Mac OS X 10.3 Panther [OLD VERSION]

That was the whole reason I "switched" in the first place, not to mention Apple's design appeal.

My first Apple purchase was the 12" iBook Dual USB then a 15" iBook, then an iPod.

I am very loyal to Apple, but...

...I think that Apple made a bad move releasing Panther when they did.

I know that it was hyped up and honestly I was excited for the release.

Did they test it though?

Personally, I think that it is like XP, very unstable, it lags and takes a hell of time to boot.

It also seems that Apple did not use the best duplication process on making there disks.

Many people have complained that there installation disks hang, some can't even be read. Eager to get it out the door maybe?

I read the forums, I did my homework.

I always clean install new OS's and that it what I did when installing Panther.

Apple is telling people who have issues with OS X 10.3 is that they need to do a clean install otherwise it might not operate well.

Half of my applications function and not at their best and the rest of them cause system errors.

What is that all about?

I plan to install Jaguar back on my machines.

I am so upset that I wish I could return this software, it truly has wasted a lot of my time and money.

Is Apple taking the MS approach and plan on sticking it to the users each time they release an upgrade? If anything this release should be for free, because it stinks.

It is expensive as it is being an Apple user already.

Apple make me aware when your experiment called Panther becomes stable, Applesoft would be a fitting name for you.

So if you are happy with 10.2 and the new features in 10.3 are not something you need then I would stay with your current version and see what comes along next year. If you just have to have the lastest version no matter what then pick it up and you won't be disapointed.

It is difficult to list every new feature (Apple claims 150 new features). I will describe only the major ones (as well as my personal favorites).

The most significant addition is Exposé, which upon a key press or a mouse gesture, shrinks all running windows so you can see them all. Click on one of the windows, it zooms in to a normal size. It is very cool and very effective, possibly the most revolutionary window management technology since the dawn of windowing graphical user interface. Even more impressive, all the windows continue to update themselves even when they shrink, giving you the "control center" view of running applications. Exposé also lets you hide all the windows (so you can see what's on the desktop) or hide all the windows but the active one. This is a huge addition, especially for those with lower resolution display.

The next most significant addition is rewritten Finder. Although many may not appreciate metallic design, it has received a ton of new feature and much faster to boot (multi-threaded). The new Finder resembles iTunes: the right pane shows mounted drives and volumes as well as "favorite directories" that you can customize. Located on the upper right-hand corner is a search function that returns matched files in real-time. Another welcome feature is color labels. You can organize files by marking them with one of many color labels (e.g., red for work stuff, blue for family stuff). And you can create zip files directly from Finder.

At this point, most people will probably list Fast User Switching as the next most significant feature. Since my PowerBook is used by only me, I don't find this feature personally compelling. I've tried it and it works well. If you have multiple users, the menu bar will list your name towards the end. Clicking will list users you can switch to. Select one and after the password authentication, the entire screen rotates in 3D, switching to the new user's desktop. Very snazzy. Those with very long name (e.g., Arnold Schwartznegger), may not welcome his/her name occupying precious menu bar space, however.

For me, 3rd most compelling addition is upgraded Mail. It is significantly faster than before. Significantly! And it adds several welcome additions, such as threaded view of messages, enhanced anti-spam features, enhanced HTML email rendering (thanks to Safari), and enhanced integration with the Address Book (which can now print labels, by the way).

One disappointment is FileVault. While great in concept (it automatically encrypts files upon logout and automatically decrypts upon login), it is not very stable. Many users have reported preferences getting corrupted.

Significant changes are summarized as follows.

Pros:
- Exposé is one the most revolutionary windows management technologies to date
- Faster faster faster -- Preview (with support for latest Acrobat format), Help, Mail, Finder
- Performance enhancements for G5 processor
- Significantly improved Finder and Mail
- Cool Fast User Switching
- Improved anti-aliasing for LCD displays (and you can enable it all the way down to 4 point fonts)
- System Preferences better organized
- Improved, more professional looking Aqua interface
- Significantly improved DVD Player user interface with new bookmark feature
- TextPad supports Word format
- Emphasis on security with many security fixes, secure empty trash can, and FileVault

Cons:
- Expensive considering Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar is only about a year old
- FileVault has many stability issues (do not use it until Apple offers a fix!)
- iChat AV works with only .Mac and AOL (please open it to support MSN and Yahoo!)
- Improved anti aliasing does not apply to older QuickDraw applications (e.g., Microsoft Office v.X)
- Dock gets none of the much needed enhancements
- DVD Player still lacks support for interactive DVD-ROM contents
- You cannot add/remove features after installing Mac OS X Panther
- Keyboard support is still limited (i.e., cannot directly select the menu item)
- Not high DPI displays friendly (Dots/pixels Per Inch), such as 12.1" iBook and PowerBook -- smaller fonts will be difficult to read still
- Apple menu is still not customizable
- Safari gets only a minor update (still incompatible with many web sites)

Ater installing 10.3 99% of my windows problems have disappeared. I've been able to automatically find and connect to any shared windows printer as well as login to Windows shares and other services flawlessly.

Couple that with the speed improvements, free development tools and all the other features and it is definitely a must have.

One feature that I like is the "Secure Empty Trash" option along with the file vault. Secure empty trash will permenently (not recoverable) delete the files in the trash. It will not only delete the location of the file, but the contents that were written to the hard drive (it is much slower than normal empty trash). The file vault will encrypt all your files in your users directory, keeping your sensitive information secure incase someone steals it.

The improvements to the finder make it much easier to switch between open windows and navigate in general. Command-C actually copies files now so you can go paste them in other directories. Drag and drop of files is also much easier because of the sidebar in the finder, and can even be done between open windows using expose.

For the people complaining about the upgrade price; it costs the company money to develop the operating system. You can't expect it for free. The cost is about half of what windows is, and a 5 user license is only $200. That is dirt cheap. When dealing with engineering, if a company is buying software from another company, and they want a bug or anything fixed the customer has to pay for it, not the vendor. You should feel lucky that we don't have to pay for minor updates.

These changes, even if they appear minor to some people, have made a dramatic impact on the overall operating system. I finally feel like I can now go with Mac 100% and ditch my PC. I just hope that next year they will do the same thing, release an even better version, keep putting the pressure on Windows.

If you were thinking about switching to Mac, this operating system provides an excellent opportunity. It has excellent features for casual users who want to browse the internet, send emails, and do digital photography, digital music, and everything else. It is even fully compatable with windows networks. I wouldn't have suggested this with 10.2, there were still too many holes for Windows users.

If you are a developer; it does that too, coming with XCode development kit. Tell me where you can get a legal copy of Windows for $130 with Visual Studio? That would run at least $500 for full versions.

What are you waiting for? Give Apple a shot, I am glad I did.

As for the user with the G3 iMac, I have had problems with the G3 iMac reading certain media as well. I think it is a limitation with the hardware in the G3 iMac. I don't think it likes large capacity disks, and seems to get worse with age. Maybe an external CD-Rom would work?