Real Kato Blog: Apple Watch: Mac OS X 10.3 First Look

I installed Apple's Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" recently on my Dual 1 GHz PowerMac G4; these are my initial impressions.

Apple's newest operating system, Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther", raises the bar for usability and polish. Even more so than its predecessor, "Jaguar", it feels well-built and well put-together.

Installation, which I performed as a straight upgrade (not a clean install or archive-and-install), went without a hitch. Upon restarting, all my applications and preferences were there unharmed.

There are noticeable speed improvements in the Finder and in other operations. While most benchmarks would probably not find measurable gains, it's the perception of speed (as far as user interface responsiveness) that counts here. Most Windows users will tell you that their PC machines seem much faster than Macs running OS X, and it's because of snappy button-click and menu responses, not because of how long it takes to do a Gaussian blur in Photoshop. With 10.3, Apple has closed the gap. Of course, given the amount of graphic-intensive effects, it's doubtful that OS X will ever achieve OS 9-like responsiveness; but I think people will come to appreciate the graphically-oriented feedback, especially as the hardware gets faster. (Remember how DOS users criticized how slow and clunky graphical interfaces were, back in the old Mac 128K days?)

The look and feel has changed. There are brushed-metal, gray-gradient textures everywhere. Many have complained about this new look, but I like it; it seems much more solid than the semi-transparent, horizontal-ruled textures prevalent in the previous releases. There are little things, too, like smooth scrolling and altered animation effects; these things seem to help provide visual feedback for actions without getting in the way too much. (The smooth scrolling is was a bit disconcerting at first; there's an acceleration-curve effect, which goes against your sensibilities if you're used to a linear response with your scrolling.)

The two most prominent new features are ExposŽ and Fast User Switching. Fast User Switching is neat, with its cool rotating-box effect, but it will have limited use on my single-user computer. On the other hand, ExposŽ is nothing short of a revolution: it has had an immediate impact on how I organize my work. I already find myself leaving windows open all over the screen, without worrying about having to find things in the clutter.

The new user-centric Finder has gotten my attention too. I've long resisted the single-window Next-derived Finder, with its clumsy column views, in favor of a much more OS 9-like approach. But the new Finder might change that, and that comes as a surprise to me. Navigation in this new iTunes-like Finder is much faster, thanks to the easily accessible and customizable sidebar. (Windows users will find this approach familiar, though the Apple implementation is, unsurprisingly, better.) Hopefully Apple will continue to refine this with meta-data based organization, as I've discussed in earlier articles.

On the downside, there are reports of problems with FileVault, the automatic encryption mechanism, and some are reporting data loss when booting up with a FireWire disk drive attached. Given the prevalence of the complaints, I wouldn't be surprised to see an update come out soon. Apple has gotten pretty good about pushing out software fixes quickly; and unlike Windows users, most Apple users obediently upgrade when told to do so by Software Update.

One last joyful note: a long-standing bug in the "Stickies" application has finally been fixed. Hitting the "undo" key no longer randomly deletes text and formatting from the sticky note. Hurray!

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