“Although it’s been quite some time since MacOS X first hit the shelves, and although many hordes of users have made their homes on the system, MacOS 10.2 is the first version of X that I would really recommend for someone to use. MacOS versions 10.0 and 10.1 had vast amounts of potential, yet they remained nothing to write home to mom about. Finally Apple has capitalized on their potential, and created a system that is refined, streamlined, and ready to take out of the oven.” Read the preview over at ArtificialCheese. In the meantime, SpyMac listed a number of incompatibilities between Jaguar 10.2 and previous versions of OSX (which are pretty natural to occure when you bump up a whole new version of an OS, especially when using a very different version of the compiler). I could add one more to the list.
A Sneak Peak at Jaguar 10.2
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
The artificialcheese review is pretty shallow. My God, this person hasn’t even ever used iMovie or iPhoto. But, getting back to the OS, boot up time is mentioned, but nothing about speed increases or lack thereof while sunning the system and applications. And nothing of any substance about the technologies that have been introduced into 10.2.
I’ve been wondering what will be broken by 10.2 – the lists are starting to roll in <g>.
Just an observation here — in most 10.2 reviews there is little mention of the BSD updates. I would have thought that upgrading the BSD portions of Darwin to FreeBSD 4.4 sources would be one of the more noteworthy changes — probably tied with the GCC change. Both of these are pretty big changes yet neither has recieved any attention. Maybe this is a reflection of the less technical and traditional mac user base?
I would like to see a review from a more technical perspective. Maybe we’ll have to wait for another ArsTechnica review.
Before you get all disappointed that this is not a technical review, you might want to take a look at the “about us” statement. This is written from the “Joe Sixpack” standpoint, and that is a valid opinion too. Overall I get the impression he is happiest about the speed increases. Which is something that OSX needs. I’m not going to be buying a new Mac anytime soon, and my G3 266 is doing fine with OS 9, so maybe this would help me decide whether or not OSX is worth $130 dollars. I haven’t seen any website do testing on older models.
…and Mac OS X will be Human. Unless of course some asteroid hits Cupertino
Shallow indeed.
Unfortunately, most reviews you find on software are very shallow.
Generic software review 2002:
“Installing it – click here, click there – uh! A new feature! Spiffy! Hm…this one could work better. Conclusion: Better than the previous version, although a little rough at the edges.”
Personally I’m stoked about the new FreeBSD 4.4 base and CUPS. Getting CUPS is worth the price of upgrade alone to me.
Apple was the first company to make Unix useable. Dosen’t anyone respect that? Microsoft has had almost 10 years to make their new 9x interface useable, and they still can’t hit the target.
>they still can’t hit the target.
I find the WinXP interface more usable than OSX’s. It is way more responsive, I can control what I want to do better, and yes, there is still room for immense improvements.
Mark, I wasn’t looking for a technical review from artificialcheese. But, it was just so lacking in anything really. LOL, he spent more time on the new start-up screen than anything else – screenshots and everything! <g>
I agree with Eugenia. If they can get OS X on some speedy hardware and it responds like XP does, we’ll be cookin’ then.
My God, this person hasn’t even ever used iMovie or iPhoto.
Is that suppose to mean that iMovie and iPhoto are the biggest highlights of using a Mac? If so: Uh-oh!
For the average artificialcheese iMac type consumer, yes, those are two of the big highlights of using their Macs, along with iTunes and, for some, iDVD.
Apple was the first company to make Unix useable. Doesn’t anyone respect that?
Geez, no, of course not! Making Unix usable by newbies is like giving comfy insulated shoes
to firewalkers… it completely misses the point ;^)
I think its so funny that apple prides itself on ease of use.. yet the a number one book seller atm is how to use OSX.. thats funny i dont know anyone with a windows manual even thought alot of my friends are IT professionals and others dunno anything about computers… yet they all use pc
Dosent that say pcs are easy to use.. and Mac has just taken a very basic simple interface (macos9) (and now added some pathetically shallow minimise and maxmise animations (wow just what i allwasy wanted)) and now wacked it on top of a real os that has all the real os problems and confusing nature.
Windows is so much better
PPl allways said windows was to confusing.. and mac made it all simple? now whos the one typing “man -k grep “..mwahahaha
Everyone who knows windows knows pretty much how to use all parts of windows.. which includes everything u need to know to use networking and configure your computer and maintain it. (no 3rd party open source SAMBA or apache here ) (As if their design and UI has anything to do with OSX interface and design).
If mac was so simple before.. it was because of the limitations of the OS.. now you have a real OS your users will have to learn how to use computers!
