[rrlozano]

Is this worthy of $129? I just spent that about 6 months ago for Jaguar and frankly, I'm seeing no reason to spend it all over again just to get a couple of gizmos in Finder. What am I missing here?

As a loyal Mac guy who has used them since 1984, gotta say I'm not happy that Apple is charging so much for what seems to be an intermediate bump.

[midwinter]

Then don't buy it. It's pretty simple.

Cheers
Scott

[sodamnregistered2]

faster UI, better/easier windows networking inlcuding printer sharing...

worth it is relative... for me, yes, I need the UI speed and windows printers at the very least...

[kulverse]

Yeah. the network improvements are worth the price alone. but thats only good if your on a network.

Tons of small improvements. Not many that are immediately obvious. Exposé is great, and I love the new Finder. The all-around subdued Aqua is great for me (graphic artist). Some UI Speed imprvements. The new Mail app ROCKS. New, very useful contextual menu items such as Create Archive and labels. File Vault is a must have for Laptop owners. Classic runs without the refresh issues it had before (Thank God). Energy saver now has all its OS 9 options. fast user switching is a godsend.

Just lots of things that make an OS get better as it matures. Many are small improvements, but welcome.

[mitchell_pgh]

Why not hold off for a little while. wait until there is a .1 or .2 upgrade and then reconsider.

There isn't any really major new things, but it's worth it for me (someone that uses their computer a bunch)

I love my computer, so dropping $129 ($69 because I'm an Edu. person) isn't a big deal...

For some people, they drop that on drinks at a bar in an evening...

I buy OS upgrades...

[kcmac]

As I was standing in line at MicroCenter, one of the sales reps was demonstrating Exposé and fast user switching. First time I had seen it in person.

Awesome.

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
For some people, they drop that on drinks at a bar in an evening...

Exactly.

Some misguided people blast that much up their nose in a night.

Snappy™

[Dale Sorel]

One word answer...Exposé

[cantona7]

i know what you mean. after you've played with the new finder, pressed the f-keys a millions times for expose and created a dummy account so you can see what user switching is all about, there doesn't seem to be much else to get excited about.

however, this os is pretty cool. as others have said already, the networking is much improved and sooo much nicer to work with. give it time and i'm sure you'll see the benefit.

to me it feels like X has grown up!

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:

There isn't any really major new things

You haven't used 10.3, have you?

[mcs37]

Originally posted by moonmonkey:

Some misguided people blast that much up their nose in a night.

Woh, if they only spend $130 on that stuff they're getting a good deal.

[dlefebvre]

Originally posted by Dale Sorel:
One word answer...Exposé

Amen to that! Also the new and improve open/save is very neat.

[chrisutley]

The "little things" add up fast. Panther feels like a mature operating system, not the "new" Mac OS that is still waiting for features to be tacked on.

It feels quite "Snappy", even on my TiBook 667 DVI. The Finder improvements aren't just eye candy, they are productivty boosters. I spend most of my waking hours in front of my Mac, so these improvements add up quickly.

Security, stability, and networking are all improved too.

In an ideal world, this would be what OS X looked like from day 1. If you are perfectly happy with what you've got, no need to upgrade I guess. As a person that makes my living using my computer, I find the $129 to be a good value.

[fisherKing]

for me, this is a no-brainer.
makes my pismo feel like its running os9...
fast, light.

the interface seems cleaner, tight. speed in everything i've run so far, including the finder, opening & minimizing apps, safari...everything.

the finder layout, open&save options rock.
expose is great (altho i've only played with it a bit).

for me, this is the X equivalent of 9.2.1, a peak moment in apple history; light years ahead of that.


worth every penny

[wadesworld]

Far faster on a G4/500.

Panther rocks.

Wade

[nedloftj]

As a loyal Mac guy who has used them since 1984, gotta say I'm not happy that Apple is charging so much for what seems to be an intermediate bump. [/B]

Intermediate bump?

As the old saying goes... the devil is in the details.

There are so many little improvements to Panther that all work together to make the user experience just that much better. I was initially skeptical but after playing for just a short while I can't imagine sticking with Jaguar on any of my systems for any reason at all.

*the new Finder
*the new Open/Save dialogs
*the rather impressive performance improvements
*the new network browser
*Expose
*Fast User Switching
*Threaded Mail
*the new Preview.app is so improved it's amazing
*Integrated archiving
*Improved "Look n Feel"
*etc,etc...

