On 13/07/2005, at 10:12 PM, Murdoch Allen wrote:
So what's the consensus of Tiger is it worth the upgrade or not ??
I upgraded from 10.3.9 on my Ti PowerBook 867, 768 RAM. I was ultra careful with the upgrade process and went the Erase and Install route after taking all the precautions I could read about. The upgrade went flawlessly and was over in a short time, maybe 20 mins-I forget, but I had only about 7 GB on my HD. I have had zero problems, no apps broken, altho some need updating but I do that as I get to use them. Using Mail.app and that migrated perfectly [that was an area which I had read about on other forums as having problems].
I have no use for the Widget stuff. And so far I have not looked at the Automator. Spotlight works fine but I know that some users have issues with it not searching/finding everything on their disks. But for me I was quite content with the old Find command [which still works altho its new configuration takes a bit of getting used to, YMMV], plus the freeware EasyFind app.
The biggest problem I have with Spotlight is this. I have an external FW drive which I use for backups, a full clone of my HD, at weekly intervals. Pre Tiger I would connect the FW drive and just start the backup clone. Now with Tiger's Spotlight as soon as I connect the FW drive Spotlight starts to index it and I have to wait until the indexing process is finished before I can clone to it. And then as the cloning process is running, Spotlight is reindexing. Yes there are workarounds for these difficulties but for me it is a pain to have to do so. The forums [Apple Discussion Boards, ArsTechnica, MacNN] have many threads on this "problem" but other than the so far several workarounds, no permanent solution. The situation is not a problem for anyone who keeps a backup disk permanently connected to your HD and regularly backs up, but that is not the answer for me and I suspect everyone who uses a notebook. This "problem" has occupied GBs of cyperspace and I won't clog this list with repeating it.
Safari does not work for me as well as it did in 10.3.9, again shown by many other forums' threads. But I won't go into detail here. Everyone's experience varies.
I have no knowledge of the "under the hood" improvements. I can not say that my system is any faster but we all know that after a short time memory and perceptions of previous behaviour is diluted.
In my opinion, and in my circumstances, Tiger has not been worth the money but of course I am not going to revert to Panther. I assume that the folk for whom Tiger is an improvement and greatly helps their computing experience are those who use their Macs for production in a working environment, and that is where Apple is naturally aiming the upgrade. No problem with that. But in my case as a retiree who uses my Macs just for a hobby then Tiger is not a big deal.
HTH ......... Peter Sealy Thurgoona AUSTRALIA
