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OS X Businesses Operating Systems Apple

Ars Technica Posts Panther Review 420

Posted by pudge from the it-both-sucks-and-blows dept.
Nexum writes "Today Ars released their latest Mac OS X review, this time for Max OS X 10.3 Panther. It's great to see another tour de force from the Ars guys. They have, as usual, an excellent insight into the new OS release, and they also cover that burning question 'is it worth $129?,' and Panther seems to come out rather well. Certainly worth a read."
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Ars Technica Posts Panther Review More

Ars Technica Posts Panther Review

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  • FUS, Devs... etc. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dolo666 ( 195584 ) *
    An observation I made when reading this is that Mac really is the system I'll use for our upcoming DooM3 Project [doomforcolumbine.com], because it just seems much smarter to develop graphics and games on a Mac, and Panther seems like a really nice OS that no only will handle what I want to do (with cinematics, textures, sound and code), but it also seems like it'll be a solution for cross-platform testing, with the X11 and Windows support. Unless I'm mistaken, Mac now seems to be the system for development, more than ever, and t
    • Hmmm... develop DOOM3 add-ins on OS X?

      If I am not mistaken, DOOM was originally proto'd on NeXT Stations - so this would have some precedent and cultural continuity.

      • That's kinda cool. I like the idea of cultural continuity, in that it brings a bit of nostalgia to the project, now that you mention it. I'm all for that! Maybe we'll have the characters in our story all using "what-would-have-been-Next" systems. :)

    • OS X Email Clients (Score:5, Insightful)

      by green pizza ( 159161 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:26PM (#7435577) Homepage
      For example, I used Pegasus while my wife was using Outlook. With my Mac, we'll both use the same mail prog, whatever it is. Does this cut down on variety? Does it cut down on experimentation? I think so.

      There are gobs of email clients for OS X for every taste... for home users, corporate users, techincal users, unix users...

      • Re:OS X Email Clients (Score:4, Informative)

        by Yobgod Ababua ( 68687 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:30PM (#7435607)
        Also don't overlook Mozilla Thunderbird [mozilla.org].

        I've been quite pleasantly surprised by it.

      • well.. what he meant was that because of fus he didn't need to expirement with different programs just for the sake of each user having their own settings.

        (of course, that doesn't make any sense and if he really used to use different programs just because so that he could have different settings in them, one program per every user of the machine, many programs of one kind.. well.. that wasn't that good reason to be using many different progs for the same job. quite retarded reason actually, and fus
    • Fast User Switching is cool. Although with X you can spawn multiple X servers and log in a different user with each, the thing that makes FUS really slick is that it (can) autolock the user being switched out.

      What I'd like to know though, is if an OS X screen is locked, can you walk up to it and switch users, or does it have to be unlocked by the first user?

  • $129= $10/Month (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BadCable ( 721457 ) <kumareshb@yahoo.com> on Monday November 10, 2003 @12:46PM (#7435231) Journal
    Frankly I think it's worth it. I almost see it as a "montly" subscription to using an OS. It came with the Mac and every year you shell out $129 to keep using the latest and greatest version. Mac OS is steadily improving and improvment costs money. I almost feel like it's payment for a MMORPG where new content is release all the time in the form of patches and free additional features.

    • Re:$129= $10/Month (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dipipanone ( 570849 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:19PM (#7435518)
      Mac OS is steadily improving and improvment costs money.

      Coincidentally, I installed it on my Powerbook yesterday. I'm extremely impressed. It's very fast and responsive by comparison with 10.2, and Expose is an absolute dream though.

      However, I didn't pay for it myself, so I can't really answer the question of whether it's 'worth' $129. I think if I had been paying for it myself -- because it is an expensive upgrade for the functionality. But if I had stumped up the money and bought it, I don't think I'd have been disappointed or felt ripped off.
    • ...don't mean to be a maths nazi or anything, but $129 per year equates (==) to $10.75 per month.

      Still, you've made a very good point, I'd never really thought about the OSX upgrades in that way before. What's $10.75 a month? A beer a week. Just put that money to one side and lo and behold next years upgrade is already paid for. Nice :o)
      • What's $10.75 a month? A beer a week

        My college freshman year (1989), I got $15/week from my parents. I'd buy two cases of Shafer for $5 (total), a few packs of cigs at .75 each (often buy 1 get 1 free), eat at Taco Bell 3 times ($2 for 3 tacos and a coke), and had change left over :-)

        Of course this was just prior to the computer revolution (an i386 w/ 1mb ram was maybe $5000), so I typed papers for $3/page, and bought (uh-hum) "extra supplies" with that money :-)

        Kids today ...

    • I almost see it as a "montly" subscription to using an OS.

      Seeing as I'm a "the glass is half-empty" kind of guy, I've never looked at it like this before.

      I'd still like an "upgrade" price (yes, I know, Apple provides what they call an upgrade release, but this is not what I'm talking about) for those that always legally get each release.

