[bergy]

Especially compared to Jaguar. Is it what you hoped for or more?

[Landos Mustache]

Speed and features wise... no. I really thought that Apple would hit us with something incredible UI wise, I guess Expos� is close enough though. People were also expecting something wicked fast.

BUT, the OS looks much nicer now without all those pinstripes.

The speed of the OS is also acceptable now and the features are at a level that I am happy with.

It is what 10.1 should have been. I am happy with 10.3.

[suthercd]

Compared to Jaguar, noticeably faster and remarkably so on an iBook 500 MHz G3 and a G4 733 MHz. Memory management is much better. Preview, Applescript (both scripting implentation and the Script Editor), Calculator, Mail, Quicktime, Safari and several utilities-Actcity Monitor especially, are much improved both in features and speed. Screen redraw and refresh is faster- very obvious at first but I got used to it quickkly and did not realize the imprevement until booting back into 10.2.8.

The System Preferences have major changes- all for the better. Expose�has been touted elsewhere-- it is a new GUI metphor and it will be interesting to try to work without it after 6 months of integrating it into my work.

Non-gui stuff, Perl(5.8.1-RC3), Python (2.3), Riby(1.6.8), X11(1.0) and others are up to date releases and seemlessly integrated. X11 now has both window and full screen implmentation. Having that opens up all the open source apps- for instance gimp is a very viable replacement for Photoshop and is free. Fink has almost 3,000 downloads available.

HTH
Craig

[atlcane]

My ibook and Imac are running a lot more efficialty. It seems that the computer does a lot less thinking (Pinwheel). I also love expose. My biggest gripe about Jaguar was the inability to run multiple windows and programs without total chaos on the desktop.

[bergy]

Since we are not getting many responses.. here are a couple from another forum.

Review #1

Lol! The first thing I found on my Mac when I switched was the clock, and the first thing I looked for after loading Panther was the clock! Quick search found it in archive and I simply dragged it to Applications in finder.

I use the clock to hide the "Macintosh HD" icon on my desktop. I'm a newbie... what happens if I drag that icon to the trash? It's driving me crazy!

First impressions of Panther: Did archive and install while saving user preferences... worked like a charm (All my settings stayed the same except for some Buddy preferences [voice notification of buddies coming online] in iChat). Finder is an excellent improvement... now the Mac organizational structure makes even more sense to me and sooooooo much easier to quickly find things. Searching in help is lightyears faster. Expose is cool and very useful. The save dialog box is an improvement. Simplified user switching is really impressive. Both a time saver and something cool to do just for the heck of it! Smooth scrolling is a nice touch... not really needed, but nice.

Also, my Energy Saver settings are the same, but my battery life has improved tremendously. I'm getting over 4 hours of battery life while using multiple applications and web surfing continuously (Bluetooth is turned off, screen brightness is toned down about 1/3, processor turned down, and HD NOT set to go to sleep whenever possible). Previously I was getting 3 - 3.5 hours of battery life.

One drawback I've found with Panther... due to the new user switching technique the name of the user appears in the top right (status bar? menu bar? The same line that the blue apple is on!) and takes up lots of room, which means my WeatherPop info and iChatAV status info isn't visible. I've had to condense my "time" to analog (fortunately, I still have "Clock" application running!), the power indicator to just showing charge or battery (and eliminate info on how much battery is charged & how much time I have remaining). That top menu/status bar is now too full! Anyway to remedy this situation?

Overall, I'm rather stunned that there are so many improvements while keeping the OS very similar to Jaguar. It actually feels like there wasn't a change... just lots of very thoughtful and helpful enhancements.

I like Panther, and highly recommend it.

Review #2

Before I installed Panther I used my .Mac account to iSync all my important stuff. I really like having a .Mac account. That is a separate post in itself though (I got a .Mac account when I got my new PowerBook).

I performed a archive and install of Panther. It is now up to 3 discs, plus the developer tools CD. I just performed a clean install of Jaguar a week ago so I don't even have my Palm sync'ing software installed or anything. Archive and install just means I don't have to go through the setup and account creation process.

For some reason I had to reinstall Dreamweaver MX 2004. I found out in doing this about the new online licensing scheme Macromedia uses. I had to call Macromedia to be able to install DW again, and the tech. told me how to "release" the license from my computer. How fun. I will have to post about this later.

