Customer Reviews

Mac Box Set [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had a 2006 iMac running Tiger OS and iLife HD. I never really had the desire to upgrade my OS until I changed jobs and the company that I work for now is using Leopard. Time Machine is such a wonderful feature, and best of all, I was able to use it with my external USB drive. No additional drives to buy. Not only that, but after seeing the new features of iLife09, especially iWeb and iMovie, I knew I wanted that software package too. I was amazed to see that you could buy all three bundled for over 40% off the cost of all three! It's just like I bought an all new iMac for a fraction of the price! Sounds like a infomercial, but it's true. Installation was simple, and I'm loving the OS and new software. Truly a great deal for us with a computer a few years old, and wanting to breath new life into it.

I was about to upgrade my early 2006 iMac to iLife 09 and to Leopard early January, when I saw this coming out. Waited for its release and bought it from Amazon at a cheaper price and even got iWork 09 thrown in. It was a great deal and should be the last upgrade for this tired old iMac, which should give me another 2 to 3 years of use.

I purchased the Mac Box Set, and definetly happy with my purchase. Not only do you get the most up-to-date version of Leopard (10.5.6), but iWork 09 and iPhoto 09, cheaper than you would by buying both separately.

Both are great. Love the faces feature in iPhoto and the compatability of iWork with Office documents.

Though I'm not 100% sold on Apple software, if you want to upgrade this is the way to do it. I was putting off upgrading to Leopard, and I kind of wanted the new iPhoto, but I wasn't willing to spend the money until now. This box set is a great deal.

Separately, the OS upgrade alone costs $129 from Apple, and then iLife (which includes the new iPhoto, Garage Band, iDVD, iMovie, and iWeb) is another $79. The box set also includes iWork, with Apple's word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software. I skipped buying that when I got my Mac because I was buying MS Office and it was redundant, but sometimes it would be nice to have another option.

The only problem I'm having is that after upgrading the OS, I didn't have space to install the upgraded apps. Working on that.

Note: if you only install the OS upgrade, Safari will stop working because the new OS apparently requires the new version. So you have to upgrade Safari at the same time.

It's very important when installing system upgrades (and new versions of software) to know beforehand what your intended goals and purpose are. This review may "apply" to some prospective buyers and not so much to others. Each Mac user has their own purpose and "philosophy" regarding these things. Mac OS X provides the full range, from beginner to professional, of utility - and at one price.

My situation: I have a Mac Pro (2007 model) with 4 internal hard drives and 5 GB RAM which I use primarily for personal and professional digital imaging (photography and photo restoration). I also have a full tool kit of digital imaging software: GraphicConverter, Photoshop CS, Photoshop Elements and other related applications.

My purpose: When Apple announced that OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) would be released in September (2009) priced at $29 for those running 10.5 (Leopard), I understood this is a key upgrade with technical improvements "under the hood" well worth having. But I was running 10.4 (Tiger), so I set out to find a "good price" for the 10.5 upgrade disk. Found it here at Amazon.com - through retailer Office Supplies Outlet. Others are correct: the after market price of this boxed set with 10.5, iLife 09 and iWork 09 makes this a real bargain (without strings attached). I got the right item(s) at the right price and at the right time (I scheduled a day during my vacation to install the new system and other app suites).


I also purchased and installed a new 1TB internal drive on which to install Leopard and the new app suites. This is called a "Clean Install" - which must be followed by migrating all your files and applications to the new hard drive. (Optional with Mac Pros: you can either keep the old system and files on another of the four drives or just erase that drive and use it for storage, etc.) I chose to keep the "original drive" and Tiger running so as to have a way back if something went wrong. This also gives one the ability to boot to the old system easily if needed.

Installation: Went well - though it took a long time (roughly an hour). But - warning - I made the mistake of accepting the option presented by the 10.5 installer to create a new user account part way through the installation. What this did was to create "complications" with permissions (access to files, folders and applications). Even with the help of Apple Support, it took three days for me to decide to erase the new drive and start over. I recommend against creating new user accounts during installation: just do this step (if desired) after installation is completed and after considering the complexity that may result. The one issue I couldn't resolve was getting my iTunes Library migrated to the new drive, but there were other "inconveniences" created as well.