      Ok, it sounds a bit like Dr. Evil asking to be thrown a frickin' bone, here, but the cost is more like $15/month for me. I would have appreciated a nice little discoun

    • I almost see it as a "montly" subscription to using an OS.

      The only problem with that reasoning is that Apple already has a subscription service that gets about $100/year out of many Mac users. Since much of .mac functionality is part of the Mac OS interface and design now, it seems like Apple is now charging $229 a year for full functionality, almost like that other company in Redmond.

      Personally, I just upgraded to Jaguar to take advantage of the fire-sale pricing, and I let my .mac subscription lapse

    • Re:$129= $10/Month (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pherris ( 314792 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @03:27PM (#7436681) Homepage Journal
      Mac OS is steadily improving and improvment costs money.

      Let's not forget the bandwidth cost of offering "one click" updates (no hunting around for a patch). I use RHN with Redhat 9 and pay, I think, about $60USD per year. With that said, IMO, this makes spending $129 a little easier.

      I really think most of the people that complain about the cost of Mac OS updates are those (like me) that remember a time when they were basicly free. Starting with (I think) Mac OS 7.1 Pro Apple started charging and people freaked. Well, the days of Apple's ultra high profit margin on hardware is mostly gone and users need to pay for new features on the software end instead.

      Macs cost a bit of money for feeding and care like updates, hardware and service parts but you do IMO get a lot more functionality (or "bang for the buck") than other OSs especially if you do AV stuff.

      Long story short: Get the update and enjoy the new toys.

      BTW, I use an eMac for video work and Linux for everything else ...

  • When is Apple going to hire this guy? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by spankalee ( 598232 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @12:47PM (#7435249)
    His ideas about the Finder and filesystem are pretty dead on. I wish Apple would bring him on board.

    At the very least they could shamelessly steal his ideas. They're there for the taking.

    • Re:When is Apple going to hire this guy? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      They *are* aleady stealing his ideas. He *is* already working for apple. He's *not* a rocket scientist, and posts at /. by the nickname spankalee.

  • The speed... the speed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by spoot ( 104183 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @12:47PM (#7435253) Homepage
    Expose is nice. Good eye candy. Fast user switching works pretty good. But the real bottom line is the speed. Let's face it, the real drawback of X has always been it was just dog slow. Just booting back into 9 was a reminder of how slow X was. Panther is faster on my daughters G3 ibook, my dual G4 and tibook. Is it worth a 130 bucks? Yes. With the cevat: Only if I didn't have to pay a hundred and thirty bucks last year.

    Pretty good review all in all. Not sure I completely agree with his finding on the finder. But I do agree that Apple seems to be fumbling around looking for something that clicks on the desktop.

    • Re:The speed... the speed (Score:5, Funny)

      by CountBrass ( 590228 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:16PM (#7435502)
      Panther is faster on my daughters G3 ibook, my dual G4 and tibook. Is it worth a 130 bucks?

      You did of course mean to write "Is it worth the $199 for the family pack ?" didn't you.

    • Re:The speed... the speed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 0rbit4l ( 669001 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:52PM (#7435788)
      Regarding "booting back into 9" - you're comparing apples (no pun intended) & oranges. Booting back into 9 is a great reminder as to how AWFUL 9 was. I booted my tibook 867 into 9 not long ago to do some disk maintenance. Yeah, 9 is super-fast - as long as you only ever want to do one thing at a time (I'm not talking about disk-only utilities - we're talking anything here) and don't mind the occasional crash. Face it, running 9 on a modern mac is like running Win 3.1 on a p4 with a gig of ram. It sure is speedy without that annoying overhead of real virtual memory or a useful scheduler, right? - thanks, but no thanks. All the speed in the world is useless if it's an insecure, cobbled-together OS that can't multitask without barfing.

      Regarding 10.3, I didn't notice a speed increase from 10.2.8. XBench reported increased scores in text scrolling (definitely a plus) but that's about it. The killer feature of 10.3 is definitely expose - worth my $69 (academic), for sure. The new mail client is nice, too.

  • $129 for 0.1 (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DrugCheese ( 266151 )
    This seems to me like Microsofts strategy. It's another year, get another 'major release' out of the door so we can get everyone to chip in another hundred dollars.

    Hey but as long as you pay Apple befor Microsoft

    • Re:$129 for 0.1 (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      so you're saying if it were released as Mac OS X 10.5 or Mac OS X 11, it would be worth it? a rose by any other name.... There are many improvements in the core OS itself that end users won't see, but make this a 'major release' in many eyes. The features that users *do* see are many as well: expose, user switching, ichat AV, improved finder, etc.
      • so you're saying if it were released as Mac OS X 10.5 or Mac OS X 11, it would be worth it?

        Obviously the best value proposition was upgrading from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, giving you a total of 91.9 for your money.
        • Clearly 98 to 2000 would be better in that sense...

          That's a whole 1902 for your money.

          Where it all goes wrong is with Me and XP though.

    • Re:$129 for 0.1 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CountBrass ( 590228 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:19PM (#7435519)

      The difference is that Apple's point releases actually *improve* the OS and make it *faster*.