None of my other software needed reinstalling. As a matter of fact all of my other software worked just great. This is more then I can say about when I first installed Jaguar. I remember a good half dozen of my apps not working and needing updates to work in Jaguar. Apple has been doing better lately about breaking applications on their dot dot releases, and it is nice to see the Panther install did not break any apps. (Dreamweaver MX 2004 works just fine after I reinstalled it.)

I installed the Palm Desktop software, and the iSync Conduit, and my Tungsten T2 sync'd just fine.

There is one feature of Panther you will not see on the Mac OS X page of Apple.com that I am so happy about. I would have to say it is the best new features of Panther.

To appreciate this, you have to appreciate the Save dialog box in Windows. I know, this might be a stretch for some, but stay with me here. In a Windows save dialog if you want to save over a file you select the file name, and your "untitled.gif" or whatever becomes the name of the file you wish to overwrite. So far, on the Mac OS, you have to type the name, exactly, then Save and click Replace. It has always been far easier in Windows to just click the name of the file, click Save, and click Replace. This is one thing I have never understood about the Mac OS. I am glad to say that you can now do this same thing in Panther. The files are grayed out, but if you click on a file name in the Save Dialog, your "untitled" document will change to the file you want to overwrite. I cannot express how much of a time saver this is, not to have to type the name of the document I want to overwrite. This is such a time saver, especially when creating GIF or JPEG files for a web site.

Now if the Finder windows could get resize handles like the Explorer in Windows. Maybe in 10.4.

Beyond the other very nice features of Panther, that new Save behavior in Panther is one of my top 5 new features I see in Panther. Why? Because it is a time saver.

Another top 5 feature for Panther is the new Open/Save Dialog which is thanks to the new Finder. I never quite understood why in OS 9 you had List View in the Open/Save Dialog, and when we came to OS X only Column view was available. Panther adds to the ability to use List View to also the new Places column on the left, something the Finder has needed for a while now.

This is, of course, a reoccurring question of mine: Why is it that major new features in 10.1, 10.2, and now 10.3 are all features that I had grown very used to using in Mac OS 9. For Panther, we now have Labels support again (of course this meta data was always there, the OS X Finder just did not recognize it. If you used Labels X from Unsanity or the wonderful Finder replacement Path Finder from CocoaTech you could still see all your Labels and continue on with your normal Labeled world).

In earlier versions of OS X, Apple made it impossible for 3rd party software to use the Command+Tab keyboard shortcut. So to get anything close to the new "Heads Up Application Switcher" in Panther, you needed to use, say, the Shift Key as well, so Shift+Command+Tab. I never understood this. But Panther does now have a very nice way to switch applications. Once again, a feature that Windows has had for eons. It is about time OS X had this. This new Application Switcher is another one of the best Panther additions because it saves time, Switching applications using the Dock (a la Jaguar) was not the best solution.

Printing is much improved in Panther, even more so then the huge improvements in Jaguar. I have an HP 6127 ink jet printer. In Jaguar I could not perform all the calibration and maintenance tasks I could, in say, OS 9. Not even after installing the HP DeskJet software in Jaguar. After installing Panther, with no additional HP software, I am able to do all the maintenance tasks, settings, calibrations, etc, for my Printer. There is even a button in the Printer UI to bring up the printer's web based interface. This is very nice.

Expose is also such a nice time saving feature, it is on my list of the top features of Panther. The really great thing is being able to set the fn key on the laptops to show All Windows. I don't use the fn key for anything else, so being able to set it is great (Since to use a F Key on a laptop you have to use the fn key anyways).

So that turns out to be six. So my top six features of Panther are, in no particular order:

Save Dialog Enhancements
New Finder/New Open/Save Dialog
Labels
Application Switcher
Printing
Expose

My only complaint with Panther is AppleShare. Connecting to our AppleTalk network on campus is something of a mystery to me in Panther. Our University has over 100 AppleTalk zones setup. In Panther I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get to them. I can see our root AppleTalk domains, such as <em>bgsu.edu</em> and cs.bgsu.edu, and SMB shares in the area, but I do not see the long list of AppleTalk zones we have on campus. If I want to get to our Student Publications server, which is physically sitting next to me right now, I cannot find it in the Network window of the Finder, even though it is the current AppleTalk zone. I have to connect to it using its DNS name or IP address. I just do not understand this at all, and am not happy with it at all.

There are so many more improvements in Panther that I want to write about, but not in this article. There are enhancements all around the System Preferences, Mail is a lot nicer. I will have a forthcoming article on other improvements that I find helpful.

