http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars
John does a decent job covering a lot of topics, in general they are in relation to Mac OS itself, so it is a good read for those that are considering the upgrade. Not necessarily a bad read for those considering the switch from Windows either. For those from Linux curious, it isn't bad either, but primarily will be the most useful if you have experience with Mac OS.
Now for my own thoughts on it....
I completely agree with several of John's criticisms on the UI, not all, but several. I am of the opinion showiness for the sake of showiness is usually a bad idea, and as he points out in several cases it hurts usability.
What I generally find the most interesting are the things John labeled under the "Grab Bag"
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/16
In particular Spaces and the UI interfaces to several components that should have been availiable long ago via the system preferences UI. Partitioning in the disk utility for example, or more controls and a better dialog for the network interfaces.
Also I am intrigued by the desktop sharing, especially after working on the show I currently am. If it maintains a comparable speed to JollysFastVNC client and a standard Remote desktop server, that alone may make it worth me switching. To give an example, currently the show I am working on just entered Tech Week. I have a Board Op and myself for sound crew. We did a dry tech yesterday, and my board op was late due to confusing daylight savings time, or his phone carrier apparently did as his phone had the wrong time on it. It was nice to be able to be out in the house and firing cues and taking notes via VNC, and also on occasion have the board op go off for repairs or other reasons and be able to continue firing cues. Jollys has a very fast response, and a nice simple but very easy to use Bonjour enabled GUI, works very well. They have a lot to live up to in the built-in client.
I DESPISE the 'fan' effect in the dock. Don't get me wrong, having the ability to easily put folders in the dock for various things was long overdue, but the fanning of it instead of doing a straight line of icons up is a horrible idea in my opinion.
Time machine... Very decent implementation, though they should have taken it one step farther with versioned control of files. Specifically at least any text or similar files, etc. However they do take good advantage of Unix filesystem basics with it and provide a very simple interface from everything I have seen. I am curious though if you can tell it only to access time machine if on a certain network and what the controls are for that.
Stability... Gonna wait a bit and see. Stability is a HUGE problem for me since I run live shows off several of my machines. Since I am looking at doing the actual upgrade in the December/Early January time frame time will certainly tell on that one.
Guest Account... LONG overdue in an easily accessible fashion. That by itself may make me reccomend it for a computer lab I work in as we are looking at doing similar for the windows machines with Samba and profiles.
Selective disk sharing(Easily) also long overdue. Back to my Mac, good concept. It should be available for those not on .Mac as it is in my opinion a waste of money, but I know that isn't likely to happen
Also a possible security concern though. iCal icon, also long overdue. Terminal customizations right up there as well. Tabbed terminal extremely good.
For those of us interested in the internals, Core Animation and Core text both look very decent, albiet I have been spoiled be the Enlightened Foundation Libraries on Linux LLVM could be good, especially for cross platform development, I would have to play with it to be certain though.
FSEvents, god, but dang they just need a new FS in general... Can't wait for full ZFS support to be honest. DTrace while I don't use it would be a welcome addition to many devs I would imagine.
Seablade
John does a decent job covering a lot of topics, in general they are in relation to Mac OS itself, so it is a good read for those that are considering the upgrade. Not necessarily a bad read for those considering the switch from Windows either. For those from Linux curious, it isn't bad either, but primarily will be the most useful if you have experience with Mac OS.
Now for my own thoughts on it....
I completely agree with several of John's criticisms on the UI, not all, but several. I am of the opinion showiness for the sake of showiness is usually a bad idea, and as he points out in several cases it hurts usability.
What I generally find the most interesting are the things John labeled under the "Grab Bag"
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/16
In particular Spaces and the UI interfaces to several components that should have been availiable long ago via the system preferences UI. Partitioning in the disk utility for example, or more controls and a better dialog for the network interfaces.
Also I am intrigued by the desktop sharing, especially after working on the show I currently am. If it maintains a comparable speed to JollysFastVNC client and a standard Remote desktop server, that alone may make it worth me switching. To give an example, currently the show I am working on just entered Tech Week. I have a Board Op and myself for sound crew. We did a dry tech yesterday, and my board op was late due to confusing daylight savings time, or his phone carrier apparently did as his phone had the wrong time on it. It was nice to be able to be out in the house and firing cues and taking notes via VNC, and also on occasion have the board op go off for repairs or other reasons and be able to continue firing cues. Jollys has a very fast response, and a nice simple but very easy to use Bonjour enabled GUI, works very well. They have a lot to live up to in the built-in client.
I DESPISE the 'fan' effect in the dock. Don't get me wrong, having the ability to easily put folders in the dock for various things was long overdue, but the fanning of it instead of doing a straight line of icons up is a horrible idea in my opinion.
Time machine... Very decent implementation, though they should have taken it one step farther with versioned control of files. Specifically at least any text or similar files, etc. However they do take good advantage of Unix filesystem basics with it and provide a very simple interface from everything I have seen. I am curious though if you can tell it only to access time machine if on a certain network and what the controls are for that.
Stability... Gonna wait a bit and see. Stability is a HUGE problem for me since I run live shows off several of my machines. Since I am looking at doing the actual upgrade in the December/Early January time frame time will certainly tell on that one.
Guest Account... LONG overdue in an easily accessible fashion. That by itself may make me reccomend it for a computer lab I work in as we are looking at doing similar for the windows machines with Samba and profiles.
Selective disk sharing(Easily) also long overdue. Back to my Mac, good concept. It should be available for those not on .Mac as it is in my opinion a waste of money, but I know that isn't likely to happen
Also a possible security concern though. iCal icon, also long overdue. Terminal customizations right up there as well. Tabbed terminal extremely good.For those of us interested in the internals, Core Animation and Core text both look very decent, albiet I have been spoiled be the Enlightened Foundation Libraries on Linux
LLVM could be good, especially for cross platform development, I would have to play with it to be certain though.FSEvents, god, but dang they just need a new FS in general... Can't wait for full ZFS support to be honest. DTrace while I don't use it would be a welcome addition to many devs I would imagine.
Seablade
