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Panther Released into the Wild
u2fan00 writes "Those fortunate enough to have an Apple Store near them were in for a treat last night -- crowds! Oh, and also Panther. Check out the local reactions, photos and stories from some stores across the nation."
I'm thinking about buying a 15" PowerBook shortly (probably from MacConnection, since they have good deals). I was going to wait until I could get one with Panther preinstalled, but I'd like to have the PowerBook by Thanksgiving and so it looks like I'll have to order one soon (which will probably still come with Jaguar).
I've been reading various forums and I keep hearing that a clean install for Panther is the way to go. And, since the PowerBook will be brand new, I won't have to back anything up beforehand ;). However, do PowerBooks come with any software that isn't part of the OS by default? For instance, do they come with AppleWorks or other software that I'd lose if I chose to upgrade with a clean install?
Also, I'm still looking for a snug case/sleeve for the PowerBook, if anyone has any suggestions. I'm looking for one that's thin and just big enough to include a mouse and a power supply. I'd also prefer zippers or buttons over velcro (since they tend to be quieter than velcro).
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Ehh... Carmack isn't developing Doom3 on MacOS. He has been pretty vocal about his love for Visual Studio 6. However, Doom3 does not make much use of DirectX (all of the gfx use OpenGL, for example) so he has made a few builds on Mac OS X and Linux over the past couple years.
In fact, the first demo of Doom3 (and the first demo of the GeForce 3 too) was on Mac OS X as part of one of Steve Jobs's keynote speeches.
Doom3 will be available for Mac OS X... but it's not being developed on it.
Atari also had another system which was never released called you guessed it, Panther. Panther was set to come out about the same time as the SNES... had it come out it would have been by far the most superior console for a year or two.
--- I do not moderate.
I went to MacDaddy Computers, an Apple Specialist in Modesto, about a 20 minute drive from my house. It's a really small store on one of the main drags through town, and there was literally nobody there at 9:00PM outside of the store employees. I was lucky enough to snag the last copy they had; they had put a "sold out" sign in the window right before I got there. I also got some dog tags with the cool metal X logo and the requisite 10.3 t-shirt.
:-D
As far as the OS goes, it's by far the best one yet. With each new release of OS X, there have been reviewers going on about the massive speed increases over the previous versions... but this is the only upgrade where I have actually felt the massive speed increase. This, along with numerous other interface improvements, make it worth every penny (I paid full price).
For example, I thought I would hate the new Finder, but it's really great, and I find it more usable than the 10.2 Finder. If you don't like the sidebar and/or the brushed metal, you can make them both go away with a click of the toolbar widget. Once they're gone, the Finder behaves pretty much exactly like the OS 9 Finder, a throwback I (and the spatial-finder dude at Ars Technica) really appreciate. Expose's coolness factor is matched only by its utility. The guy who runs MacDaddy said I'd be loving it on a 12" iBook screen, and I really am. The application switcher that pops up in lieu of the Dock is pretty much lifted from Windows and KDE, but is so much cooler because it displays icons in their full 128x128 glory.
Now the only thing I have to wait for is an update to XPostFacto so I can put it on my Beige G4. I don't think I'm ever going to bother with installing 10.2 or below on anything again.
I also live in Greater Atlanta and intentionally avoided the Apple Stores. I kind of wanted to go out to CompUSA last night, but they didn't stay open late, so since they close at 9:00 and Panther was released at 8:00, I didn't want to risk any crowds that they might have.
:) Highlly recommended, even though I didn't buy it quite yet. Soon, very soon. Especially now that I've touched it... I realize that I really like it but it's not so earth-shattering that I simply must have it. I'm sure many applications will soon be Panther-only (that's what happened with Jaguar), so I'll have to upgrade within the next few months. I hope to be able to do so with a good fiscal conscience within a couple of weeks.
It so happened that I had to buy a birthday present for somebody and also buy some new headphones today, so I had three good reasons to go to CompUSA, and I was a tad surprised that there didn't seem to be anybody in the whole store that knew what Panther was. There was one iMac (or was it an eMac? Still confused about that) that had it installed for demo purposes, and demo I did. I'll squeeze in a mini-review of what I saw so far.
Overall, I was a little surprised at how similar to Jaguar it felt... this is a good thing. We want improvements, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Speaking of bathwater, the Finder has been replaced and I'm sure the new one is awesome. It was noticeably different but I didn't see a whole lot of Gee Whiz stuff in my quick (about 30 minutes) runthrough. I probably spent about 10 of those minutes playing with the much-heralded Expos, which honestly is DAMN COOL. I only hope it runs that quickly on my 550 PowerBook... probably not, though. I also tested the quick user switching thing. I had to figure out the CompUSA password, but it only took me about three guesses. That's another great feature.
The nicest surprise is that alt-tab (yeah, yeah, command-tab on Mac) application switching has really matured. It's much, MUCH more like Windows now... with a transparent bar that appears center-screen and true stack-based app switching (to make it just as easy to go two applications back as it is to go one application back). As a former Windows keystroke nut, I absolutely had to have my alt-tab support, and I about lost my mind when I first switched to OS X and had to deal with the various incarnations of that, including some shareware that did what I wanted and was subsequently irreparably broken by Jaguar, at which point I got used to Jaguar's better-but-not-quite-there implementation. That was when they almost lost me as a customer, but I just love OS X too damn much.
I'm glad to see they've burst forth with this great upgrade. I obviously wish it wasn't so expensive, but hey, it could be worse... it could be like $400
Sorry it's so long... hope it was sort of interesting.
RP
Having installed Panther today, I'd say it's a nice improvement.
Upon installation, one interesting thing happened: the machine happened to kick into sleep mode, because I was away while it asked for disc 2. That's the first time I've ever seen an OS installer ever do that. Sure, they just boot to OS X from CD and then do an installation, but still pretty cool. Also, my machine didn't reboot after install, it was ready to use immediately, and no required reboot after doing Software Updates for iTunes and iSync. Expose is probably my favorite new feature, overall, though. The speed improvement is quite noticable on my upgraded G4 1.2Ghz (used to be a G4 400Mhz).