But for now, I will dig for more new time saving features.

[Brass]

The updated Mail in Panther crashes every time I try to view an email from PayPal with payment details. Thankfully, I don't get many (thankfully???).

There are a few other minor problems, but hopefully they will be fixed in the next minor update.

The two things I love about Panther are:

� Fast user switching (makes sharing my new 12" PowerBook with my wife soooo much simpler!). This really should have been included in 10.0 (I know Windows didn't have it then either back then, but other Unix variations have had similar things for decades - not quite the same, but similar).

� Threaded view in Mail (tidies up mailboxes a bit, and groups things together in an obvious way).

[nobitacu]

It's all I ever hoped for, no problems with it here. I love everything about it!

Ming

[Superchicken]

I Want I Want I Want!

[typoon]

Updated Mail, Expose, Speed. Make this an worthwhile upgrade.

My only complaint so far is that I've gotten 3 Kernel Panics in the last 2 hours. twice with nothing but a clean system installed :-( I think I will have to so some troubleshooting to see what could be causing it. Possibly a Card or something I installed.

[Landos Mustache]

Originally posted by suthercd:
Compared to Jaguar, noticeably faster and remarkably so on an iBook 500 MHz G3

Strange, same computer and me saying it is 20% faster is pushing it.

[pakirk]

I have found a quite dramatic speed increase on my 533 G4 tower (1.4 GB Ram, GeForceTi4 4600 video card) and a less dramatic one on my wife's flat-panel iMac and my 800 Mhz iBook. Very snappy now in the finder and all apps open noticeable faster. No problems doing an archive and install.

I also like the ability to modify permissions for other users without using UniX (now in the "Accounts" preferences.

this speed increase has made my need for a G5 less acute, since most of my dissatisfaction was with interface speed and video performance rather than an acute need for massive computing power.

Peter K

[Boondoggle]

It has a feel of freshly douched wholesome goodness...

I highly reccomend it!

bd

[bergy]

Well... it looks like we don't have to wait for a bug fix! I'm jumping in as soon as possible from what I read ... not much to worry about, and lots to look forward to ... thanks for the info .

[Socially Awkward Solo]

Remember champs doing a clean install of 10.2 will also cause a big speed increase. Things get much slower over time.

[graphics84]

I think the addition of expose and the updated Mail are worth the cost alone...

otherwise the speed improvement is noticeable

if apple can do this once a year then I could get another year or two out of my Tibook...

thank god cuz I'm not buying another till the G5 is out in mobile form.

buy it...

[malvolio]

Dramatically faster on my 500 MHz G3 iMac, around 50% faster than Jaguar ever was. Lots of great new features.
Love it!

[kbata]

I've had several KP's since doing a fresh install on one of my SCSI drives. It may be something to do with the SCSI card but I never had a KP with Jaguar. I just installed on an ATA drive and haven't had any problems so far. One problem I have is that for some reason when I try to print a record from one Filemaker 5.5 file FMP quits. It only seems to happen with one file. All other apps are running great. I like the new finder and Expose is great.

[Boochie]

Same here, with a G4/867 and the same gfx card. I didn't notice such a huge difference with a G4/500 Titaniium laptop at work. Makes me wonder if they've made some serious improvements to the nVidia graphics drivers.

The G5 can wait a bit longer, I think.

Originally posted by pakirk:
I have found a quite dramatic speed increase on my 533 G4 tower (1.4 GB Ram, GeForceTi4 4600 video card) and a less dramatic one on my wife's flat-panel iMac and my 800 Mhz iBook. Very snappy now in the finder and all apps open noticeable faster. No problems doing an archive and install.

I also like the ability to modify permissions for other users without using UniX (now in the "Accounts" preferences.

this speed increase has made my need for a G5 less acute, since most of my dissatisfaction was with interface speed and video performance rather than an acute need for massive computing power.

Peter K

[Timothy Maxwell]

I like Panther. It is much faster that Jaguar and there are a few additional UI perks. All in all though, it seems like a minor improvements over 10.28.

Some programs are still not compatible with the new operating system. Quickeys, Now Contact, etc. If you use Quickeys do not install Panther!!!!!!!

[Brass]

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
Remember champs doing a clean install of 10.2 will also cause a big speed increase. Things get much slower over time.

That was NEVER the case for me, in all the clean installs I've ever done. I think this probably only affects people with bad third party tools. A clean install never improved things more than a log-out/log-in ever did.

