Part of the joy of seeing a new major release of OS X is the enviable speed increase that follows. Going from Jaguar to Panther, we got something along the lines of twice the user interface performance. Just by upgrading the OS.
Now it's time for another considerable boost with Tiger. My new 1.67ghz Powerbook is getting +50% on CPU and threading and +25% on the UI. That's just nice. You get more features, newer apps, cuter eye candy, and everything is smoother.
Since I seemed to have missed the opportunity to piss off a few Windows users in the back: Have you switched yet? (Pronounced with pointy finger and tall hat). Just kidding... kinda.
Challenge by MikeInAZ on April 15, 0:40
Can't wait to get it on my new powerbook (12" 1.5).
i hope the boost includes playing with live on recent powerbooks. there are actually people out there working with mac os 9 because with certain professional audio-applications applications it's 4x the perfomance on a g3 than the same application on mac os x on newer powerbooks. the only solution so far was for them to work on a g5, but they are - well - not quite as portable as the powerbooks ;)
Quote: "Since I seemed to have missed the opportunity to piss off a few Windows users in the back: Have you switched yet? (Pronounced with pointy finger and tall hat). Just kidding... kinda."
Going to be a "switcher" very soon... just waiting til Tiger is officially released and hoping to see the release of the G5 powerbooks. Anyone have any information on those?
From what I've heard, G5 PowerBooks aren't necessarily the greatest idea. Heat would be a nasty factor, likely forcing Apple to underclock the crap out of any G5 processor in there. I've heard reference to a new G4 chip with a higher-frequency front-side bus and memory controller, which would give you the speed boost that you want without the huge increase in heat. People have suggested names like "G5 Mobile" for these chips.
Dave
Challenge by JeremyH on April 15, 6:19
PowerBooks just got a bump in the line, so don't expect a change there for quite awhile. Now is probably a good time to buy a PowerBook and I almost did - but I don't really need mobility in an OS I am not allowed to run on the corporate network.
I finally purchased my first Mac ever, just the little mini. Now I just have to wait for it to arrive! Since Tiger is officially announced you can buy a Mac with Panther installed and get an upgrade to Tiger for only $10.
If the Kool-Aid is as good as promised I'll buy a Powermac sometime after the next bump and my Mini will be a nice little headless BSD utility server that draws 80 watts of power and produces almost no noise. Can't beat that!
Challenge by fuse on April 15, 7:15
i've already switched - back. i bought a mac some years ago but to be honest i find os x awful. a shell which is rather unusable if you really want to use it and many applications which either have inconisistent keyboard shortcuts or no shortcuts at all (e.g. older safari versions - not sure if this is already fixed).
Anyway, now I'm using Debian & Gnome on my Mac and this works really fine. Everything which I expect from an operating system. And if I want to install new software I don't have to fear that it isn't included in fink - I just run apt-get and that's it - works out of the box.
Since you for once have an ironic distance to your own troll-baiting I'll jump on an answer....
No I am not a switcher... why would I want to use software from a company that ships an OS with such a lousy performance that they can get such gains with every new release?
OSX, while looking pretty, just feels slow compared to my gnome og winxp box.
Challenge by on April 15, 9:28
Of course, this doesn't come for free. Have you ever counted just how much you've spent on OS X upgrades?
Bloody hell, it would seem I actually want to try out this OSX thing you are raving about. How would a MiniMac (with 1GB RAM) perform as a development platform?
Challenge by anonymous on April 16, 1:21
"The only thing I am not so excited about is Mail's Interface."
I've switched at work to a 500MHz cube. My own computer is still Windows, though. I'm saving up for a 15" Powerbook. It's going to take at least a year to get enough money... but I'd like for it to be my main computer for many years afterwards. I can at least console myself that by the time I've reached the point, the Powerbook might have dual-core G4s or G5s, heh.
Challenge by Silas on April 16, 21:59
Yeah, I think Mail's interface is great the way it is now, I'm not too keen on the Tiger version. I'm honestly not sure whether I'm going to upgrade. Here's how I understand things: Apple basically developed the Classic OS to a very mature point with 9.2, but it was becoming outdated compared with Win2k. So they turned Next into OS X, and it was crap in 10.0 and 10.1. Jaguar was finally a mature, really good operating system, and Panther is basically, mostly, perfect. But it's perfection of an old-school visual UI that really dates back 20 years. Tiger seems not to be taking what's there and making it more perfect; it looks like it will actually change the way people interact with their computers (see Spotlight, smart folders, Dashboard, Automator, etc.). Of course you will be able to use Tiger in the old way, but then I don't see a ned to upgrade. To get the most bang for your buck you will need to change some habits, to interact with this truly modern OS in a truly modern way. In other words, and contrary to what Paul Thurrott thinks, Tiger might be the biggest qualitative OS upgrade since the original Mac OS.
Again, I'm not sure I need or want to chage my habits right now. But then again if there really are performance boosts, it might be a good upgrade for my old tibook...
Challenge by Bax on April 17, 4:10
50% increase? Riiiiight. Back that up.
Challenge by Jussi on April 22, 23:46
I'm also a bit curious about the claim of +50% on cpu and threading. CPU is really hard to speed up and everything I've heard says that threading will also be slightly slower.
That said, UI responsivity will be better. Offloading some GFX processing to GPU will speed things up and free CPU to do more important things, and of course there is Spotlight!