2nd Install: Went well and was a complete success. I got my iTunes Library (easily) migrated by simply using the iTunes
"Create a New Library" process from iTunes menu. But had I not "kept" the original drive running with 10.4, I wouldn't have had an "old" library from which to create a new one! The Library "restore" disks I had made wouldn't work with the new iTunes on the new hard drive. See - it gets complicated.


The Leopard Experience: certainly, I'm glad I gave myself a month or so to learn and get used to the "Leopard Way" of doing things. It changed the way my (Logitech Laser) mouse works, for one thing - even though I updated the driver and
control software. The new version of Mail.app works a little differently, it took time to find the way to change some settings and it doesn't recognize the security certification of my ISP (which is a good, national brand ISP). One of my digital editing applications will not run on Leopard. I am looking for a suitable (more up to date) replacement right now. But Photoshop and the other major "legacy applications" all run quite well on Leopard.

Overall, I "like" Leopard and am glad I finally made the jump. Since the user interface is supposed to remain largely unchanged in Snow Leopard, I think working with Leopard will be (as originally guessed) good training.

iLife 09 and iWork 09: For me, iLife has always been a mixed bag: I'm mainly interested in working with iMovie 09 but have no use for Garage Band and just a little use for iPhoto (since I use Adobe Photoshop and Bridge for photo work in place of iPhoto most of the time). QuickTime: yes, that's an app I use all the time and the transfer of my QT "Pro key" was made w/o trouble.

iWork: I never tried it until now. So far I think it may finally replace the assortment of apps I use as my "office suite." (I have always avoided MS Office for Mac because it's too costly.)

I recommend installing Leopard - especially if you already have a Mac with Intel processor(s) and especially if you want to prepare now for the September release of Snow Leopard. iLife and iWork are good "basic" applications suites suitable for a wide range of uses. Just be sure to think through what you want and need from such upgrades. The Mac Box Set is available at a bargain price so that part is a no-brainer.

PS: For those who are savvy about maintaining Macs, the repair utility, DiskWarrior®, is well known as "essential." I found in this case that DW had to be updated before it could be used on Leopard. Running DiskWarrior after such a system upgrade is, in my experience, an important step to ensure trouble free operations.
Alsoft DiskWarrior 4.0: Mac Universal Binary WDD105

The Mac Box Set from Apple is the perfect way to upgrade and update the software on your Mac computer. The inclusion of MacOSX Leopard, iLife 09, and iWork09 make this box set a tremendous deal.

I purchased this software mainly for the updated iMovie09 which is part of iLife09. The movie stabilization feature makes it worth the price of the entire package. The ease with which you can insert titles and transitions has also helped tremendously. I have found the iWork09 package to be a huge bonus. The included templates with Pages and Numbers have really provided a jumpstart to some of my marketing efforts as a Realtor.

All in all, an excellent package that's useful for any Mac owner.

Mac Box Set
Purchased this to give new life to my Powerbook G4, along with a bigger HD. It installed quickly and with migration assistant I was able to bring over my old HD completely. Leopard is excellent operating system and is even more stable than Tiger. The only drawback I've encountered is that my computer is not fast enough to run iMovie 09; hoping to get a new MacBook some time next year, so I guess I'll have to wait until then to use the new iMovie.

Great easy to use software as expected from the Mac team
the link to online tutorials is just "Brilliant"

INSTALLING THIS SOFTWEAR UPGRADED MY DESKTOP iMac FROM A TIGER TO A LEOPARD FOR A RELATIVELY LOW COST. EXPERIENCING SOME FANTASTIC CHANGES AND ADDITIONS. STRONGLY RECOMMEND SIGNING UP FOR ONE to ONE TRAINING IF AN APPLE STORE IS CONVENIENT. AGE SEVENTY-SEVEN AND STILL LEARNING. WITH THE RIGHT FLATBED SCANNER (HP Scanjet G4050) 40 PLUS, YEAR OLD 2X2 TRANSPARENCIES CAN BE DIGITIZED AND FILED IN iPHOTO FOR USE IN FAMILY HISTORY DEVELOPMENT OR PRINTED OUT, WITH GREAT DETAIL, FOR OTHER USES AND INTERESTED FAMILY MEMBERS.

So glad to find this BOX SET - and on amazon - was cheaper (no shipping charges) . . . every penny counts!!!