Apple Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger [OLD VERSION]

(1) You will notice a speed increase on any Mac that fits the specs. Boot time is sliced almost in half on my dual processor G5, and by a third on an older G4 tower. They've obviously put a lot of effort into optimizing the OS code and bringing a new level of "snappiness" to OS X's already quick performance. In my opinion, the speed improvement is reason alone to get Tiger ... it's that impressive.

(2) As with other OS X upgrades, I'd suggest a fresh install, wiping the hard drive completely (backing up your stuff, of course, first!), not an upgrade install or "clean" install. I've tried both and, frankly, the fresh install on a pristine hard drive has a better "feel" to it and, if experience is any guide, will reduce problems down the line.

(3) Spotlight is everything it's claimed to be. However ... your computer may seem to be acting oddly for the first hour or so as Spotlight (I assume) creates an index. Once that's done, you're flying.

This is an amazing upgrade ... well worth the wait and the price. What I love most is the continuing attention to detail ... the cool visual effects with widgets are but one example. Launch a widget and the entire desktop ripples like cool, clear water. I'm still having fun with that!

Windows is now way behind ... or is that a cloud of dust a few miles back?

Since most of the previous reviews have covered the features, I thought I'd share how I upgraded from Panther to Tiger on my Powerbook. If you're undecided about doing an Erase and Install vs Upgrade vs Archive and Install like I was, keep reading.

While some mac experts say that upgrading on top of your old system should be fine, I prefer a "clean install" as an old habit from using Windows. But I didn't want to spend my weekend configuring everything and reinstalling all my applications. Here's what I did:

1. Cloned my Powerbook using a utility called SuperDuper (free/limited) to an external hard drive. I believe it's possible to clone to another mac or another harddrive. I had Filevault on and it is highly recommended to turn it off before cloning. Made another backup using .mac Backup just in case.

2. Tested the clone if it's bootable and my personal files were copied correctly.

3. Installed Tiger with Erase and Install option for a clean install. Towards the end of the installation, it asked if I wanted to copy settings, applications etc from another Mac or volume. I pointed it to my external HD. This step can be skipped as there is a migration utlity included in Tiger which does the same thing after installation.

4. Pretty much everything was transferred over including my dock layout etc. It alerted me to two apps that weren't transferred properly and had to be reinstalled: MS Mouse and Virex.

5. Reinstalled MS Mouse. Everything now feels "Snappier".

Don't reinstall Virex as it is not yet Tiger compatible. This caused my Powerbook to have the fan on all the time, so I had to uninstall it using a script from the Virex installation package.

I've noticed a couple of really minor glitches but it's only a matter of time before Apple fixes them. Spotlight and Dashboard seems to be really handy. Overall, there's a feeling that I've upgraded to newer mac computer.

Yeah it sounds a little egotistic, but I don't mean it that way. I have a G3 (digital audio), G4, and a G4 PowerBook. I put Tiger on all three machines -- with very different experiences and consequences. I tend to upgrade my CPUs regularly in spite of the occasional warnings that may appear on the web.

First, my office G4 installed Tiger flawlessly and has performed since without incident. It's fast, Spotlight is the much powerful search engine in the universe -- I am sure. I can find very elusive files with it, and the G4 does this quickly. The other search engine (cmd-F) behaves snappy as well, but it's interface is different and a bit more elaborate. Dashboard is not slow for me; to the contrary, it's quick once it's retrieved the temp, etc. I don't overload it with widgets: I have about 6-7 of them. The psuedo-integrated apps like Preview, Mail, Safari, all seem to operate quickly as well. Preview works better and gives you more controls than before. I do remote connections between computers frequently, and these have also functioned smoothly and quickly (via DSL).

Second, I upgraded my old G3 with no DVD drive. That was a challenge. But, if you put another computer in "target mode", turn it into a remote drive with a firewire connection to another computer (in my case my PB). Then I inserted the DVD in my PB, and upgraded the G3 that way. Worked like a charm. No incidents, no problems, and we are all happy.

Thirdly I need to talk about my 15" G4 Titanium PB (667 MHz). I think this PB is one of the best computers I have ever owned: I got it in the summer, 2002. And I love it: light, fast, and extraordinarily durable (except frame peeling problems covered under warranty). This is where all hell broke loose. I installed Tiger, but it wouldn't restart. It got to the spotlight icon at start-up, and would go no further. Sometimes I walked away for an hour and I came back and it had restarted. No way to use a computer. So I re-installed with archive. At this point, I had decided I should back up most of my files on my Firewire Le Cie Porsche drive (80 GB). It did the same thing: stopped at Spotlight icon with remainder of screen blank. Consulted the Apple web site, Googling in general, and could find no like circumstance. It would start up in "Safe Boot" (shift depressed during restart). But I couldn't do it for real. So after weeks of trying things, concluded it was time to do the total install (I think the old "clean install"). This worked perfectly. In fact, my PB runs faster now than before, and the crap on the drive is far smaller. I did import my user settings from the back up and this caused no problems. I didn't image the drive, just copied specific folder manually.

So why a 5-star rating when I had problems. Well, I guess I blame myself for potentially corrupt software or files somewhere -- I still don't know what caused it. But my computer is now so spry, Spotlight operates very fast: virtually immediatley. Other than the heavily advertised new things: Spotlight, Automator, and Dashboard, there have been large numbers of little improvements in all the other programs. I am still discovering them, and they're too numerous to list. System 9 applications still run well (I'm not holding my breath here). So what's the point? I gave it five stars because in spite of the PB quagmire, I am much happier than before. My full complement of programs work: MS Office, the Apple ones, and soon, the real test (based on other reviews), with by Adobe Creative Suite is coming up fast. That's in the next few days. I have some Chinese language programs that run fine, and I do use the character input systems that's about to be immediately tested.

So it's good to have a Tiger in my tank...