Mind you, upgrading to Panterh hasn't really sped things up for me either, so I guess that confirms your point in some way?

[Petrie]

I have an Ti4 500 and it increased the speed so much that I'm now postponing my search for a hardware update.

[CIA]

I have it running on 2 machines. The first is an iMac Rev A 233Mhz, 256MB RAM. Also has a WD 40GB 7200RPM drive in it. This machine seemed to struggle even with OS 9, but runs like a champ in 10.3. It's only used for iTunes, & Web Surfing though. My Sony USB CD-RW stopped being recognized though! I figured I should note that this machine really does run great under OSX 10.3. This is amazing considering it is lowest on the list of supported machines.
On my Quicksilver DP800 the speed boost is even better. Overall, well worth every penny.

[mgescuro]

Yes... Panther's faster. No more spinning beachball. Yes Expose is a nice feature.

But there are some things that strike me as glaring and sloppy.

1) When you zoom into a picture using Preview in Jaguar, the jagged edges will smooth out (as much as possible). This doesn't happen in Panther.

2) Sorting items in a folder by "Date Created" in Jaguar sorted the items from Oldest to Newest. Panther sorts from Newest to Oldest. Is there a setting that I'm missing to change that???

3) Kludgey HP printer drivers still.

4) WAY too many clicks and pull-down menus just to set the screensaver.

5) I'm still not used to that Sidebar. Not sure if I ever will.

6) System Prefs and Safari have crashed about a dozen times since I installed it 3 days ago.

7) The new "easier" way to connect to a server is fine and dandy. But mounting it as a drive on the desktop is more difficult. (Only way to get ExecutiveSync to work correctly is to mount drive on desktop.) Seeing it in new Finder window isn't an option.

In short, I find the revised interface more cluttered and almost "Windows"-like. I"m pretty disappointed with this release.

[sanity assassin]

I hoped that they might have moved on to Apache 2 in the client version, rather than staying on 1.3.

[sanity assassin]

Originally posted by mgescuro:
HP printer drivers still.

4) WAY too many clicks and pull-down menus just to set the screensaver.

Also, the pull-down menu for the battery meter in the menubar has a nextra menu for no apparent reason. Totally pointless and annoying.

[JohnD]

Me happy!
Very nice update, mail is much better usable and I hope it doesn't develop the "writing changes to disk" beach ball every 3 minutes.

Expos� rocks! Very impressive and it makes teh wintel boys speachless..

[kbata]

After giving Panther a try this weekend I'm back to Jaguar. Since I installed Jaguar I have had no KP's or system related problems. In Panther I had 3 KP's and several times things just stopped responding. The biggest problem I was having was with Apps just quitting. Filemaker 5.5 quits frequently sometimes resulting in badly damaged files. Quits have also happened with Safari and Mail. I think I will stick with Jaguar until Apple gets out some updates that solve some of this instability. It's too bad because there are so many things I love about Panther. I tried installing fresh on an 18 gig SCSI drive and on a 120 gig ATA drive.

B&W G3
XLR8 G4 450 zif
ATI Radeon Mac Video
Atto UL2w SCSI card
2x18 Quantum Atlas Drives
1x 120 Seagate ATA drive

[PBG4 User]

Now if the Finder windows could get resize handles like the Explorer in Windows. Maybe in 10.4.

All Finder windows are re-sizeable, even the columns in column view are re-sizeable.

One thing I noticed right away is the increased responsiveness. For example in Jaguar, when I clicked on the Applications folder in the dock, it took a couple of seconds for the window to pop up. Now, it's open instantly. I kept finding myself doing the "wait for the window to show" but I didn't have to. I'm getting used to it now.

I like the new Save dialogs.

I'm digging Expose, but it'll take time to work that into my habits.

I'm digging the column view in Finder. With my old Ti, column view sucked the big one. With my new Al and Panther, column view is quite smooth.

I'm digging the "new" Alt-Tab functionality. Much easier than keeping an eye on the dock, plus you know how many times you need to hit the tab key to get to the app you want.

I like the look of an icon and its accompanying text when highlighted. The rounded edges of the highlights surrounding text looks quite polished.