    • Re:$129 for 0.1 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Graff ( 532189 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:40PM (#7435697)
      This seems to me like Microsofts strategy. It's another year, get another 'major release' out of the door so we can get everyone to chip in another hundred dollars.

      Everyone seems to think that these ".1" releases of Mac OS X are not really major releases. In fact, they are pretty much whole version releases, it's just that Apple doesn't want to have to call their new baby Mac OS XI, Mac OS XII, Mac OS XIII, etc.

      The amount of new features, better ways of doing things, corrections to problems, additions to the user interface make each one of the .1 releases to Mac OS X worth being treated as a full version. Take a look at how many reviewers and users are saying that this upgrade is well worth the $130, that alone should tell you that it really is a full version and not some minor update.
      • Actually a friend and I were having a discussion about this -- the core changes to OSX in .3 are HUGE -- kernel synced with BSD5 (which, for the Linux users, is a much bigger deal in *BSD OSs than in Linux), upgrade to gcc 3.3 (with massive compiler optimization enhancements for PPC), lots of changes in the other little things (OSX finally got shadow passwords, a much improved compiler toolchain) and then the slew of UI improvements besides. This should really be a full new release, not a point release, bu
  • Expose is certainly frickin' cool. I don't know if the upgrade's worth $129, but since I got my copy for $20, it's a steal. All the various bugfixes and whatnot are certainly nice as well.

    Apple's managed to get back to the lead of the desktop os pack. The question is, where do we go from here?

    Filesystem metadata is a must, but give 'em another version or two. After that, I really don't know. Any ideas?

    • Re:Wither now? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Graff ( 532189 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:05PM (#7435405)
      Expose is certainly frickin' cool. I don't know if the upgrade's worth $129, but since I got my copy for $20, it's a steal.

      Heh, you want to talk about a steal. I was going to purchase a new computer soon so I signed up to be an Apple Student Developer. It cost $100 per year (they have a free version also) but it comes with all sorts of cool monthly mailings and perks. The best part about it is that you get a one-time, up to 20% discount on a hardware purchase. I bought a brand-new dual 2 gHz G5 and saved $600. The gravy on all of this was they sent out a copy of Panther with the Student Developer kit, another savings of $130. I also got a shirt and a bunch of other cool extras.

      So for $100 I saved $730 in hardware and software, not to mention the developer mailings and all the extras. Not bad at all! Apple definitely treats its developers well.

  • My review (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 10, 2003 @12:50PM (#7435274)
    I've been using Panther for a little less than a week and it's been bliss. Seriously, neither Windows XP or any Linux distro I've ever tried can touch Panther in terms of usability. It's very slick and polished, and blows even Jaguar away with lots of refinements in networking, the aqua GUI, and expose, the feature most likelt to be copied my MS when longhorn comes out.

    The complainers will be the loudest of the bunch, and yes there are a few kinks. But note the firewire problem was an issue with the hardware chipset, not apple's programming. Obviously people like me, the happy ones are not going to get the headlines.

    • Re:My review (Score:5, Funny)

      by blackmonday ( 607916 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @02:03PM (#7435871) Homepage
      Wow, now I've seen everything. An anon copied my earlier post [slashdot.org] from another story, and didn't even try to get mod points for it. He should have at least plugged my band too!

    • Re:My review (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Wow, now I've seen everything. An anon copied my earlier post [slashdot.org] from another story, and didn't even try to get mod points for it. He should have at least plugged my band too!

  • Paid-for OS upgrades (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @12:52PM (#7435291) Journal
    I think Apple are somewhere between a rock and a hard place here - they have to have an evolving sexy OS, to maintain their position in the "consciousness" (God, I sound like a marketing man!) of its' users. They also have to pay for it to be developed, and (since it's a part of their unique-selling-point) can't just open-source it. So, they've got an expensive 'cost-of-doing-business', without the resources of OS to fall back on. I don't see what else they can do but charge...

    Frankly, it looks like it'll be worth it anyway. One nice (for the users) thing is that Apple will need to listen to them if the OS is a profit-centre. This might explain their "two-fingers" approach to the industry complaints over "Rip, Mix, Burn"... Apple know which side their bread is buttered :-)

    Simon

  • My concern (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @12:54PM (#7435311) Journal
    Well, I certainly don't have time to wade through another John Siracusa epic and still make the first hundred posts. Skipping to the end, he basically says, "It's worth $129, if you like giving large chunks of money to Apple for no particularly important reason." That's pretty much what I'd already concluded.

    Anyway, more important to my mind than "Panther r0x0rs/sux0rs!" is this: what's up with Apple's quality control? They've had quite a few releases lately that have completely screwed their users. They've been on the order of the iTunes installer issue a few years ago, which at least had the excuse that they were new to Unix. When I pay them large amounts of money, I expect something that at a minimum doesn't break my system.

