I really had no reason to upgrade to Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, but
constant complaints by my sister - "my computer is too slow" and
the more recent complaint of "my computer doesn't work" - seemed to
demand we do something.
Short of buying her a new computer (she wants one of those
ThinkPad T-series notebooks), reports of speed increases with
OS X 10.3 seemed to suggest that it might be a low cost
solution to making her Mac a little bit faster. She's got a
450 MHz iMac DV+, upgraded to 384 MB
of RAM, which should run Jaguar just fine, but I think the low-end
8 MB video card is what's really slowing things down. Since
that's not upgradeable, there's really not much that can be done to
improve the performance that hasn't already been done.
Since she was getting 10.3, we figured that we might as well get
it for our two other computers, a 500 MHz iMac (CD-RW model) and my
12" PowerBook G4. After a mix-up
with the delivery (it ended up taking four tries to deliver it to
the correct address), we finally got Panther early this week.
I opened the box and discovered 3 CD-ROMs. "So this is going to
be like back in the days of System 7 with 15 different floppy disks
you have to keep in order," I thought. I put disc 1 in the iMac DV+
and ran the install as an "archive and install" (in order to
eliminate those problems with the current installation of 10.2),
but I had to leave the house in the middle of it.
The installer is similar to that of 10.2, but I was really glad
to see that now you have more advanced options - you can select
exactly what software you want installed. For instance, I don't
need the printer drivers when there's no printer connected to the
computer. I'm impressed at how fast the installation process was.
It took only about 25 minutes to upgrade my PowerBook.
When I got back, the iMac was asking for disc 2. I put it in.
About five minutes later the installer quit and the desktop came
up. The 10.3 desktop looks similar to the one in 10.1 and 10.2, but
the menus, menu bars, etc., are definitely much more "toned down"
looking. This seems to help eliminate some of the distraction that
that striped pattern caused.
The new Finder seems faster, and it's easier to navigate through
files with the toolbar on the side. The multiple user switching
thing I haven't used, since none of our Macs have more than one
user. One really nice feature - one I've been wanting since 10.1
came out without it - is a prompt for a password when waking from a
screen saver or sleep mode. 10.1 and 10.2 only did this when waking
from a screen saver, but it didn't work with auto-logon. This is a
nice feature that adds a bit of security to my PowerBook.
With Panther it seems like it's the little things that matter. I
don't use iChat and haven't even opened up iChat AV. I don't use
iCal, iPhoto, iMovie, or many of the other supplied applications,
but some of the little features really make a big difference to me.
I'm one of the few people who actually missed the file and folder
labels when they were gone in 10.0, so I welcome their return in
10.3.
I do think some of the things were changed just for the sake of
changing them, like combining the Desktop and Screen Effects
control panels into one in the System Preferences, like it was in
10.1. "Come on, make up your mind, separate or all-in-one!"
The only thing that seems slower is the new fade effect when you
go from a system preference setting back to the list of all system
preferences. I don't like it, and it makes computers like my
sister's iMac struggle. I don't particularly like the brushed metal
theme either, but at least the Finder, Safari, iTunes, iPhoto,
iCal, etc. all match now, and having things match helps keeps
things consistent for me and other users who expect different
applications to have similar types of interfaces.
I've played a bit with Exposé, but I don't think I'll be
using it much. The "hide all but the desktop" feature is kind of
nice, though, and I may find myself using that once in a while just
because I frequently seem to endlessly press command-H to hide all
of the open applications in order to view files on the desktop.
Is Panther faster than Jaguar? (Note that the last two have been
named after fast animals - I wonder what the next one will be?) I'd
love to say that it is, but I can't really tell. The iMac's
installation of Jaguar was so bogged down (by endless upgrades and
software updates) when it was working that 10.3 feels much quicker.
On my PowerBook it feels about the same as 10.2, with the only real
difference seeming to be that the Finder does its thing a bit
faster.
I love the real-time searching from the toolbar, which seems to
work at a reasonable speed.
The best part is that all of my applications still work,
something I've always worried about when doing an OS upgrade.
After using Mac OS X 10.3, is it worth it? I don't know.
If you like some of the new features and have an extra $129 to
spend, it's worth it. If you don't think any of the new features
will benefit you, there's no point in spending your money. Go buy
some more RAM instead - by the time 10.4 is out the minimum will
probably be up to 256 MB, meaning, of course, that 512 MB will be
the practical minimum requirement.
