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Ars Technica Posts Panther Review

Posted by pudge on from the it-both-sucks-and-blows dept.

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."

5 of 420 comments (clear)

  1. When is Apple going to hire this guy? by spankalee · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. The speed... the speed by spoot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  3. My review by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  4. Paid-for OS upgrades by Space+cowboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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!
  5. Re:Mac Zealot Translator a go-go! by dipipanone · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "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...