    (As opposed to, say, apt-get upgrading Yellow Dog from 3.0 to 3.1. That I *do* expect to potentially break my system but I can try it for free and send them money when it works.)

  • Sounds worth it to me. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Meat Blaster ( 578650 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @12:57PM (#7435341)
    At $129, it's probably one of the most effective updates you can get for your Mac. It's faster than the previous version, slightly more reliable in many circumstances (not that there's much room for improvement), and they've fixed my least favorite interface flaws.

    It's backward compatible with everything, I think. It also seems to boot slightly faster. But you might find the memory management to be the most noticable aspect.

    Basically, lots of little updates that add up.

    • Classic/Carbon apps that use full-screen mode and change your screen resolution worked in 10.2.x, but cause Panther's Quartz to wedge royally. If I launch StarCraft (Carbon version) on my B&W G3 or my 500 MHz iBook, I get garbage drawn on my screen, and the mouse gets restricted to a box in the upper-left corner.

      You can get out of it by pushing the boot button. When the dialog pops up asking whether you want to shut down/restart/whatever, your mouse becomes free and you can use it to go to the dock a

  • Pretty fair (Score:5, Informative)

    by ben_of_copenhagen ( 649118 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @12:59PM (#7435357)
    Im running full panther mode here, and the review seems fair to me.
    Most changes are under-the-hood stuff and changes to the user interface, who admittedly may not seem as impressing as new applications and massive feature-additions. Still, these are the things that improves the experience every day and in almost all kind of work on the machine.
    And the main thing for me is that now i would be sorry to go back to jaguar, and that almost justifies the nasty price tag (+the company pays!).

    One feature that i really miss, though: support for exchange-servers from iCal. Its driving me nuts. And it makes it really hard to justify the use of macs in my department, when everybody else in da houze is using winboxes and outlook - and constantly complaining about me and my close colleagues not using the calendar.

    • Re:Pretty fair (Score:2, Informative)

      by lordDallan ( 685707 )
      It sounds like all of the Windows folks have Office (they're using Outlook). If you have Office for the Mac then Entourage will do ALL of the neat Exchange tricks. E-mail, addresses (contacts), and calendars (including scheduling, seeing busy time, etc.).

      But don't take my word for it. Here it is right from the horse's mouth. [microsoft.com]

  • Well dammit (Score:5, Funny)

    by tbradshaw ( 569563 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:00PM (#7435364) Homepage
    I'm reading the OSX review on Ars, quite enjoying myself, then suddenly I can't make it to page 3. I get "connection failed" messages.

    Giving up temporarily, I cruise over to /. to see what's new. Of course, what do I find? The OSX review on Ars at the top of the list.

    While I've definitely witnessed the slashdot effect trying to follow links from articles, this is definitely the first time that I've ever been caught in the middle of one.

    It's kind of crazy, I didn't think people actually read the articles around here...

    • I feel for ya man, that's why I didn't read it. More bandwidth for the rest of you. But hey, this is /. and I can post without RTFA'ing, so here goes:

      Windoze suX0rz! Lunix r00lz! um, OSX...that's built on BSD, right? BSD is DEAD!

    • It's kind of crazy, I didn't think people actually read the articles around here...

      You're giving these people too much credit, man. We don't read the articles, but we will load up the pages looking for pictures and screenshots. That's really all it takes for a good slashdotting, anyway...

    • Re:Well dammit (Score:5, Informative)

      by Hannibal_Ars ( 227413 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @04:01PM (#7437072) Homepage
      Actually, Ars can handle a thorough slashdotting without even blinking, due to the fact that we serve static HTML--no CMS, database, etc. for the articles.

      The problem isn't slashdot, but the fact that the entire Mac community shows up to read major OS X articles like this. So when you add in the slashdot crowd, which normally doesn't even cause the server to flinch (we haven't choked due to the /. effect since about early 1999), with almost all of the Mac users and Mac watchers on the 'net, then the server starts to choke.

  • Expose (Score:2, Insightful)

    by adrianbaugh ( 696007 )
    A friend of mine was raving about expose the other day, saying it was the next big thing in UI design, but can anyone explain to me how it's any better than pressing F11 in WindowMaker, to get the Window List? I know it can do the "minimize all open windows" thing too, but that can already be done in X anyway.
    I'm not knocking it (too much), I'm sure it looks very pretty, but I just can't see it as being that much of a breakthrough.

    • Re:Expose (Score:5, Funny)

      by kalleh ( 678159 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:19PM (#7435524)
      I have no idea either. And why did they start with this nice-looking UI thing, I mean, what can they do I cannot do with emacs in terminal mode?
    • I have it. It's OK.

      CodeTek's Virtual Desktop is waaaay better. I simply _need_ multiple desktops to be productive. I'd like to see them both work with each other (in a sensible way).

