulator, can't you. Personally, if I had some konf-widgets open permanently, I'd keep them there and use Dashboard for things that _don't_ have to be always visible.


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## Tommo (Apr 13, 2005)

Definitely, I just thought it was a shame that Dashboard didn't have the always open option.


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## Gig' (Apr 13, 2005)

I Use Konf widgets daily and find it very handy to split widgets between desktop and background through Konsposé

BTW Anyone knows if Konf Widgets will actually be compatible with Dashboard ? Or ones needs to start a fresh new collection of widgets


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## smithy (Apr 14, 2005)

Well the only reason im interested in upgrading to Tiger is for just a general performance increase of my eMac, Dashboard, Spotlight (might be handy one day), and the menu bar. I used Konf once i didnt really like it that much it seemed to eat up alot of the resources, but im really looking forward to dashboard.


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## Natobasso (Apr 14, 2005)

As usual these updates are just window dressing for the user but great for the UNIX and hard-coders out there. How many times do you really need to check the weather, eh? If Konfab is out there, why would Apple need to spend time and money developing their own Konfab?! Not exactly ground breaking.

Don't get me wrong, I love OS X (I'd thought I'd never go to OS X about 3 years ago, now I will never go back to 9!) but many of these updates get us all excited only to leave the bad aftertaste of incompatibilities and unexpexted program crashes.


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## ApeintheShell (Apr 15, 2005)

Well the difference is Apple's design and user interface. I used the demo for Konfabulator and wasn't all that impressed. Some shareware makers do a great job but lately I have seen applications pieced together such as QuarkXPress or Limewire. Also consider the creators of Konfabulator. They were very angry when Apple announced Dashboard and began promoting their product as the original Dashboard. That may get them some customers but over time they will have to add some incentive like design and user interface to draw the larger crowd. If that is their target audience.

I would like Tiger for my graduation present but may not get it. I wasn't inspired by Panther because I heard so much about it. Did not use Exposé except for showing off or when i really really really needed it. It all depends on your needs and outlook on new functions in Mac OS X.


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## adambyte (Apr 15, 2005)

Heh. That's interesting... When Pather came out, I saw it, and was amazed by it. I always thought, 'What would be really neat would be if I could "zoom out" and see all my windows at the same time.... and Panther had Expose, and I love it. I can't stand using a computer without it. To me, Expose was worth the price of Panther, alone. Everything else that came with Panther were just nicities...

Tiger, however... I dunno.... I have QuickSilver, so I'm not in any dire need of Spotlight... though, I think my parents are in need of Spotlight. And Dashboard? Ironically, I think I'll only use it if they make it so the widgets can hang around, just like Konfabulator.... I always thought Konfabulator was neat, but never that worth price of admission, considering there are other free utilities...

Tiger? Maybe. We'll see.


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## blue&whiteman (Apr 16, 2005)

adambyte said:
			
		

> Heh. That's interesting... When Pather came out, I saw it, and was amazed by it. I always thought, 'What would be really neat would be if I could "zoom out" and see all my windows at the same time.... and Panther had Expose, and I love it. I can't stand using a computer without it. To me, Expose was worth the price of Panther, alone. Everything else that came with Panther were just nicities...
> 
> Tiger, however... I dunno.... I have QuickSilver, so I'm not in any dire need of Spotlight... though, I think my parents are in need of Spotlight. And Dashboard? Ironically, I think I'll only use it if they make it so the widgets can hang around, just like Konfabulator.... I always thought Konfabulator was neat, but never that worth price of admission, considering there are other free utilities...
> 
> Tiger? Maybe. We'll see.



wow.  its like we are the same person..  I totally agree with everything you said.


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## Convert (Apr 16, 2005)

Is Tiger to Panther (lets say... 10.3.1) as Longhorn will be to Windows XP? Is it that big of an upgrade? I know that the low price suggests not.


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## scruffy (Apr 16, 2005)

There's a lot of big stuff in Tiger that doesn't have a flashy GUI - core data, which gives developers all sorts of nice features basically for free.  core graphics, which developers of graphics apps will probably start building into their apps.  Lots of features that are nice and useful to administrators, like access control lists for files (rather than plain old user/group/other permission bits)...

So, you might not see a lot of difference, but I suspect many programs will come out that require 10.4, or that have better features in 10.4, because it's just so easy to do cool things with the tools that 10.4 gives to developers.

And really - isnt' that what makes an OS good - that there are programs for it that do cool things?


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## markceltic (Apr 17, 2005)

I find myself on the fence when it comes to this release.For now I don't have so much on my system that I need spotlight,dashboard I'm not that busy of a person I need to see what is going on every second of the day for whatever.Since I'm not a developer or an administrator well no blood pressure increase again.                                                                           `     So far the only things that captured my attention were Mail,Quicktime,Safari  you say well I like'em.As for iChat enhancements the thing is almost a bust the way it is now.Six people in my buddy list big deal & only one has a webcam. I'm finding it hard to justify the $165. Canadian approximately.