I tried OS X (versions before Jaguar) and they all sucked, because of the problem in responsing to my mouse clicks. It seems that, it is somewhat less responsive. I click on a scroll bar, and for some reason it doesn’t get it, or somethingelse. There is a slight delay between my clicks and the time which I see the OS responds to that click.
Windows XP doesn’t have that. With Jaguar people claim that this is over, but I was really disappointed with Apple’s claims that this OS is the best one. It looks very nice, but it doesn’t function as it should.
>>I find the WinXP interface more usable than OSX’s. It is way more responsive, I can control what I want to do better, and yes, there is still room for immense improvements.<<
I still find Windows XP’s UI to be clunky and not very usable like its predecessors. It’s not as responsive as you folks claim (especially on older hardware), I have seen ‘Explorer’ stutter and ill-timed when selecting items from the left-hand menu, also have found the menus within the ‘Start’ menu to draw slow (or delayed). The Taskbar can be a pain in the arse if using the auto-hide preference because of its stutter (or clunkiness)! I have other complaints, but I won’t waste your time here!
All in all I still find Windows XP to be boring to use and it’s Luna IU (though better looking than the old) still misses the mark of any achievement (maybe it’s because I work with Windows professionally?!). I had my complaints of OS X and I have already addressed those with Apple long ago. My favorite operating system has been BeOS for a longtime, but when Apple added BeOS like functionality in some UI areas, I now have to say that OS X is my favorite and doubt Microsoft will ever create a version of Windows that will get me to return back to the PC!
TMK : the sync with newer BSD is on the TODO list. Once 10.2 is released, more work will be put into Darwin itself;
—
http://islande.hirlimann.net
I still find Windows XP’s UI to be clunky and not very usable like its predecessors. It’s not as responsive as you folks claim (especially on older hardware
When you get OS/X running on a PowerMac or a Quadro then you can talk about how XP is slow on old hardware. Until then you should think about how Windows version will run on older hardware (albeit slowly), but later Mac OS releases necesitate the purchase of new hardware.
Everyone who knows windows knows pretty much how to use all parts of windows..
tell that to my dad, or the receptionist at our client’s front desk …
which includes everything u need to know to use networking and configure your computer and maintain it.
you should try setting up networking on OSX 10.1 and compare that to Windows (2000 or 98- i’ve not tried XP). and if rendezvous does what is promised it will get even easier.
yes 10.1 is not responsive. that is about it’s only fault in my opinion – it’s also the first computer i’ve had where i’ve not had to reinstall in 9 months of tinkering.
There is no technical reason why Mac OS X cannot run on a pre-G3 PowerMac, Apple just don’t advise it or support it. XPostFacto is a workaround for installing it on older HW.
The reference to the Quarda is stupid. The m68K in the Quadra is a completely different achitecture to the PowerPC. Try running Win XP on an original IBM PC or 286 and see how far you get.
“When you get OS/X running on a PowerMac or a Quadro then you can talk about how XP is slow on old hardware. Until then you should think about how Windows version will run on older hardware (albeit slowly), but later Mac OS releases necesitate the purchase of new hardware.”
“Everyone who knows windows knows pretty much how to use all parts of windows..
tell that to my dad, or the receptionist at our client’s front desk …
which includes everything u need to know to use networking and configure your computer and maintain it.
you should try setting up networking on OSX 10.1 and compare that to Windows (2000 or 98- i’ve not tried XP). ”
I admit i was berating a few mac users there,.. but the truth is i dont know ANYONE who owns 1 book on how to use windows yet every mac users i know has at least 1 on osx. If its so easy to use why the need for the book?
Ive used osx a fair bit but not a lot, i helped my friend setup samba on it, that was a real pain on pre 10.1. What i can see now is how apple basically copy the dialog boxes and the way windows does things. The routing addon in 10.2 2 is called “Internet connection sharing”… other new features include an ability to select what do open for each media type (the same as XP although much more limited). Hopefully jaguar and this “rendezvous” hype will bring it up to the ease of XP.
“bring it [Mac OS X] up to the ease of XP”
You got to be kidding, right?
Apple copy the Windows way of doing things? Actually, Windows copied the Macintosh way of doing things, and then got lots of things completely wrong (window bars for each application window rather than a global window bar; ‘okay’ buttons on the left, ‘cancel’ buttons on the right; lousy hierarchical menu implementation etc the list is endless).
Okay, Apple’s HUI group is a shadow of its former self these days and seems to be far more interesting in style and flair than HCI principles, while MS has one of the largest HCI research spends of any company in the world, but Apple are still getting more things right than Microsoft does with XP.
