Rave Reviews for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger

druid_getafix writes "The first mass market reviews of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger are trickling in with a big thumbs up for the release. Walt Mossberg of the WSJ says 'Tiger Leaps Out in Front' but complains about slowness of some applications - notably Mail. David Pogue of NYT says 'But with apologies to Mac-bashers everywhere, Spotlight changes everything. Tiger is the classiest version of Mac OS X ever and, by many measures, the most secure, stable and satisfying consumer operating system prowling the earth.' In related news Mossberg also covers the rising incidence of spam/virii in the Windows world and says '...consider dumping Windows altogether and switching to Apple's Macintosh...'. Previous reviews of Tiger were covered on /. earlier."

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Test of the NYT article

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Text of the NYT article. Mod this one up, no karma whoring here.

From Apple, a Tiger to Put in Your Mac

IF anyone considers tomorrow a special day at all, it's probably because it's Friday, or because "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" movie opens, or because it's Uma Thurman's birthday.

But for one particular group of 25 million computer owners, April 29 is a much bigger deal. It's the day Apple releases Mac OS X 10.4, nicknamed Tiger - the latest version of the software suite that makes up the Macintosh operating system.

Ordinarily, of course, reading about operating systems is about as much fun as a seminar on tax policy. Very few people line up at 5 a.m. to be the first to upgrade the software in their microwaves, cellphones or cars.

But Mac OS X has recently become interesting even to people outside the Cult of Macintosh. The more Microsoft Windows is bogged down by viruses, spyware and disruptive security updates, the more miserable life becomes - and the more the long-suffering Windows majority begins to investigate virus-free, spyware-free alternatives like Mac OS X.

One nice thing about Windows, though, is that Microsoft sics a new version on its customers only once every few years. (Windows XP, for example, made its debut in 2001. The next version is scheduled for 2006.) Apple has asked its faithful followers to upgrade Mac OS X about every year, at $130 a pop (or free with a new Mac). What could Tiger offer that could justify yet another expenditure?

Apple's Tiger Web site lists over 200 new features. Not all of them are, ahem, likely to set off a mass exodus to the Macintosh. Will anyone upgrade to Tiger because, for example, "you can easily find any glyph by typing its Unicode ID"?

Still, there are a few humdingers in that list. The most important is Spotlight, which is like Google for your hard drive. As you type into the Spotlight box in your menu bar, a tidy menu instantly drops down. It lists every file, folder, program, e-mail message, address book or calendar entry, photograph, PDF document and even font that contains what you typed, regardless of its name or folder location. This isn't just a fast Find command. It's an enhancement that's so deep, convenient and powerful, it threatens to reduce the 20-year-old Mac/Windows system of nested folders to irrelevance. Why burrow around in folders when you can open any file or program with a couple of keystrokes?

Out of the box, for example, tapping Command and the space bar highlights the Spotlight box. So if you hit Command-Space and type "Schw," the list shows every message Arnold Schwarzenegger sent to you by e-mail, every appointment you've got with him and, of course, his address book entry. It's all organized neatly by category; a quick click or keystroke opens the item you want.

You can also save a Spotlight search as a "smart folder," a self-updating folder that always contains stuff that matches certain criteria - for example, all documents created in the last week containing the phrase "wombat mating habits."

Unfortunately, Spotlight can't "see inside" many programs other than Apple's, although that will change as software companies upgrade their wares. For example, Spotlight can search the contents of Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, but doesn't yet see the messages in Microsoft's Entourage e-mail program.

The second most heavily hyped Tiger feature is called Dashboard. It's a constellation of gorgeous miniprograms that appear or disappear en masse when you touch a selected key. They include real-time stock tickers, weather forecasts and airline flight information, along with a calculator, dictionary, Yellow Pages and other doodads. They're handy enough, and they appear with a dazzling rippling effect that turns your screen into the surface of a Zen pond. But Dashboard isn't a Tiger exclusive; the shareware program Konfabulator, available for Windows and older Mac OS versions, does pretty much the same thing.

On the other hand, som