Folder Actions! I am sooo psyched with this addition. Now I just need to learn Applescript so I can create folder actions. I don't know if anyone ever used OS/2, but Presentation Manager allowed you to create "work folders" that would launch whatever was inside the folder when it was opened, and close down everything in the folder when it was closed. I want to create work folders like this in Panther. This could be an excellent way to group related files. This is the first time I've seen this functionality outside of OS/2.

Overall I think Panther was well worth the $69 (student) I paid for it.

[jselani]

1 - notice some speed improvement over Jaguar on my 600 Mhz iBook, and much less spinning ball.

2 - already using Expose all the time. Agree heartily with earlier post noting that app-switching with the dock wasn't adequate. Speaking of app-switching, thank GOD for the heads-up display of apps with command-tab.

3 - Number one complaint: why is it that the actions (gear) menu present in the Finder windows is NOT present in the open/save dialogs (which otherwise look the same). How about some consistency in the interface?

Put another way, why can Windows user delete files, etc, in ANY open/save dialog but even Panther users CANNOT???


BOTTOM LINE: good incremental improvement, but not worth $129. I think I'll start upgrading "every other" OS revision from now on.

[Anand]

Panther is fine for home use but crappy for use in a mixed OS network. Panther's networking ability is crappy with a captial C. Apple just does not get what it means to have a windows friendly OS. What upsets me the most is that unless apple gets their act together and allows panther to connect to windows shares easily and allows windows users to connect to panther's shared folders easily, this will be the last time we will be allowed to buy macs.

[typoon]

Originally posted by jselani:
1 - notice some speed improvement over Jaguar on my 600 Mhz iBook, and much less spinning ball.

2 - already using Expose all the time. Agree heartily with earlier post noting that app-switching with the dock wasn't adequate. Speaking of app-switching, thank GOD for the heads-up display of apps with command-tab.

3 - Number one complaint: why is it that the actions (gear) menu present in the Finder windows is NOT present in the open/save dialogs (which otherwise look the same). How about some consistency in the interface?

Put another way, why can Windows user delete files, etc, in ANY open/save dialog but even Panther users CANNOT???


BOTTOM LINE: good incremental improvement, but not worth $129. I think I'll start upgrading "every other" OS revision from now on.

I'm going to disagree with you. For me the Not being able to delete from an open and save menu is not a big deal. Expose is AWESOME, Also the New Mail is much more improved. Also things are much more organized and I also like the new finder. I'm liking the new side bar. The Keystrokes for Expose are Awesome. F9 F10 F11. the speed is much better as well. Also being able to eject right from the finder window is another good thing. To me I think it is definately worth the upgrade price. Probabley one of the nicest things is to be able to force quit the most forward ap without having to bring up the forcequit menu this is great for Apps that take up the whole screen

[diamondsw]

Originally posted by Anand:
Panther is fine for home use but crappy for use in a mixed OS network. Panther's networking ability is crappy with a captial C. Apple just does not get what it means to have a windows friendly OS. What upsets me the most is that unless apple gets their act together and allows panther to connect to windows shares easily and allows windows users to connect to panther's shared folders easily, this will be the last time we will be allowed to buy macs.

Would you like to post some specifics? I just check "Windows File Sharing" and it works. As for Apple making it easier to see other Windows shares, my experience has been that the problems are 99% of the time Windows misconfigurations, and Apple can't do anything about that.

[Anand]

Originally posted by diamondsw:
Would you like to post some specifics? I just check "Windows File Sharing" and it works. As for Apple making it easier to see other Windows shares, my experience has been that the problems are 99% of the time Windows misconfigurations, and Apple can't do anything about that.

No you post specifics!

My problems in sharing with my window using friends:

1. Create dummy account for windows users -hello/hello.

2. Turn on windows file sharing.

3. On a windows 2000 machine - go to Net. Neigh. and see all computers in domain (or everywhere for that matter). Jaguar machines turn up but not Panther shares. You can connect if you type in the location but who want to do that?

Showing people how to connect to windows or other computers.

1. Go to directory access and insert domain in SMB props.

2. Hit network icon in folder. See everything - not just in domain. In fact, don't see domain at all. Must go to local to see domain.

3. Some shares show up and some don't.

4. Files browsing is painfully slow - so much so that one thinks that the folder is empty.

5. Shares seen in network browser do not mount. I asked this specifically many times in the last few months on this BB and many other boards and every time some smart ass stated that it worked. Well guess what, it does not and apple did not intend it to work.

Jaguar with the Samba sharing package (SSP) to shares folders with windows machines and Sharity to browse windows machines was a good band-aid that I hope we could replace. Hopefully, some 3rd party application will help out here but apple should have done a better job. A much better job.