For the record, I quite like XP; but the MacOS flattens it when it comes to usability. For responsiveness, XP on a new PC kicks the hell out of OS X on a new Mac, but Jaguar goes some way toward resolving this glaring issue (Apple *really* dropped the ball on this one).
> I admit i was berating a few mac users there,.. but the
> truth is i dont know ANYONE who owns 1 book on how to
> use windows yet every mac users i know has at least 1 on > osx. If its so easy to use why the need for the book?
I use a mac, and I know a lot of other mac users, and none of us own books on OS X. The only reason you’d want one would be to learn your way around some of the nifty Unix utilities (that are not required to use the OS, but can be handy).
>>When you get OS/X running on a PowerMac or a Quadro then you can talk about how XP is slow on old hardware. Until then you should think about how Windows version will run on older hardware (albeit slowly), but later Mac OS releases necesitate the purchase of new hardware.<<
Well let’s see… I run Mac OS X (10.1.5) on my iMac G3 (400 MHz) with not much fuss. I can say that it runs faster than the Compaq DeskPros (400 MHz) running Windows NT/2000!
I am spoiled by BeOS speed to be honest, so when looking at other OSes I think they’re all slower in comparison, and most BeOS user (if not all) will agree 🙂
What’s wrong with owning a book about your system ? At least, people doing this are trying to learn things the right way.
If you don’t document yourself about your tools, how are you supposed to learn to use them _right_ ?
Disclaimer: The following “facts” are based on my circle of acquaintances.
Primary Home OS | Books Owned About That OS
——————————————-
Unix Users | greater than two
Linux Users | greater than one
Mac Users | greater than zero
Windows Users | zero
Stereotypically this is how user competence maps to OS of choice (Based on my three years as Help Desk/Tech Support):
Unix > Linux > Mac > Windows
This leads me to suspect that the number of books owned on one’s OS is actually POSITIVELY related to one’s competence.
Any rebuttals to this entirely unscientific analysis are welcome.
I cannot believe what I am reading XP is actually easier to use than OS X. That is a joke, I run both an iBook for general use, and a new KT333 Athlon system running XP pro. I can tell you from day to day usage of both OSX is by far a winner over XP. XP is a quantum leap from 98( or even Me) but still does not have the and stablity or ease of setup. I dont know if you all are using XP Pro but let me tell you there is way too much to set up to optimize your system.
Now I love my XP system it is damn fast no question but the reality is I keep going back to the iBook becuase of the ease of use. I have had it since November, and so I have not use OSX until then. I have been using Windows since 3.1 So if OSX is running flawlessly not a problem and I am able to navigate with no problems, and XP I am still finding little things to turn off or on, Reinstalled 2 time in a week, due to a large problem that was posted all over the place(boot time over 3 mins).
I could go on and on, but for a user like me, OSX wins the overall use issue, now if they only had Ghost Recon oh wait it is coming to OSX………………
Overall I love OS X. Here are the two “speed improvement” issues I’m looking for in 10.2. I have my “Applications” and “Home” directory in my dock. When I right-click on it, I want it to come up in less than one second, like my over-loaded start menu does under W2K. Similarly, I would like my over-stuffed (100+ objects) directories to come up faster in the finder view. Basically, can I scroll through the list without pregnant pauses?
Similarly, I am looking for the ability to scroll through very large text files (a few MB) in ProjectBuilder and also not have my Office applications eating up 30% of the processor while doing nothing.
Keeping my fingers crossed…
Why does UNIX have to be for the geeks like you? UNIX wasn’t made just for geeks like you. It was made by geeks and that is why it sucked for the average user, BUT APPLE has made UNIX easy to use.
Actually, Windows copied the Macintosh way of doing things, and then got lots of things completely wrong
U mean just like mac copied Xerox parc.. waho ya know the first person who invented file compression.. everyone else just copied of them .. didnt they huh?? Or perhaps just because Mac was the first SOLD gui that means they own a patent to a GUI forever more.. Apple so tried. Imagine that no windows, no xwindows (no gnome or KDE ) no Irix yeah whatever apple just whatever…
(window bars for each application window rather than a global window bar;
You cant be serious have u ever used more than 1 application at once? you know the point of multi tasking .. oh thats right your new to preemptive multitasking whereas windows has had it since 95.
‘okay’ buttons on the left, ‘cancel’ buttons on the right;
This seems natural to me.. i read from left to right.. what about u ?
lousy hierarchical menu implementation etc the list is endless).
Dunno what your on about here.. windows works great running multiple apps at once and flicking betweeen them. IF you only use 1 program at once its ok using a mac.
