Mac OS Tiger arrived

When I ordered my copy of Mac OS Tiger two weeks ago I didn’t really expect it to arrive on the 29th of April, as Apple is quite famous for their delays. However I received the package yesterday in the afternoon.

Installation

As most of you might know, Apple offers three slightly different options of how to install new operating systems. The most convenient way of updating your Mac is to choose the “Update” option, that just replaces older system files. If you have bought your Mac within the last two or three months this variant should be your choice, as all of your settings and data are immediately available on the new OS.

If you own an older Mac or if you want to make a clean install you might choose the “Archive and install” option. This one first creates a backup of you data, including your address book, emails etc., then installs a fresh copy of Mac OS and afterwards imports your settings again. Once again most of your settings and of course all of your data is immediately available after the installation has finished.

And last but not least you might choose the “clean install” option, which erases your entire hard disk and installs a fresh copy of Mac OS. Be carefull — if you choose this option all your data and settings will be lost. So make sure that you create a backup before you start the installation.

First impression

When I updated from 10.2 to 10.3 I chose the “archive and install” variant, which worked quite well. However since I love to try out new pieces of software my Mac OS has become quite slow over the last few months — so I decided to backup all of my data and create a clean install. After about 15 to 20 minutes the installation was finshed without any problems.

After the first startup I first had a look on the new interface components, such as the great new desktop, the more glossy menu bar or the slightly revised UI of the system preferences. Great work. Beside these changes I also noticed a much better rendering of fonts and images — especially in Safari fonts are now rendered much crisper than in previous OS X versions. Once again — great.

Apple Mail 2.0

After this basic UI review I had a look at the all new Mail 2.0 UI, which has already been discussed last week. There is no doubt — the new interface is much cleaner than the previous one and the new Smart Mailboxes are a great enhancement to Apple Mail.

The only downside is that it is no longer possible to display the mailboxes on the right hand side of the mail listing, which would have been my preferred location. Well, I think I have to get used to it, as I’ve already done with the new grouped toolbar buttons. Even though I didn’t really like them when I first saw them on some of the screenshot posted in several forums, I now must admit that they are quite okay.

Dashboard

Dashboard is without doubt the most visually outstanding new feature of Mac OS Tiger. I would describe Dashboard as some kind of second virtual desktop that provides you with a set of small helper applications. Honestly I haven’t really worked with the widgets yet — I just dragged them from the widget bar to desktop in order to see this nice water effect. Neat.

Spotlight

Beside Dashboard Spotlight is the second main feature of Mac OS Tiger — it provides you with a way to access all of your data instantly. As with Dashboard I havent’t really worked with Spolight yet, but I think that is a really powerful tool especially because of Smart Folders, Smart Mailboxes etc.

The aspect I like best is the small “i” button next to each search results. If you click the button the search result is expanded and provides detailed information on the respective item.

Résumé

All in all I am really impressed of the newest version of Mac OS: it’s fast, it looks fantastic and comes with dozens of great new features. What are your experiences with Tiger? Have you already updated? Are you waiting for the first one or two service packs? Or do you think that it is not worth updating? By the way, I’ve created some more screenshots that can be downloaded here.