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Ars Technica Posts Panther Review
Nexum writes "Today Ars released their latest Mac OS X review, this time for Max OS X 10.3 Panther. It's great to see another tour de force from the Ars guys. They have, as usual, an excellent insight into the new OS release, and they also cover that burning question 'is it worth $129?,' and Panther seems to come out rather well. Certainly worth a read."
An observation I made when reading this is that Mac really is the system I'll use for our upcoming DooM3 Project, because it just seems much smarter to develop graphics and games on a Mac, and Panther seems like a really nice OS that no only will handle what I want to do (with cinematics, textures, sound and code), but it also seems like it'll be a solution for cross-platform testing, with the X11 and Windows support. Unless I'm mistaken, Mac now seems to be the system for development, more than ever, and that spells progress in the right direction for developers everywhere.
A comment about Fast User Switching (FUS), from the article, kinda made me think about how the author used different applications to make sure his prefs didn't get changed by his spouse. This seems good in some ways, but in others it means less programs will be in use, while the most effective programs will be staple. For example, I used Pegasus while my wife was using Outlook. With my Mac, we'll both use the same mail prog, whatever it is. Does this cut down on variety? Does it cut down on experimentation? I think so.
His ideas about the Finder and filesystem are pretty dead on. I wish Apple would bring him on board.
At the very least they could shamelessly steal his ideas. They're there for the taking.
Expose is nice. Good eye candy. Fast user switching works pretty good. But the real bottom line is the speed. Let's face it, the real drawback of X has always been it was just dog slow. Just booting back into 9 was a reminder of how slow X was. Panther is faster on my daughters G3 ibook, my dual G4 and tibook. Is it worth a 130 bucks? Yes. With the cevat: Only if I didn't have to pay a hundred and thirty bucks last year.
Pretty good review all in all. Not sure I completely agree with his finding on the finder. But I do agree that Apple seems to be fumbling around looking for something that clicks on the desktop.
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.
I think Apple are somewhere between a rock and a hard place here - they have to have an evolving sexy OS, to maintain their position in the "consciousness" (God, I sound like a marketing man!) of its' users. They also have to pay for it to be developed, and (since it's a part of their unique-selling-point) can't just open-source it. So, they've got an expensive 'cost-of-doing-business', without the resources of OS to fall back on. I don't see what else they can do but charge...
:-)
Frankly, it looks like it'll be worth it anyway. One nice (for the users) thing is that Apple will need to listen to them if the OS is a profit-centre. This might explain their "two-fingers" approach to the industry complaints over "Rip, Mix, Burn"... Apple know which side their bread is buttered
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Doom3 is cross-platform.
The game that the sick fuckhead in the parent post is writing (did anyone follow his link?) is thus a cross-platform game.
Therefore he can develop it on whatever system he likes.
What is a good "gaming platform" is irrelivant in this case. In fact, what is a "good" gaming platform is *always* irrelivant: games are developed for Windows, or they are developed crossplatform. Period. This is for economic reasons, not technological reasons.
What is important here is what is a good development platform. And as the parent post points out, Mac OS X is an excellent development platform. Therefore it is what he is using.
"My non-techie friends drool over the transparency and scaling effects, even though UI research has shown that they add practically nothing to getting real work done.
Let me guess, you haven't actually ever *used* Expose, have you? Or even seen it, I'd warrant.
It's the first enhancement I've seen to an OS in the last fifteen years or so that actually *will* make significant differences to my productivity.
But hey, if KDE cuts it for you, you keep right on using it...
It just depends what you do with your computer. Expose shines when people do creative work with anywhere from three to ten programs open and being used simultaneously. When I work on my web site, I have Photoshop, Flash, two browsers, ImageReady, BBEdit, and up to three or four other graphics open at the same time, such as Bryce, Vue D'Esprit, POVRay and Illustrator. Expose was a friggin revelation.
When there are Linux versions of those programs (other than POVRay), I'll give that OS a fair try.
Now if you just dink around with command lines in terminal windows, yeah, something brilliant like Expose might pass you by.
The original Mac OS and its last major update, Mac OS 9, have superficial changes, visually. As most Mac aficionados know, Mac OS 9 was a fast, strong OS.
Now, move to Mac OS X. As with the first versions of the original Mac OS, Apple spent a couple of years refining the OS, adding fundamentals while also improving speed and basic functions.
Panther is the first evolution of Mac OS X, where the updates concentrate far less on OS development and more attention on OS speed, features, and easier foundations for developers to make apps.
Mac OS X 10.3 is a great step in the right direction, especially given that Apple appears to be listening to both UNIX pro as well as graphics pro and home user alike. Enterprise users as well as home users will find a lot to use in Mac OS X. I personally want to use the improved Active Directory components to see how well I can make a Mac OS X a member of a Windows domain. THAT will show how compatible such a configuration can be to some naysayers in my workplace.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
It's a really good article and I have to say from my own experience that I would thoroughly recommend the upgrade. Things like fast-user-switching and expose are just completely changing the way we work at loca. Especially for the Art Director who can have his usual billion windows open and still find things I need urgently by flipping them all off screen...
Stability wise I am impressed to. The only thing broken was the fact that Apple force you to place certain applications in the Application directory (rather than sub-directories below) which seems a bit stupid...
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Don't forget, you can install it on ALL of those machines for the price of only copy. Legally!
Has anyone been able to mount samba shares at all? Our Mac has had a HORRIBLE time trying to load a Samba share off our E-smith (E-smith.org - Redhat 8.0 based) Linux Machine.
It's able to view/browser files just fine, but copying them goes about as slow as a 56k modem and sometimes crashes the finder...