Also for note, these new tabbed menus in Jaguar and quite a few other features (integrated MSN (sorry AOL haha)) are copying windows.. are u suggesting Microsoft should sue.. and prevent these features in jaguar because Apple is copying.. ?
“and XP I am still finding little things to turn off or on, ”
Little things to turn off and on.. would u rather not have the options?
“Reinstalled 2 time in a week, due to a large problem that was posted all over the place(boot time over 3 mins). ”
Bummer.. im glad i arent moving all my software and hardware to a whole new os platform atm and have massive compatibility issues on all fronts.
Glenn
If OSX on a 400Mhz G3 runs faster then win2000 on a 400MHz
deskpro that only means that you have a really sucky PC.
Try putting some RAM in it (256MB)put a decent harddisk in it and a real videocard instead of one which uses the system RAM 🙂 for 450 euro you can buy a brand new 1200MHz
machine 🙂
You cant be serious have u ever used more than 1 application at once? you know the point of multi tasking .. oh thats right your new to preemptive multitasking whereas windows has had it since 95.
The point is it’s easier to hit the menu bar with the mouse when its at the top, cos it’s got “infinite height”. you can’t have two windows in the foreground at the same time (one or the other always has the focus) so the multitasking is a none issue.
‘okay’ buttons on the left, ‘cancel’ buttons on the right;
This seems natural to me.. i read from left to right.. what about u ?
that’s the point – you read the box from left to right, top to bottom, so the last thing your eye rests on is the default button. and most mac apps don’t use OK/Cancel or Yes/No, they use Don’t Save/Save, so your eye falls on the verb you are about to perform.
For an explanation of the difference between Mac and PC hierarchical menus (such as the start menu), read this on the AskTog site:
http://www.asktog.com/readerMail/2000-07ReaderMail.html#Anchor6
The Apple solution actually goes a little further than what is written there, and has a few other neat tricks to make the menus feel more responsive and make them react in a ‘natural’ manner. By natural I mean that you never feel you are fighting against them.
Also, read the note just above that anchor to read about another mess up on MS’s part (coincidentally, I sent in the original letter 😉
The OK or Save or whatever buttons belong on the right precisely because of the natural reading order of English (and several other major languages). As such, the buttons are in a position that implies forward progress. Take the example of Wizard interfaces: just where do you think the natural position for the ‘next’ button is. Apple got it right and MS might have either just completely ignored good research in to positioning of buttons, or decided to deliberately change the position so that they looked a little less like they were copying the Mac.
Apple were definitely influenced by what they saw at PARC; but Jef Raskin who started the Macintosh project had been doing research into graphical displays long before he ventured in the doors of PARC. His college thesis was on the subject. Some of what was at Xerox made a difference, but Apple added a lot to the system such as overlapping windows, click and drag and far easier to use single mouse system (the Star’s three button mouse used some rather complicated sequences to perform certain actions which click and drag simplified a great deal).
Regarding multi-tasking; how does having a single menubar impede multi-tasking in any way? Answer: it doesn’t. The menubar touching the top of the screen speeds up access to the menus by 500% (read up on Fitt’s Law on Tog’s site for an explanation of why).
Apple do copy features from MS, and vice-versa, but they aren’t going to sue eachother because they signed a deal whereby they can infringe upon eachother’s patents. I don’t know if this only applies to patents from before and during their 5-year agreements, or if patents after the 5 year period are not applicable.
I don’t know where you get the idea that using more than one application at a time on the Mac is a problem. I work in a graphic design company and use several applications which are left open all day without problem – and that’s on OS 9. Before commenting on an operating system you really should be more familiar with it. Sorry for the personal dig, but your comment makes no sense.
I’m a Mac an PC user (I have an Athlon sitting to my right as I type this on my G4) so I’m proficient in both environments. I like XP, I like OSX. Neither UI is as good as it should be considering the amount of excellent research which seems to have no impact on either OS; but the Mac is a better environment to work in for me as a designer.
>>If OSX on a 400Mhz G3 runs faster then win2000 on a 400MHz
deskpro that only means that you have a really sucky PC.
Try putting some RAM in it (256MB)put a decent harddisk in it and a real videocard instead of one which uses the system RAM 🙂 for 450 euro you can buy a brand new 1200MHz
machine :-)<<
I can agree with you that Compaq sucks a$$, so no arguments there. These are the work PCs I deal with, so I wont spend a ‘euro’ dime on them! But here is the kicker… I was running BeOS 5 (Personal Edition, I do own Pro as well)on one of them over a year ago and the machine was fast, so I think the RAM issue (though valid mostly) is moot when comparing 2 OSes!
