Panther: Lack of features

[mightyjlr]

Ok, first off, I am a big fan of Apple, a switcher, and I love the direction Apple is headed. I have used betas of Panther, and everything seems to work very nicely. I do not however see that many new features in Panther.

I don't need to list all of the new features in Panther, we all know what they are. Panther seems a little quicker on my 500mhz Powerbook G4, but not THAT much quicker. It is pretty well known that Apple will not be adding any new features in Panther now, and are just working out the bugs.

My question... is everyone here happy with the number of new features in Panther? To me, Jaguar seemed like an upgrade packed with a lot more features than Panther. I will of course pay the $129 to support Apple, but I had a lot easier time parting with that money to buy Jaguar than I think I will when I buy Panther.

[RacerX]

Maybe it would help to list the "new" features that 10.2 had over 10.1, and then rating those according to importance. Then you could do the same for 10.3 over 10.2.

I haven't used 10.3 (my systems are too important to my work to test beta-ware on them any more), but I know that Expose, fast user switching, and TextEdit more than qualify as major updates that would be worth the price.

Thing is, I don't remember 10.2 having such drastic feature improvements being included when first released. Mail had a nice update, and all my systems became usable in Mac OS X (even when running games). But beyond those, I can only think of a few features that I use on a daily basis (find in the tool bar being the most notable). Sherlock 3 had promise, but it never ended up replacing Watson (I haven't used Sherlock in over 9 months).

But maybe you could expand on what you think you got (or are not getting) with the two upgrades.

[iscaro]

What are you talking about?

What have you seen in Panther? What do you need or are you lookg for?

Tell us... I just love Panther... the way it looks... the way it behaves... all the new features, hidden or not...
It is fast... stable... easier and better to use daily for me.

What was so special for Jaguar over 10.1 and what do you need mpre in 10.3 ?

10.3 Server is also going to be really good... Mac OS X is not only for home use...

And it is not expensive too... so what's the problem with a good update? I have a DP 1.25 and it works great and much better for me and for other people I know...

That's all...

[Arden]

Here, let me help you out by, yes, listing some of the bigger new features in Panther, and what I'd be willing to pay for them separately if I could (and if I had money for it ):

• Exposé: How can you not love this? $25
• Fast User Switching: Works quite well, and much faster than Windows. $20
• Xcode: Considering what you're getting, I'd say this is quite a deal maker. $200
• Dynamic Find: What, you like it to gather your results in a separate pane? $30
• The Location Bar: Looks cool, though I don't know that I'd use it that much. $5
• File Vault: See above response. $15
• Labels: Finally! $12
• The Action Menu: Useful for the less-than-literate, but I don't need it that much. $10
• All brushed-metal interface: What were they thinking? This needs to go, or at least become optional. -$30

And that's just the features I can think of off the top of my head!
So, if I add it all up, I come up with a price of $287. Without Xcode, that's still $87, and that's just for the stuff I've listed; I'm sure you can find many more features that add to the value of Panther.

[Alex x]

Full final version will be pay for in Jaguar ($29 or so). It's included in Panther

[Ripcord]

Some more new things:

- X11 server will be included, based on XFree86 4.3 (the betas were released for Jag, but also were only XFree86 4.2)
- Safari 1.1
- iCal update
- iSync update
- Significantly improved Mail.app
- Sherlock 3.6, with some significant improvements

- Enhanced journaled filesystem support
- Very noticable speed improvements (I'm thinking as much as 1.2 over 1.1)
- New Calculator
- Greatly enhanced Process Viewer/resource monitor
- Quite a few Unix improvements (new BSD core stuff, new default shell, etc)
- Improved "Chess"
- Several little "eye candy" improvements, like curling child dialog boxes, etc
- Networking improvements - much updated SMB client (Windows sharing), new SAMBA server, better LDAP/etc capabilities
- Newer version of Apache (web server)
- G5 enhancements
- MUCH better ALT-tab behavior

...And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head.

I'm guessing that most, if not all, of the items in the first group will be available to Jag owners, though perhaps at a fee (like iChat AV)

I also agree with arden about the brushed metal, it bugs me like the cheese grater cases and the one-button mice (which I only use because they look cooler than any other mouse. I'll ditch it when they bring out the brushed-metal mouse...*shudder*). Apple had been on such a roll, design-wise, until the metal thing kicked in. Hey, DeLorean made the same design mistake, and look where they are now =)

Also don't like the dynamic find - it starts searching my entire hard drive as soon as I type the first letter, and is really slow and UNRESPONSIVE, text-entry-wise (a big no-no)

[eric halfabee]

Improved Preview.

[cfleck]

arden, what is the "location bar"?