[PBG4 User]

My PB and desktop PC can see, mount and access each other just fine.

I hate to ask, but are you sure you set everything up correctly? Since 10.1 I haven't had any problems sharing data between PC / Mac.

[ryaxnb]

Pretty good... or as jobs would say "kickass"

[benb]

[z10n]

As many have said here, the biggest things you notice are:

1) Cleaner interface (thank god pinstripes are dead).
2) Speed. Minimizing apps is now extremely fast, as is resizing brushed metal windows. So even if bushed metal sucks, you don't suffer a performance penalty.
3) Expose kicks ass.

I also liked:
1) Bash is default shell.
2) Mail blocks images in junk mail unless you click a button.
3) Renew DHCP licence

Now the grips. Unfortunately, I have many of them.

1) Should be able to choose whatever key combo I want for Expose.
2) I've had bugs where small icons in list view and column get corrupted. It will say one app but display the icon of another app. Maybe I need to run Diskwarrior or something.
3) No improvements to the Dock. The Dock sucks, and has sucked since 10.0. Apple should upgrade it or replace it. I call it the Featureless Wonder.
4) Need a progress bar for finder searches. You get a little spinning icon at the bottom of the window, but otherwise, your computer locks up when you search in "Everywhere". I basically have to wait for the computer to stop thrashing to know when it's finished. They should have anticipated the thrashing and done something to prevent the lockup.
5) The new finder left bar is helpful, but done very poorly. You can't have different content in the bar for different windows. Nor can you add more then the size of your window. The icons and fonts get smaller and smaller as you add items until you simply don't see everything. No scroll bar or anything to tell you you have more things in the bar.
6) The trash now feels even more awkward in the dock. It should be in the finder leftbar, at the buttom (see Pathfinder 3).
7) If you click something on the leftbar, there is no way to go back in the heirarchy from that point. You can only go deeper.
7) Taking items off the leftbar invokes the dock "poof" effect, which is retarded. You should at least be able to lock/unlock the bar to avoid "poof" errors. Instead of fixing this blatant UI problem (things should not just "blow up" when you do something to them), apple provides a "poof warning" icon in the cursor. Is that some kind of sick joke? "Your icon is about to be blown to smitherens?"
8) Action menu = lame. Apple, just adopt right-clicking already. Make a multibutton mouse. Don't be so friggin stubborn. God.
9) Labels = lame. Never used them in OS 9, won't use them now. Would have been a hell of a lot better if apple had adopted folder badges (small icons that you can slap yourself onto folders), but piffft.
10) And worst of all. The finder still does whatever the hell it wants with your windows. I just can't understand this. Example: put a window in list view. Double click a folder. Instead of the new folder opening in list view, which is the mode I told it to be in, it stupidly switches to an icon view with all the icons jumbled. This happens every single time you double click a folder. WHY does the finder insist on doing this? Do they really think I want unique preferences for every single folder? This is not OS 9: I want one window that stays the SAME if I set it up a certain way, no matter where I am in the heirarchy. How the hell hard would it be to have a preference that says "keep user-specified view" or click something that turns the preferences of EVERY WINDOW to the "global window" option? What the hell is the point of having a global window option in Get Info if I have to choose it for EVERY SINGLE FOLDER? This is just stupid, and MAJOR source of annoyance, going all the way back to the early versions of OS X. Every time I see it happen, I want to kill someone. It took me about three days of clicking through most of my common folders and reseting them to the global window option. And every time I create a new folder, I have to do it again.

I still like Panther: it's most definately better then Jaguar. But all in all, I've found it unimpressive. Except for expose, the new features are not done all that well that they are a source of major improvement. It seems apple had some good ideas here and there in different places, and added a few nice things. But the overall opinion is more like "that's it?"

[JustinD]

It's good. It sure as hell isn't worth $130 though. Maybe to some, not me. guess I just dont use enough of the new features to make it worth it...

What I like, that I use:
- new Mail
- Expose
- Font Book
- Preview

What I'm unsure about:
- the Finder. The windows are huge metal beasts (look at those borders! what a waste!), The Finder would be really PERFECT if the borders on the windows weren't so ghastly.

What I don't use, but is nifty:
- fast user switching
- X11 included
- FileVault
- mmm, everything else

Stuff that I'm unsure about:
- Bluetooth! Is the headset profile now included so that I can use a BT headset? Can't find this info ANYwhere! Boooo!