      F9 ensmallens things so you can find them
      F10 tells you what has focus
      F11 clears the screen But if you open something new everyting comes rushing back to the desktop! What's the point?)

      ifthensoft has a thing called Hacksopse' (or something) and it enables the "blob" which lets you click something to do F9 & F10, but a

    • Re:Expose (Score:5, Informative)

      by Spyky ( 58290 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:30PM (#7435604)
      I'm not familiar with the F11 feature in WindowMaker. However, I can say that it took me about a day of using Expose to realize that I can never go back. Thus, if any other OS developer wants my money ever they better have an expose-ish feature.

      I explained expose to a friend of mine, and he couldn't understand out why it was better than ALT-TAB. Several reasons: first, it is a single click, not cycling through a list of windows, as with ALT-TAB. O(1) instead of O(n). Second, Expose shows you your currently open *documents*, rather than applications, and it doesn't show ones that you might have minimized or hidden. Thus it shows you what you are working on right now, not applications that might be running but aren't in active use.

      I also use Expose (F11) to access the desktop (similar to minimize all). The difference is, it isn't minimizing, it is just moving them out of the way so I can access my desktop, maybe drag some files to Finder (You can open other documents/applications while Expose has moved the windows off to the side). It is also easy to restore, just click anywhere around the edge of the screen and everything zooms back to normal (or click F11 again obviously). The most important thing to remember is, you aren't minimizing (or hiding) these windows, so restoring has no effect on windows that you might already have minimized or hidden.

      I've used linux as my only desktop operating systems for several years, multiple desktops were my primary way of managing multiple open applications and documents for several different tasks simultaneously. Since upgrading my weeks old mac to Panther not quite a month ago, I have totally changed the way I work, now using minimization, hiding, and expose to effectively manage my tasks. I find the new methods of doing things easier and more efficient then before (after the initial adjustment). Like I said, I couldn't imagine going back.

      Not that there aren't any improvements to be made (I just can't think of any, but I'm sure someone eventually will). I have to agree that Expose is one of the most significant recent developments in windowed GUIs. Don't knock it until you've spent enough time with it to get used to it.

      -Spyky
      • Microsoft apparently decided that people didn't want "minimize all windows" anymore (I can't find the equivalent on this XP machine), and now look what happens. I wouldn't think there was much difference between a windowlist with selectable windows and Expose, except that some users might prefer Expose's more graphical approach. Some people also have a small enough email volume (or large enough patience) to use GUI email clients, I guess. It's all about needs and preferences.

        Personally, I tend to either
        • I should also mention that in E (and Windowmaker, IIRC) the desktop doesn't do anything except provide a blank spot to allow you to launch menus. So a "show the desktop" function wouldn't make much sense.

    • can anyone explain to me how it's any better than pressing F11 in WindowMaker, to get the Window List?

      The other guy's right. The experience is outstanding (not a word that ever sprang to mind when using WindowMaker), but if you want an explanation of how it works, try here. [apple.com]

  • Well (Score:5, Informative)

    by CountBrass ( 590228 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:12PM (#7435457)

    I'm running Panther on both my G4 PowerBook and my Dual proc G5.

    It's certainly nice. But is it better than Jaguar ? To be honest, not that I notice. Expose is kind of nice - but despite everyone else's raving about it I just can't get excited about it. Very pretty and clever eye-candy to be sure, but the only feature of it I use *at all* is the "clear everything and show me the desktop" f11 function.

    People get excited about the coloured labels. Huh? Can't say I have - and I haven't used them at all and I can't see myself using it.

    Now one thing I do like is the updated Finder. Do I think it's any faster ? Nope. Although it doesn't suffer from spinny-beach-ball-syndrome at all, which is nice. But then i'd call that a bug fix. The thing I do like about Finder is the list of places to go (Home, Applications, etc) that now appeat in their own panel. Although I am still getting used to it, I like that.

    I do use the encrypted home directory on my PB and that makes me feel a bit happier (I can now carry those Confidential and Restricted documents on my laptop ;-)

    The Journalling file system was a no brainer and I feel very smug :-)

    So overall am I happy with what I got for my 114 (one full copy for 99 and another for 15) ? Yes actually I am - doubly so when I see spot the internet machine at work (secure site, so no-one's "work" machine can be connected direct to the 'net) getting clogged with spyware and crashing just because it's now sharing a connection over a wlan I get this warm feeling :-P

    • FWIW, colored file labels were one of the most-loved features in the old Classic Finder, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when they weren't included in OS X. I've done without them long enough that I don't usually miss them any more -- column view + lots of different folders takes care of one of their major uses, which was organizing groups of files for big projects -- but I'll be glad to have them back, and will probably get into the habit of using them again.

      When people ask me what, hone
  • Hopefully they've gotten over the fact that it's not the OS 9 Finder.

    That whining went on a little too long.

    • Re:Hopefully (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Ineffable 27 ( 203704 )
      Well you're misrepresenting his argument. His propsed alternative to the current way the OS X Finder is organized -- he wants to 'separate' the browser and the 'spatial Finder' -- would sacrifice none of the functionality or advantages that the OS X Finder provides. But it would allow for a more consistent and productive user experience, regardless of whether the user is aware of the advantages of the OS 9 'spatial Finder' approach. His proposal is dead-on, and I hope Apple sees fit to adopt it.