[benh57]

forget everything else -

Pather is fast. Freakin' fast. Makes my mac feel like a new machine.

Worth it.

[GaelDesign]

Here's another great thing about Panther. (I don't have it yet, but I will.) It has TONS of new capabilities for developers. What does this mean? It means that, before too much time has passed, you'll be seeing applications coming out that ONLY run on Panther because of Jaguar's limitations. Panther has tons of new interface controls, API enhancements, UNIX tools, etc. -- this all adds up to immense under the hood power. Just give it a little time -- many applications will be upgraded to take full advantage of Panther in the coming months. Then you'll REALLY see some ass-kicking cool stuff.

So if you currently think Panther doesn't look like a good value, wait a while. I can guarantee you that things will be quite a bit different come MacWorld SF 2004.

Jared

[dantley]

Basically Apple fixed a lot of the bugs in 10.2 and passed along the development costs to the consumer. I guess the price isn't so bad considering Microsoft does the same thing, but charges people almost $300 for license of WinXP Pro.

I have 10.3 installed on a G5 DP and didn't noticed any speed improvements over 10.2.8... but that's not saying much considering that the G5 ran fast in 10.2.8. However, on my 1GHZ TiBook, I can tell that the computer is a bit faster. My wife claims her iBook is faster too.

d.

[Sharky K.]

Originally posted by dantley:
Basically Apple fixed a lot of the bugs in 10.2 and passed along the development costs to the consumer. I guess the price isn't so bad considering Microsoft does the same thing, but charges people almost $300 for license of WinXP Pro.

I have 10.3 installed on a G5 DP and didn't noticed any speed improvements over 10.2.8... but that's not saying much considering that the G5 ran fast in 10.2.8. However, on my 1GHZ TiBook, I can tell that the computer is a bit faster. My wife claims her iBook is faster too.

d.

from 8.1 to 8.5 or to 9.0 wasn't as big update as these 10.x updates in my opinion.

[businezguy]

I'm fairly impressed with the speed improvements. Panther opens up IE faster on my iBook then my Dual 1 GHZ does with Jaguar. I'll install Panther onto the Dual 1 GHZ tommorrow, as I'm sure I get similar benefits there.

[Lecynique]

Originally posted by rrlozano:
As a loyal Mac guy who has used them since 1984, gotta say I'm not happy that Apple is charging so much for what seems to be an intermediate bump.

In 1984 I was trying that new tool called a Macintosh, it was a 128k ram and we were enjoying that they will be soon a 512k version of it.

Panther worth the little 129$

For sure.

[moki]

Originally posted by dantley:
Basically Apple fixed a lot of the bugs in 10.2 and passed along the development costs to the consumer. I guess the price isn't so bad considering Microsoft does the same thing, but charges people almost $300 for license of WinXP Pro.

hrm. I'm not quite sure it's that cut and dry. Here's my short list of improvements in Panther:

-- Speed. Panther is indeed faster than Jaguar, on any hardware, and the performance improvements are across the board

-- Improved Mail.app. Much improved, faster, better threading, more features

--Improved Finder. While not rewritten from scratch, it is faster and has some welcome improvements such as the integrated search field

-- Exposé. It's really a very useful feature, not just something that is cool for demos (though it is that as well)

-- Application switcher. The Command-Tab application switcher is quite an improvement

-- iDisk synching. This greatly improves the usability of your iDisk

-- iChatAV. It's out of beta and ships with the OS

-- Fast user switching. This is very handy for home users who share a computer, or work environments with share access computers

-- Most of the other programs are much improved too, such as Preview being much faster, the inclusion of Font Book, lots of improvements to Address Book, new DVD Player, updated Safari, etc.

...and there's quite a bit more in there as well.

Is it a radical change from 10.2? Not really, in my opinion. However, it is improved in so many ways that it all adds up to being very worthwhile, at least to me.

A good summary of the new features can be found here:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/newfeatures/

[sanity assassin]

I guess it depends on what your immediate needs are. Anyone on a G3, or a lowly G4 shold upgrade, the speed increase is nice with apps like Photoshop and Dreammweaver MX being useable now. Not sure about under the hood stuff, I'll need to wait and see what that's like.

It's a good upgrade, not essential, and not mind-blowing. Would have liked to have seen more done to the filesystem and the Finder.
Also, the bundled apps have all been updated nicely, and seem more feature rich than before.