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## Lt Major Burns (Apr 17, 2005)

when is video going to be addressed properly? i thought it was going to be in tiger, until i realised it blatantly wasn't going to happen - quicktime 7? h.264 bullsh*t. itunes can sort and play digital music better than anything else on the planet - kicks windows media until it can't get up. iphoto makes Windows' "photo contextual" folders look primitive and half arsed (and wins awards because of it), but for video, we get a program that is only better than windows media player 7 years ago because of some codecs.  

quicktime's only saving grace is that its "compatible". which with tiger stops anyway. i hate quicktime - always have. when is iMove going to be a full video library, with organising, tagging (meta data for spotlight, remember), searching and the best thing about itunes/iphoto, the distancing from the actual files and folders. 

instead, iMovie is a sandbox video editor. great. i don't _have_ a video camera. i do, however, have about 200 miscellaneous mpegs.  plus i'd like to put my dvd collection on my mac, so i don't have to get up to change bloody movies.  what itunes did for my cd collection (getting dusty, i fear) and what iphoto did for photo albums, iMovie/Video? should do for video. i can't be the only one that thinks this is an area where [for once] macs are at least 7 years behind everyone else.

this is related to the thread.... it's my tiger disapointment


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## fryke (Apr 18, 2005)

iPhoto takes videos, btw. Maybe that slipped under your radar... And iTunes as well as iPhoto and iMovie are part of iLife, not Panther or Tiger. So your gripe's really with iLife '05, not Tiger...


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## Lt Major Burns (Apr 18, 2005)

yeah, i know....  the video support in iPhoto, thats only in iLife 05 right? (i have 4). how good is it? i mean can it manage and play a range of formats? (full range?)

and it still seems as though it's still an undernourished part of iLife. IMO


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## aicul (Apr 19, 2005)

An OS is an os to me. After a while you tend to settle down with the half a dozen things you really use regularly. These of course vary person to person.

What I did notice was that Panther only had one sexy addition, Expose, and I eventually ended up NOT using it.

To me it seems that Tiger has more extras to show then Panther did. So I'll soon see what enters my day-to-day routine.


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## tumbleguts (Apr 20, 2005)

I think I am slightly uninspired by Tiger...

And the reason...
I think I'm still in love with Panther!
My entry into the mac world was 8.6.
(Everyone told me how much better it was than OS 7...)
But then I had a hard time under OS 9.
For some it worked out - for me it was a struggle.
Jaguar? Don't make me laugh...
(slow, full of bugs, and endless revolving beachballs!)

Panther, on the other hand - ROCKED MY WORLD!
On my G4 it was almost twice as fast as Jaguar.
And since I've had it - it's been bliss.
This is the best OS platform I've ever had.
Sure, initially I hated the way OS X looked.
I thought Macs were starting to look too much like Windows.
But then productivity increased and I started to appreciate the intuitive layout.
Things just worked...

So, now comes along Tiger.
And there is nothing much there to bait me with.
So - what's the point...
I guess in some ways I'm right!!!
Panther was (is) fantastic - and apart from a few little new niffty programs - there isn't a lot of difference in Tiger. 

So I say, lets stick with the black cat (for now).
At least it's lucky...


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## thendis (Apr 21, 2005)

As I understand it Tiger introduces a free Screen Reader, "voice over". 

If this does everything a screen reader like JAWS can, then I think that alone is enough to make Tiger a milestone release. Stand-alone screen-readers cost $1000+ on their own, and being Apple you just know it will blow the rest out of the water. Plus, I don't think there are any screen readers for OS X at the moment, so there are millions of people being excluded at the moment. 

However, looking at their site (http://www.apple.com/accessibility/voiceover/) it doesn't mention anything about Web browsing capabilities. So perhaps it's juts a screen reader for the OS itself and not a full-functional screen reader. If that is so, then it's nothing very special at all. Can anyone tell me for sure if you can browse the Net with VoiceOver?


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## fryke (Apr 21, 2005)

It works fine in Safari. Have to activate "read under mouse" or something. And then have to move to each _line_ it seems. Had to turn it off immediately though. Can't have my Mac talk all the time.


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## thendis (Apr 21, 2005)

but does it have the same level of functionality as JAWS etc? 'read under mouse' sounds like it just reads whatever you point it at...pretty useless if you can't see the cursor to begin with. I mean, do you think you could (reletively) easily turn on a mac and surf the web if you were completely blind using VoiceOver?


