[Daniel] Mac OS X: Tiger!

Apple released the newest version of their OS, Mac OS X "Tiger" last Friday. A short delay later (no thanks to FedEx) and I was happily installing Monday. Unlike the previous episode, I did sufficient backups beforehand and saved effort by simply upgrading rather than starting afresh.



Tiger is impressive. Apple is heavily marketing Spotlight (think fast & reliable search for everything on your computer) and Dashboard (yay for widgets). Strangely, while these features are nice, they aren't really anything new to me. Konfabulator and QuickSilver did largely the same things. Granted, there are differences but I use them about the same way.



What impresses me most are huge strides in terms of speed (much more responsive, especially when copying files), printing enhancements and the included Dictionary functionality. No longer do I have to start up a web browser and wait. Oxford American Dictionary is right there and a convenient Dashboard widget makes it even more so.



Other cool items include Quartz Composer, which lets you program advanced graphics with a relatively easy drag-&-drop interface, updated Mail (so very much more stable and better looking) and the addition of slideshow view, which lets you convert a series of photos immediately into a slideshow with zero effort.



It's neat to see these kinds of enhancements and where Mac OS X is heading. They've added a lot of subtle features to it and it really makes the whole thing more complete and appealing. The wait for 10.5 begins...



And yes, I should be studying. But with one week left, my concern is about totally spent.