My wife, Julie, decided that one of my ideas was a good one, so we packed up all three kids into my GrandPrix and headed to the nearest CompUSA store, about an hours drive or less in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I didn’t think my wife would want to go along, but I lured her in with a promise to eat at Boston Market, where they serve Julie’s favorite Corn Bread in the world.
CompUSA was our first stop. For some reason, I was worried that we would arrive too late, and I would not be able to buy a copy of Tiger
For a “Big Box” reseller, CompUSA is very cluttered, with boxes and gear strewn throughout the store haphazardly. I don’t particularly enjoy shoping there. I always want to complain to the employees there to clean up the store, make things easier to find. Orgazine the books section, for instance, as it is always a mess with no organization whatsoever. Still, it is the closest place to buy Macintosh gear, at least until Apple opens the Grand Rapids Apple Store late this year. (Can’t wait for that!)
So I picked up my copy of Tiger from the hundreds of boxes scattered around the Mac section. Also spent some time looking over the iPod gear, the latest Macs, and the still paltry Mac software section. I know for a fact that there are a ton more software titles they could carry, but CompUSA seems to be interested in carrying the minimum amount needed and still be considered an Apple reseller. Sigh…
While there, I also picked up the CD-ROM collection of 40 Years of Amazing Spider-Man, which I wrote a review of over this past weekend and is being edited now by Russ Walkowich before I post it online. Check back, probably, tomorrow.
I also signed up for the iPod Shuffle 1GB giveaway. No one told me if I had won or not, but I did participate by filling out the form. I don’t really need one, as I have a second-generation iPod (20GB) and Julie has the 1GB shuffle already. But I like free stuff, and if I win, I will be happy to take it.
CompUSA was also giving away free little keychain flashlights. Every member in my family got one, even Brooke, our almost-two-year-old!
I had made the decision that, even though I am buying Tiger on the release day, I would wait until Apple releases 10.4.1 update before installing. Being the weak, weak man I am, that decision lasted until I got home, looked at the kitchen PowerBook, and decided “Well, I will install it on the PowerBook only, and wait to put it on the G5 until the update is released.”
I stuck to my guns! I did NOT install Tiger on my G5 Friday night! I only installed it on the PowerBook. But boy, did the installation go quickly (much faster than any previous version of Mac OS X) and I had no problems. I loved the new features, the stability did not seem to be a problem (after using it for all of an hour) and no major bugs were found. Still, I would wait to install it on the workhorse G5 until the update is released, probably within a month’s time.
So Saturday morning, I installed Tiger on the G5. I am so weak.
So far, I have found that Tiger is less disruptive than any other major update to the Mac OS I have ever installed, going all the way back to Mac OS 7.1. The new system simply works, and I have yet to find an application on any of my hard drives that does not function correctly. True, I have not tried every single application yet, but I did test out all the major ones I use on a daily or weekly basis. And for now, that is good enough for me.
I did find one annoying problem. Spotlight does NOT find any of my email messages in Entourage. This really bites. I have tens of thousands of emails, and the search function in the application itself is slow and not very accurate. So I was really looking forward to being able to use SpotLight to find an email message when I needed to. Alas, for some reason, it does not work. Spotlight seems to be finding everything else just fine, but none of my email messages. Annoying.
Dashboard is cool, but I have yet to find any widget that I cannot live without. Even looking at the widgets I can download from Apple, I have yet to find one that makes me sit up and take notice. And what is the deal with so many downloadable widgets being “demos”? Does anyone actually think they are going to be able to sell widgets? I can tell you, for me, I completely look past any widget that is a demo, or those that think I am going to pay for it. I don’t think so.
Okay, who at Apple changed the tab-browsing key combination to switch between open tabs in Safari? Why would you do that? Stop changing things just to change things. If there is no benefit to changing something, then leave it alone! Every year, Apple changes something within Mac OS X that I cannot find a logical reason for, be it keyboard shortcuts or window styles. Enough already! Whoever is in charge of the interface graphical design at Apple needs to read a few books, or go back and look at what made the Mac OS work well. All I ask is for consistency, is that too much to ask?
I do like the new “Get Info” window. There is now a place for Spotlight Comments. Good idea. I also like how, within Spotlight, you can preview not only graphics, but sound and video as well. Makes finding what you are looking for before actually opening it up a more intuitive exercise.
This blog entry is not meant to be a full-blown review of Mac OS X Tiger by any means. Just my observations, and I will post more soon. In the meantime, please feel free to post your comments below and tell us what you think.
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