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## padishahemperor (Apr 21, 2005)

I did seriously consider upgrading, but now have decided against it.  I'll wait and see how things stand in 6 months or so.  I must admit I'm not sure the new features will make a major difference to me, the perennial desire to upgrade every time something, anything new comes out is so silly, I've said before, this is something the Mac community has picked up in recent years.  When I used Macs in the past (years ago) there wasn't this overwhelming desire to keep getting the latest hardware and software.  I have no need for widgets and spotlight, maybe one day but on consideration, not yet. I wouldn't go as far as saying Tiger is uninspiring but it doesn't have enough in it to make me want to shell out cash for it yet. Panther works well for me.  As someone who has just recently bought a Mac mini, I think Apple should have offered a concession in the price on Tiger, also as a former hardcore Linux user, the idea of paying for an OS is still new.


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## texanpenguin (Apr 21, 2005)

I'm considering Tiger not as the amazing feature-packed OS Apple sees it as, but rather as Panther 10.3.10 (with everything how it should have been to begin with):

Where iTunes had always impressed with its search-as-you-type, now the whole OS (and any Spotlight-tuned applications) do that (Panther had both the Cmd+F Find File box and the Finder find box, neither of which I use).

Tiger adds to Exposé with Dashboard (I regard Dashboard as like a crap-draw, where you store all your stuff, if you have the Desktop metaphor everywhere else).

It makes the Address Book sensible, syncing birthdays to iCal and introducing smart groups.

It increases performance, and adds features to Safari, iChat and QuickTime (to mention but a few).

So yeah, it's a worthwhile upgrade, but I don't know if I'll rush to get it.


As a matter of interest, I shouldn't expect to get iLife '05 as part of Tiger, should I?


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## Pengu (Apr 21, 2005)

the search field in the finder toolbar is already quite good in my opinion. on a folder with ~70 folders (in various levels of nesting) and ~1000 files, it is quite fast to find the file i want (obviously only works on file-names, dates, not meta data..)


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## Sloane (Apr 29, 2005)

habilis said:
			
		

> Apple is really reaching this time with "Tiger". Stock quotes and weather are so 1998. C'mon guys, "Handy Widgets???" - yeah we've had these barely-useful "Widgets" on my toothbrush for the last 5 years. Everything else is just a cluster of uninspiring updates and bug fixes.



One has to have a brain to feel inspired


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## baldprof (Apr 29, 2005)

Sheesh! I just wish I could get Tiger.

I pre-ordered and the confirmation guaranteed I would have it by 6 p.m. today, but no such luck. As of 7:30 this morning the FedEx tracking still showed a delivery time this afternoon. Well I was able to get home early so that I could be here to accept delivery. No sign of the driver.

I checked the tracking again and it had been pushed back to May 6. Then it was changed to May 4. I lodged a comlaint with Apple and asked them to find out exactly where my order was. Haven't gotten a response.  

What really has started to bother me is that of the last six orders from the Apple store, four have gotten screwed up, usually because of delivery problems. FedEx service in this area has gotten to be horrible. Well of course I requested a different shipping method. So that's two errors this time; wrong carrier and couldn't make the promised receiving date.

So I missed time from work to be here, and had cleared some time for the installation. All for nothing apparently.
Well the last time I called and ranted, I got the shipping charges refunded. So I'l guess I'll do that again. Frankly, I am getting tired of this. I really am growing increasingly disapointed with Apple's customer service.
Now I know what some of you are thinking, this thing isn't that important, this guy needs to get a life. Well I have survived cancer, so I think I know what is or isn't really important. What upsets me is that this appears to be part of a pattern of poor service from a company I used to respect.

Well maybe I am just becoming an old crank. So be it.


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## kainjow (Apr 30, 2005)

I agree with a few others above... Tiger isn't all that great. Panther was perfect. It did everything so well, and now here comes Tiger with basically (on the outside) a few new programs to use...

I upgraded just because I have to have the newest and the greatest (and because I'm a developer), but if I hadn't, I would have been perfectly satisfied using Panther.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Apr 30, 2005)

texanpenguin said:
			
		

> As a matter of interest, I shouldn't expect to get iLife '05 as part of Tiger, should I?



Nope, not unless you get a new Macintosh at the same time...


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## ZP (May 6, 2005)

apple is really playing up dashboard but remember there are over 200 new features


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## aicul (May 7, 2005)

Tried counting but did not get past 20 odd. Should I count bug fixes too?


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## Lt Major Burns (May 7, 2005)

lol


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## tomid (May 7, 2005)

Well I just installed tiger and think its a good update,(not sure though if it was worth the 129 euros..) But besides spotlight, automator and dashboard, theres really lot of other things going on underthehood and makes tiger the most stable and best mac os yet. and unlike windows updates, mac os updates always have made the computers run quicker, something that never happens in the world of windows...
For nice review of tiger: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/1


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