  • What I've found (Score:5, Informative)

    by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:16PM (#7435495)
    So, I don't own an Apple machine myself, but my girlfriend has a 17" Powerbook and my friend has a dual G5. Both of them upgraded to Panther in the last week.

    My biggest complaint about X used to be that it's latent as hell. It just can't stand up to Linux with the preemptible kernel patches. You'd push the "Increase volume" key on the keyboard at it would lag for over a second before popping the volume icon. If you use the visualizer in iTunes and start messing around with other stuff it's choppy as hell. Basically, whatever application you are not currently using has ridiculous latency and choppiness. That particular peeve doesn't happen anymore.

    The whole system seems a little more responsive, although with everything sitting on a Mach kernel I don't think MacOS X will ever achieve the low latency that Linux pulls off. Mach's cool but you pay a price.

    They are also doing this thing called "prebinding" which I assume is equivalent to "prelinking" in the Linux world -- performing dynamic linking a single time and saving the intermediate results so that applications can launch faster. If you look through the installation logs for Panther you see that it includes a new dynamic linker and there are many log messages of the ilk: "Prebinding xxx application."

    If you look at the process list in top or with ps you see that there are FAR fewer system processes than before. I'm not sure whether this is because they really aren't running, or if the OS is somehow hiding them (which would be very un-UNIX-like).

    I don't personally give a shit about the new bells and whistles such as Expose. But the improvement to latencies and the general snappy feel are enough for me to justify a $130 price tag. The improvements are mainly under the hood but as a developer I really appreciate that (heh, and I don't even develop for Mac).

    • Re:What I've found (Score:5, Informative)

      by Halo1 ( 136547 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @03:23PM (#7436652)
      The whole system seems a little more responsive, although with everything sitting on a Mach kernel I don't think MacOS X will ever achieve the low latency that Linux pulls off. Mach's cool but you pay a price.
      Kernel latency and (gui) responsiveness two quite different things. Mac OS X actually scores very good on the latency front and has had similar features as what the low-latency and pre-emption patches added to linux quite a while before those patches existed. See this (now outdated) study [jhu.edu] comparing Mac OS X and Linux on latency during audio-processing (before those low-latency and pre-emption patches were integrated in the linux kernel).

      The unresponsiveness was not due to the fact that they use a kernel based on Mach, but simply due to the fact that the GUI wasn't optimised very well. In Panther, they added tons of new special-purpose functions which are much faster than the general-purpose routines. You just have to take care the conditions for calling them are fulfilled.

      Even now, there's still a lot more GUI processing going on in the Mac OS X window manager than in most (all?) XFree Window managers. I think your remark would be more appropriate if it said "The whole system seems a little more responsive, although with the whole GUI being based on pdf and vector graphics I don't think Mac OS X will ever be as responsive as bitmapped systems such as Mac OS 9 and current XFree and Windows versions".

      And even that may prove to be false in the future, as until now the GUI has become more responsive with each version and Apple keeps telling its developers that performance is one of their primary goals. Also, giving the front-most application precedence for screen updates in the window manager/server has little to do with the kernel or pre-emption, but is more of a design choice.

      They are also doing this thing called "prebinding" which I assume is equivalent to "prelinking" in the Linux world --
      It's indeed similar to pre-linking.
      performing dynamic linking a single time and saving the intermediate results so that applications can launch faster. If you look through the installation logs for Panther you see that it includes a new dynamic linker and there are many log messages of the ilk: "Prebinding xxx application."
      Actually, they've been doing that since 10.0.1 (the 10.0.0 linker already had the feature, but they forgot to trigger it in the installer; that's the reason why installing the devtools sped up the system so much, because that installer script did do the prebinding)
      If you look at the process list in top or with ps you see that there are FAR fewer system processes than before. I'm not sure whether this is because they really aren't running, or if the OS is somehow hiding them (which would be very un-UNIX-like).
      They're not hiding anything, but more things are now only started on demand instead of by default at boot time.

  • Yet another review.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pafmax ( 462211 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:16PM (#7435499) Homepage
    Although I agree with the conclusions taken, I thik that the real review is always made by the users. And I, as a user, find that Panther is, by far, the best OS X version of them all to date. And yes, I'm happy that the OS has evolved so well.
    Personally, I still haven't really understood how connecting to servers now works and I don't really like the fact that some apps got quite unstable with the transition, but that's ok, somethings need time... I find this OS to be more usable than jaguar, with expose being, sometimes, a life-savior from the evil million windows from hell that insist in populate my desktop...
    Multi-user switch is also great, and I'm even getting used to the brushed metal look if the finder (that makes it quite odd, compared to any other OSX vers. but that also happened with the transition from OS9 to X, i guess)...
    Yet, the best and greatest thing is that the OS is now FAST, I mean, finally it's FAST AND SNAPPY, even on older hardware (400MHz iMac DV w/384M RAM), when compared to any other OSX version or even OS9 (with VM on, of course) and I can say that this thing alone makes the upgrade totally worth.

