Posted by : meshy on Nov 03, 2003 - 03:12 PM General

I want whatever coffee Apple is pouring in its cafeteria: Since 2001, the Cupertino, Calif., firm has cranked out four major consumer operating-system upgrades, three more than Microsoft could manage. The latest such release, Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, arrived Oct. 24, only 14 months after its predecessor, Jaguar.
The costs of Mac life can add up. If you've paid for each upgrade from Mac OS X 10.0 on, Panther's $129 bill pushed you past $400. A $20 discount price is limited to users who bought a Mac or Mac OS X after Oct. 8, plus G5 desktop owners -- a much less generous deal than was offered with Jaguar last year. But Panther justifies making a dent in the credit card balance.

This release preserves the things that make Mac OS X worthwhile -- it had yet to crash through a week of intensive testing on two Macs, viruses and worms that besiege Windows PCs bounce right off it and it has no "product activation" copy protection to gum up your system -- and it has a Christmas list of new features.

New ways to control your screen's windows and manage the files in your computer top that list.

A program called Expose is the rare computing trick that's as useful as it is cool. Tap a function key, and Panther either shrinks open windows so that none overlaps (allowing you to select one with a swipe of the mouse), does the same for one program's windows, or shoves every window to the border of the screen to allow a clear glance at the desktop.

This graphics wizardry is like having a monitor that can triple its size on demand when you need more room to find something. And it works fabulously well -- its absence in Windows already bugs me.

The Finder, Apple's file and program manager, gets an equally vital upgrade. It runs faster and allows users to label files in seven colors (restoring a beloved feature from Mac OS 9). It also now uses a two-pane view reminiscent of Apple's iTunes and iPhoto programs: A skinny column at the left groups disks, servers and the folders of your choice, while the rest of the window shows what's in the selected location.

This customizable perspective bails you out of the usual static hierarchy of folders and sub-folders, letting you focus on the places you actually use. And because the same view is provided in the dialogue boxes used to open and save files in other programs, Panther makes the software you already own better.

If you pay for Apple's $100-a-year .Mac online service, Panther's Finder offers another bonus: the ability to keep a local copy of your iDisk online file-storage area that automatically synchronizes itself with the original on Apple's servers.

This makes working on the same files from multiple Macs a lot easier.




The next most useful feature in Panther comes straight out of Redmond, as Apple readily admits. Panther's "fast user switching," just like Windows XP's, permits two users to stay logged in to one computer while taking turns at the keyboard. In other words, if you want to check your e-mail, you don't need to ask your mom to close out of the programming project she started four hours ago.

Panther's ability to download important system updates in the background is another obvious borrowing from Windows -- and sorely overdue, given the huge size of many Mac software updates. (For those keeping score, the first bug-fix for Panther, a security patch, showed up four days after its release.)

Panther also puts new emphasis on data-integrity issues. It enables "journaling" on hard disks -- a file-protection mechanism that should drastically reduce the odds of disk corruption after crashes or power failures. A "secure empty trash" command will (tediously) overwrite particularly sensitive files to prevent them from being unearthed later on.

You can also lock your entire home directory with Panther's File Vault encryption. Apple estimates that this cuts disk performance by 5 to 10 percent, but the only slowdown I noticed was the occasional wait to clean up file data when logging out of a File Vault-protected account. Otherwise, the computer ran like before -- all the decryption and encryption work took place invisibly.

Panther also bundles a trunkful of add-on software. Its Mail program smartly integrates with the upgraded Address Book software and adds a view-by-thread option (but remains dismally inept for Post Office Protocol e-mail accounts). IChat AV makes videoconferencing as simple as instant messaging for users with compatible video cameras and broadband connections. The Safari browser, with its efficient tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking, is now the default Web software. The Preview graphics viewer loads PDF (Portable Document Format) files much faster and can search their text. The TextEdit writing program now opens and saves Microsoft Word files.

Somehow, Apple also found the time to run the entire OS X interface through the typewriter again, making such subtle refinements as cleaning up window title bars and adding a Print & Fax control panel. Unfortunately, the company also tossed the old Internet control panel that let you pick your Web browser and e-mail client -- you're now expected to make these system-wide settings from inside Safari and Mail.

Other glitches: Panther's disc-burning tools still lack the "packet writing" option that would let you use a CD like a 650-megabyte floppy disk, and a few programs stopped working in Panther, including the desktop software for Palm handhelds (although not the underlying hot-sync software) and Apple's Backup utility.

Apple's basic requirements for Panther are a G3 or G4 processor, 128 megabytes of memory and built-in USB ports. The oldest Macs won't keep up -- a 400 MHz G3 desktop was only borderline usable, especially compared with its relative zippiness under Mac OS 9 -- but on any Mac made in the last two or three years, especially one with a G4 processor, Panther should be a fine upgrade. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro at rob@twp.com.

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