Mac OS
X 10.4 (Tiger) was released last Friday. Many Mac users had
pre-ordered it, and places like Amazon.com and Club Mac apparently had shipped it a
little bit ahead of schedule. Oops.
Anyhow, it's officially out now, and people starting to find
bugs. They're finding that iChat 3.0 is a bit slow on the G4
processor, for example, when videoconferencing. They're also
finding some problems with dashboard widgets, and Cisco said that
its VPN software is incompatible with Tiger.
Will I upgrade? At some point - but I'd like to wait a little
bit to see what some of the bugs are.
OS X 10.3.0 had many problems on my blue G3, but after a few updates it
started working much better. I suspect this will be the same with
10.4 on certain computers, and I'd like to at least wait for the
10.4.1 update.
The other thing holding me back is the fact that Tiger ships on
DVD media. Unfortunately, my blue G3 was not one that came with a
DVD-ROM drive - the built-in CD drive is on its way out anyway. I'm
probably going to be looking at a newer machine at the end of the
summer, but for now I think the G3 will stay at 10.3.
For my mom, her 500 MHz
iMac came with a CD-RW drive and not a DVD, meaning that she
can't use the DVD media to install Tiger either. Her computer is
newer and more capable than mine, so she will probably upgrade to
10.4 even though it will cost an additional $10 to get the install
discs on CD.
My sister probably won't bother upgrading her iMac, which is
sitting on the floor in my room at the moment. She hasn't used it
much since she got her
Dell laptop, and even though that
has its share of spyware and other problems, the portability seems
to be something that she likes.
Her iMac, while it has a handle on top, can't really help too
much when it comes to lying in bed and chatting with friends on AOL
or MSN.
I'm typing this on my Windows PC at the moment, which is sitting
on my desk, half-apart because I've been trying to install a new
CD-RW drive that Windows refuses to recognize. It's running Windows
XP, which is a four-year old operating system that still has far
too many bugs despite various updates from Microsoft.
What Apple's banking on is that people will become far too sick
of Windows XP not behaving as it should, and the spyware and
viruses that are written for it, and then noticing that the Mac OS
has just been updated. In fact, OS X has been updated several
since the release of Windows XP, and a Mac salesperson will
probably point that out.
While this does get expensive for the consumer, if they upgrade
to the latest version they get additional security benefits. If the
latest version happens to come out every year or two instead of
every four years, they're running a much more secure system.
The marketing for Tiger is just another step in Apple's 'Switch'
campaign. The idea of "the features of Longhorn today, if only you
buy a Macintosh" - along with the history of timely OS X
upgrades - as well as prompt security updates makes people who've
recently decided to buy a Mac be more likely to recommend one to
friends.
Unfortunately for Apple, those who bought a Mac around the time
of the transition to OS X generally seemed to have had trouble
with it. Much software wasn't available, switching between
OS X and OS 9 made life complicated, and peripherals that
worked in 9 often didn't work in X (and vice-versa).
Now that the transition is complete, Apple is trying to make up
for lost time. Reviews of Tiger have been mostly positive so far
despite a few bugs that have showed up. The Mac mini was generally received warmly,
and we know the iPod is a huge success.
It would seem that Apple's strategy is working out fairly well
so far.