    So, I like it, a LOT... oh and as an apple user, I don't really give a dam about having the fastest hardware on earth if I can't be PRODUCTIVE with it (sometime SOME people DO try to produce *WORK* using computers, it's not all games, code, pr0n, or hacking your system! hehehe).
    What I want in a computer is that it works for me and does the thing I want easily and without any crashers or "bad moods". Mac's work for me and Panther is a very enjoyable OS, what more would I want from a computer?

  • X11 is broken on Panther (Score:3, Informative)

    by kurt555gs ( 309278 ) <kurt555gs@ov[ ]om ['i.c' in gap]> on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:30PM (#7435605) Homepage
    In Jaguar I could start X11 and the in the terminal do a:
    $exec startkde &

    AND , i would get KDE3.1 ala Fink running.

    I couldnt click on icons that i saw on the screen, but the dock worked.

    Also i liked the ability to log into on of the linux boxen here with ssh -X -l and do a $exec startkde & on the remote box and use this as a full screen X terminal.

    Well ... with Panther ... If u try to start KDE , you see the center KDE box come up .. then all hell breaks loose. Konqueror windows all over, and you cant click on the task bar (kicker)

    My tempory solution to this is simply not to start KDE either locally or when doing a remote ssh.

    I think it is a conflict with Expose, but who knows.

    Yes ... the new panther X11 is installed corectly.

    Oh well it is really a minor bug, and im sure it will be fixed in some update.

    Oh, YES! Panther is worth $129.00

    Cheers

  • Mac OS Has Always Been Evolutionary (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Spencerian ( 465343 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:32PM (#7435630) Homepage Journal
    The original Mac OS and its last major update, Mac OS 9, have superficial changes, visually. As most Mac aficionados know, Mac OS 9 was a fast, strong OS.

    Now, move to Mac OS X. As with the first versions of the original Mac OS, Apple spent a couple of years refining the OS, adding fundamentals while also improving speed and basic functions.

    Panther is the first evolution of Mac OS X, where the updates concentrate far less on OS development and more attention on OS speed, features, and easier foundations for developers to make apps.

    Mac OS X 10.3 is a great step in the right direction, especially given that Apple appears to be listening to both UNIX pro as well as graphics pro and home user alike. Enterprise users as well as home users will find a lot to use in Mac OS X. I personally want to use the improved Active Directory components to see how well I can make a Mac OS X a member of a Windows domain. THAT will show how compatible such a configuration can be to some naysayers in my workplace.

    • Re:Mac OS Has Always Been Evolutionary (Score:5, Informative)

      by bpbond ( 246836 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @02:44PM (#7436246) Homepage
      Mac OS 9 was a fast, strong OS

      Umm...as long as you only needed to run one application at a time; were comfortable hand-setting memory sizes for your important programs; had the skill to sort through system extensions and control panels to find problems; had no use for a command line; and didn't need multiple users or serious security on your machine.

      Given all those conditions, yes, 9 rocked.

    • 10.2 - 10.3 was a huge step (Score:5, Informative)

      by green pizza ( 159161 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @02:53PM (#7436345) Homepage
      Mac OS has always been evolutionary, yes, but 10.3 is a huge step from 10.2. Apple just uses that goofy naming scheme because they want to keep the roman numeral "X".

      10.3 kernel is significantly different from 10.2. They even upped the Darwin kernel number from 6.x to 7.0 for this release. Large parts of the kernel and most of the userland has been synced up with FreeBSD 5.x. Perl has been upgraded to 5.8. Gimp-Print has been rolled in. Sendmail was replaced with Postfix. The whole OS is faster, especially the GUI. The GUI widgets have been tweaked, most of the pinstripes are gone or made more subtle. Quartz has been totally overhauled. PDF rendering (the whole GUI is displayPDF based) is more than 3x faster (try it, open a large PDF in Preview). Features like Expose are now possible. Fast user switching is now possible for other reasons. Lots of changes, both obvious and under the hood.

      There's even a new developer suite included in the box!

      It's not "OS 11" but it is still is a huge leap forward.

  • Just one user here (Score:3, Informative)

    by dynamicfigure ( 648260 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:39PM (#7435687)
    I am just one user here, but after upgrading from 10.2.7 several of the apps that I had working fine before Panther do not want to run any more. For example, I used to be able to hook up my Brother 1440 laser to my airport base station and print just fine. Now that is a no go. Simcity 4 used to play just fine, now it doesn't. Since upgrading, the fancy backlite on my Powerbook's keyboard works sometimes and sometimes not. As a recent convert who was sold on the idea of buying a system that is alleged to be top notch and "stable" (let alone priced near the top of the class) these little incompatibilities are starting to add up to a more and more sour tasting Apple. This combined with the fact that my new Powerbook has a loose lid, and two small dime sized washed out spots in the screen do not do much to build my trust in Apple's Hardware or Software QA.

