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PC Mag Gives Panther 5-Star Rating

Posted by pudge on from the but-it-runs-really-slow-on-a-pentium dept.

Cycline3 writes "The subject says it all. PC Mag gave the big black cat a five-out-of-five star rating. I really like Panther, but I never would have imagined that this would happen. Pretty cool. PC users take note!"

17 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. you never? by rritterson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The poster must not be a big reader of pc mag.

    PC Mag has been giving good reviews to apple products for a long time. Here is a link to a review of 10.1 (4/5 stars).

    I also don't understand the surprise. What would a PC user find wrong with a mac? It's similar enough to windows to be usuable. I don't use apples because I don't like the lack of 3rd party hardware and the more limited upgradability. There is nothing wrong with the OS.

    --
    -Ryan
    AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
    1. Re:you never? by Bastian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A lot of PC users I have worked with are extremely resistant to using Mac OS machines. It's better with OS X than it is with OS 9 and earlier, but most of the average users I know are threatened by things like the lack of a Start menu and a Windows-style taskbar. Once I've shown them the ropes and explained all the Mac OS equivalents, they get a lot more comfortable.

      Regardless, I've noticed that the defining feature of a great number of computer users is that they freeze up in the face of anything new or different. I imagine it's the same mechanism that gave rise to those interesting statistics about how Windows 3.1 users learned Windows 95 more slowly than people who were just learning to use a computer.

      So all in all, I gotta say that there is one huge glaring thing that a lot of PC users find wrong with Macs: they aren't PCs.

    2. Re:you never? by trouser · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Lack of 3rd party hardware?

      I'm curious to know what hardware you're talking about? These days anything I'd buy to plug into my PC I seem to be able to plug into my Mac as well and the Mac generally does a better job of recognising and talking to the crap I plug into it.

      I'm talking about stuff like printers, cameras, scanners, etc.

      --
      Now wash your hands.
    3. Re:you never? by edalytical · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I meant third-party cases and motherboards
      Why what's wrong with Mac cases? My G4 case, as you know, has a fold down side making upgrades and repairs that mush easier. It also has a place for a pad lock, to keep your ram safe from a would be thief, plus it has an area to attach a cable that will lock the entire computer to something. And don't forget the ever helpful handles. I just wish the G5 case also folded down, oh well, it looks like it's still easy to get inside of.

      Maybe I'm being ignorant, but what's stopping you from using another case?

      What would you gain from using a different logic board?
      --
      Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
    4. Re:you never? by Frequency+Domain · · Score: 3, Interesting
      ...the defining feature of a great number of computer users is that they freeze up in the face of anything new or different.
      It's the baby duck syndrome. The first thing you are exposed to is mama, and everything else is a predator trying to eat you.
  2. Wow. by Sevn · · Score: 3, Funny

    Malcolm X would be so proud that Panther is doing so well.

    --
    For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
  3. You mean Panther runs on PCs?!? by PasteEater · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wow! It's about time. How long have we been waiting for this!

    I'm going to be really pissed if it doesn't run on my 233 MHz Pentium II though. And does it *really* need 128 megs of RAM? Can't I skate by on 64? And $129? It should be free to anyone who bought a computer in the past three years.

    That's just my small percentage of an opinion.

    --
    There are two kinds of people in the world: those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
  4. Re:then what's the point of having the 5th star? by Bastian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Really, how many operating systems have you used that didn't have known problems/issues?

  5. Moving beyond Expose, let's talk about Preview... by King+Babar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As expected, the reviewer points out that Expose is really, really cool. More interestingly to me, he also points out that Preview is much improved as well. I used to think it sucked, but now I've made it my default PDF viewer.

    The most exciting thing about Preview, though, is that it's easy to predict that its beautiful new "Find" function will make its way into things like Safari. Seriously, "Find" is so good that it has pretty much changed the way I rifle through the dozens of PDFs of journal articles I have on my disk. Like, I can actually find what I'm looking for. :-)

    --

    Babar

  6. My Experience... by blackmonday · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've been using Panther for a little less than a week and it's been bliss. Seriously, neither Windows XP or any Linux distro I've ever tried can touch Panther in terms of usability. It's very slick and polished, and blows even Jaguar away with lots of refinements in networking, the aqua GUI, and expose, the feature most likelt to be copied my MS when longhorn comes out.

    The complainers will be the loudest of the bunch, and yes there are a few kinks. But note the firewire problem was an issue with the hardware chipset, not apple's programming. Obviously people like me, the happy ones are not going to get the headlines.

  7. Re:Moving beyond Expose, let's talk about Preview. by MinutiaeMan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm *really* hoping that they figure out a way to integrate Preview's PDF-rendering abilities into Safari, so that we can finally have a decent plugin to view PDF's inside the browser on OS X! (I know, there's a couple shareware plugins out there, but those never worked well enough for me.)

  8. Written before the big problems surfaced? by Zhe+Mappel · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Magazines have lead times, so it wouldn't be unusual for PC Mag to have evaluated Panther before the lethal firewire and File Vault munching issues became apparent. Perhaps tellingly, the review has such a generic feel that it's not even apparent that PC Mag tried Panther; the piece reads like a regurgitated press release.

    Minus two glaring faults that affect only certain users, Panther looks very good. And Apple will resolve the problems, albeit tardily. But the bottom line is: when you're costing people data loss, do you deserve a 100% rating.

  9. reviews... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful
    ...and CNET gave it a 6.8 out of 10. (here) Like most things in life, reviews are all about what you're looking for and what things are important to you. Read as many as possible.

    As for my review... I can't imagine life without it... using Preview this past weekend must have saved me and my fiancee a few hours searching through loads of PDF annual reports. -Rob

  10. Am I Missing Something? by otterpop378 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Maybe we've all got ourselves wrapped up in our jargon, but last I checked PC stood for Personal Computer, not "windows-based-personal-computer". Macintosh may be a different platform, but still is a personal computer. Just because we have a cult, doesnt make it something entirely different.
    --
    However, something somewhat unrelated... I installed Panther on my mac at work on friday, and my co-worker approached me, and was watching the progress and he said "so when do you put in the serial #?" and i said "No serial #". And he looked at me funny, and said "How do they know you aren't giving copies to your friends?" So the only response I could get out was "i guess when the users of a product don't hate the company that makes it, the honor system works."

  11. Re:Monopoly hardware... by Demolition · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What I don't like is the fact that Apple is the sole manufacturer of the hardware required to run the OS. Monopolies tend to create weird pricing and reduce innovation.

    Well, I'll concede that Apple's pricing is unappealing, but you must be thinking of some other company (*cough*Microsoft*cough*) when you mention "reduce[d] innovation". I think that even the most strident Apple-hater would agree that Apple's is innovative.

    D.

  12. Re:Aqua issue by Alcimedes · · Score: 3, Funny

    hmm, so for each freeze it loses a star....

    man, if you'd reviewed Windows98 it'd have been a -78 stars.

  13. Re:Moving beyond Expose, let's talk about Preview. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I disagree. The find function is nice, but from the most exciting thing about Preview is that it now knows about bookmarks in PDFs, making it very easy to navigate large PDFs quickly. I write a lot using LaTeX (TeXShop is a very nice app for this, by the way) , and regularly deal with documents in the tens or hundreds of pages range. Being able to jump to a specific section quickly makes my life a lot easier. I've always been able to do this with Acrobat Reader, but now I can do so from preview.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News