So, a good update definitely, but so not wirth the full purchase price.

[icruise]

Originally posted by z10n:

1) Should be able to choose whatever key combo I want for Expose.

What keys do you want? You can specify most common keys.

5) The new finder left bar is helpful, but done very poorly. You can't have different content in the bar for different windows. Nor can you add more then the size of your window. The icons and fonts get smaller and smaller as you add items until you simply don't see everything. No scroll bar or anything to tell you you have more things in the bar.

I get a scroll bar if there are too many items in the sidebar, don't you?

7) If you click something on the leftbar, there is no way to go back in the heirarchy from that point. You can only go deeper.

Press command + up arrow to go back up the hierarchy. You can also customize the finder toolbar to display a "path" button.

9) Labels = lame. Never used them in OS 9, won't use them now. Would have been a hell of a lot better if apple had adopted folder badges (small icons that you can slap yourself onto folders), but piffft.

You don't use them, so the must be lame, huh? The best thing about labels is that they are searchable. You can label a bunch of different files and search for those all files that match that label. And they also allow you to visually tell certain kinds of files/folders apart.

Your other complaints are probably justified.

[Arkham_c]

Originally posted by sanity assassin:
I hoped that they might have moved on to Apache 2 in the client version, rather than staying on 1.3.

Nope:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 19:07:48 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.28 (Darwin)
Content-Location: index.html.en
Vary: negotiate,accept-language,accept-charset
TCN: choice
Last-Modified: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 23:44:21 GMT
ETag: "5f89-5b0-3b561f55;3f73dba3"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 1456
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Language: en
Expires: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 19:07:48 GMT

[zigzag]

Easily worth $100 IMHO, for the reasons already mentioned. I've noticed a few anomalies but no big deal.

My main complaint is that I preferred the old look, pinstripes and all, to the new. Panther, to me, is more reminiscent of Windows XP - the colors and shapes are more strident. But in terms of functionality I'm very happy with it.

[cpac]

love it.

The windows networking/exchange sync isn't all it's supposed to be (at least not for me, yet), but what I'm a little surprised about is how much I like the new Finder - MUCH better than before. Faster to navigate, faster to do everything.

And if you ever get bored, expose is fun for hours (especially with the shift key).

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally posted by Icruise:


I get a scroll bar if there are too many items in the sidebar, don't you?

I get a scrollbar too. I don't see his "poof-warning" though. Pirated build?

[RooneyX]

Panther is so cool I just press F9 all day and do no work

[snerdini]

Love it so far. I have a few minor quibbles, but I want to use it a little more to see how/if they resolve themselves.

[calimehtar]

Just tried out Panther in the store for a couple minutes. I'm thinking I'll wait for 10.4 or something since I'm not feeling rich this year. However, I'm impressed. All the details that annoy me about Jag have been fixed, specifically:

- Help is now webcore, I'm almost positive. It's very fast, and you get the same contextual menu when you ctrl-click as you get in safari even though most of the options don't actually work. So it's a bit buggy, but I was really anxious to see that happen since help is sooo slow in Jag.

- keyboard shortcuts in file open/save dialogues seem to work much better now. cmd-shift-n brings up a 'new folder' dialogue that now accepts shortcuts like cmd-a to select all. Maybe I'm the only one, but I am always hitting cmd-a to correct typos and getting that annoying *beep*.

- the brushed-metal finder isn't too bad. I hardly noticed it, thanks to all the useful new features added. Even better, those aqua apps have been toned down a lot. I have always loved the look of OS X which made me a little freaked out about the brushed-metal finder. But I have to say overall the panther looks better than Jag.

[Anand]

Originally posted by PBG4 User:
My PB and desktop PC can see, mount and access each other just fine.

I hate to ask, but are you sure you set everything up correctly? Since 10.1 I haven't had any problems sharing data between PC / Mac.

Yes, I bet it can, but not from the finder network browser. And that is the point. And yes, I think I set things up OK. I am not alone on this, read the boards all over, this is a common complaint.

[Needles]

I'm liking Font Book a lot. File Vault is really seamless and makes me feel better traveling with my computer.

Expose hasn't changed my life or anything, but its fun to play with the F buttons and watch my windows fly around.

[Boondoggle]

I have discovered a secret thing about panther that is incredibly cool, and has changed my life!

bd