    Now comes the $129/yr upgrade scheme. One reason I decided to go with Apple was to boycott the Gates empire's idea that someday I will pay an annual fee to keep my operating system/applications running, current and supported. All that Apple is doing by implementing this upgrade a year program is repackaging the exact same Microsoft business model in different colors. They are not forcing me to upgrade through a subscription fee but rather through the idea of incompatible systems, software and user conveniences. If any of you are also planning on switching from a wintel system like I just did. I think that is great, but I would also recommend that you not rush blindly into the switch (or even an OS upgrade) thinking that all problems will be solved and you will have a seamless running system. Experience with Apple teaches me that all you really do is replace one flavor of problems and frustrations with another and that though the Apple problems have a sweeter flavor they still result in a pit in your stomach as you try to resolve the technical problems thrown at you.

  • Well written (Score:3, Interesting)

    by locarecords.com ( 601843 ) <davidNO@SPAMlocarecords.com> on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:39PM (#7435688) Homepage Journal
    ..

    It's a really good article and I have to say from my own experience that I would thoroughly recommend the upgrade. Things like fast-user-switching and expose are just completely changing the way we work at loca [locarecords.com]. Especially for the Art Director who can have his usual billion windows open and still find things I need urgently by flipping them all off screen...

    Stability wise I am impressed to. The only thing broken was the fact that Apple force you to place certain applications in the Application directory (rather than sub-directories below) which seems a bit stupid...

  • I don't think I will move just yet. I would like too but $$ holding me back right now. I have iBook 400 MHZ and have been stuck at 10.1.5 because I can't afford to pop the 129 bucks. My wife has a Ti G4 notebook and daughter has a iMac 350 Mhz. Both still on OS 9. I have been happily using OS X to record music with a MOTU 828 interface, remotly administer Oracle dbs at work (HP and solaris hosts) from home using VNC, ssh and rdesktop after a VPN connection is established....AND I have been publishing a

  • Pennies per hour (Score:5, Insightful)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:43PM (#7435722)
    I use my computer about 3,000 hours per year. Even with shipping, that makes Panther cost less than 5 cents per hour. That seems like an amazing deal to me.

  • Is it worth it - a fist timer. (Score:5, Informative)

    by mindstrm ( 20013 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:49PM (#7435769)
    Okay.. so last spring, I got my first mac. It was a leap of faith.. for sure. I've always been a low-level systems guy; I like linux, I don't like windows... like most here I guess.

    Now, I'm a mac freak. IT's really that good.

    Is it worth $129? My first reaction was one of feeling ripped off.. I mean, I just bought this not even a year ago.. shouldn't I get a cheap or even free upgrade?

    Well, I bought it. I installed it. Yes, I read about a few quirks, like with firewire, and a warning about filevault.. both of which are not currently things I need.

    Panther is better. It's not a quantum leap, it's not Windows 95 -vs- Windows XP, it's still OS X.. it just has some nice improvements, that I'm sure you've all heard about. More than that, it's smoother, works better.. the eyecandy is just the surface. All the unix stuff I have still works fine too.. I had zero adjustment time in getting to use panther. After the install, I just kept working.. "Oh gee, finder looks different". "Hey, Mail is better!". The odd dialog box from the keychain (which mac apps use to store perseonal information, usually passwords), stating that an application that requested access had changed.. that's it.

    I've come to realize that macs are not cheap. I didn't keep using OS X, or fall for mac stuff because it was the fastest, or the cheapest.. I did it because it's provided me with a work environment like none I've ever used... and if that means paying apple a couple hundred bucks a year for them to keep churning out stuff like this, I'm all for it.

  • Another handy feature I noticed yesterday... (Score:5, Informative)

    by tgd ( 2822 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @01:59PM (#7435842)
    This one surpised me, and is a *great* improvement if you run X-programs:

    X autolauches now.

    No more opening up X, and starting a program from a terminal window, just start it from its icon like normal and X starts right up.

  • Here's why it is worth it. (Score:5, Informative)

    by juuri ( 7678 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @02:08PM (#7435897) Homepage
    I installed Panther on my alBook and on my Cube. Using Xbench to run a series of benchmarks on the Cube before the install and after, taking the averages Panther system-wide is 21% faster*.

    21% faster for an OS-upgrade. When is the last time that happened?

    * The percentage speed faster was much less on the new alBook.

  • SAMBA? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by greenskyx ( 609089 ) on Monday November 10, 2003 @02:33PM (#7436139)
    Has anyone been able to mount samba shares at all? Our Mac has had a HORRIBLE time trying to load a Samba share off our E-smith (E-smith.org - Redhat 8.0 based) Linux Machine.

    It's able to view/browser files just fine, but copying them goes about as slow as a 56k modem and sometimes crashes the finder...
  • "John Siracusa, professional nagger and user-interface-purist, attends to Panther and disects it in the usual Arstechnica manner. On 14 long, eye-cancer causing white-on-black pages (why does he never get aroused over that?) [...]" (my translation). ;-)

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