BeOS is faster because it uses less memory
win 2k really needs RAM, when there isn’t enough
it crawls… 256MB is nice.
“you can’t have two windows in the foreground at the same time (one or the other always has the focus) so the multitasking is a none issue”
If you were like me, all the time you would be selecting menu items directly from a non focused application. Its a big issue for me. Its much faster.. theres also so many toolbars and menu items for each application fiting them into the start bar would be way too cramped. There is no direct link between the operating system and the application in focus.. it should be seperate like windows. I manage several applications at once and need to see what im doing. The way the minimise max buttons in osx work is testamount to the shallow nature of its “sophisticated” GUI.
http://www.asktog.com/readerMail/2000-07ReaderMail.html#Anchor6
This wasnt convincing at all.. The delays in the windows menus are there to help u maintain context of what your doing.. this artical couldnt even see that obvious point so is hardly enlightend as to UI design. (I have a degree in IT with postgraduate UI design subjects).. The apple menus use of holding the mouse button down to select through menus is also a bad idea .. but anyway.
The task switch menu in osx used to suck to make it easier to understand for basic users.. have they changed it back to like windows now?
“The menubar touching the top of the screen speeds up access to the menus by 500%”
I dont miss but yer it adds about .02 sec to my mouse click (actually oftern i dont have to move the mouse so far so thats quicker again).. but every few seconds i directly click on a nonfocused application menu rather than changing focus first saving me about .5 sec say? (bring the app into focus then go to the menu (after waiting for it to pop up))
See my point? Windows is actually designed to be fast to use.
Glenn
I’ve got several machine running at work, including an OS-X G4 mac.
So far my Win2k and XP machines have never BSOd’d on me todate. Theyre nothing special just Dell optiplexs with 256MB RAm and single PIII 650’s. My OS X box on the other hand went tits up completly twice within 2 days PPC 500Mhz, 320MB of RAM of building it. In terms of responsiveness Xp and 2K are more are so much better than OSX. OSX looks pretty and theres some nice touches, but its just too damn slow (thats version 10.1.5 and before), heck OS9.x is much faster and more productive. I’ve got jaguar and will see how much of an improvement it is over 10.1.5. Fingers crossed becuase it needs to be so much better esp for the upgrade price.
I completely agree with what CattBeMac said, BeOS just leaves all three of them in the dust and thats running on an old 350 PII with 128MB of RAM.
: o )>
I’ve got several machine running at work, including an OS-X G4 mac.
So far my Win2k and XP machines have never BSOd’d on me todate. Theyre nothing special just Dell optiplexs with 256MB RAm and single PIII 650’s. My OS X box on the other hand went tits up completly twice within 2 days PPC 500Mhz, 320MB of RAM of building it. In terms of responsiveness Xp and 2K are more are so much better than OSX. OSX looks pretty and theres some nice touches, but its just too damn slow (thats version 10.1.5 and before), heck OS9.x is much faster and more productive. I’ve got jaguar and will see how much of an improvement it is over 10.1.5. Fingers crossed becuase it needs to be so much better esp for the upgrade price.
I completely agree with what CattBeMac said, BeOS just leaves all three of them in the dust and thats running on an old 350 PII with 128MB of RAM.
: o )>
the other thing:
OS-X takes way to long to startup, damn even Xp startups quicker and compared to BeOS both are kind of stressful.
the other thing:
OS-X takes way to long to startup, damn even Xp startups quicker and compared to BeOS both are kind of stressful.
Why does it matter how long it takes to boot up? I mean its like a min tops? I mean I reboot my machine about hmm once a 1 week or sometimes 1 a month. So i can just go take a leak when I need to wait for boot up.
>>OS-X takes way to long to startup, damn even Xp startups quicker and compared to BeOS both are kind of stressful.<<
I don’t reboot my machine that often… I use ‘sleep’ mode instead!
Using sleep mode or leaving it on doesn’t hide the fact
that OSX is dog slow in booting.
Jaguar boots faster (are they copying, making XP fast boot ?)
Well anyway the point is jaguar finally has boot caching etc so it will boot up faster.
To those who say it dosent matter… well why would they bother fixing it then?
To those who say it does matter.. oh well maybse osx will boot nearly as fast as XP now.
Glenn
Note i use my WinXP box > 10 hours a day and it stays up for weeks .. last reboot over a week ago (cant even remember the last crash weeks and weeks ago)
Arg is it just me or was beos overhyped. Is anyone here claiming it was stable? Yeah of course it went fast it had a UI that was soo basic..but yeah its multi threaded GUI was a great idea. There are several great ideas in beos.
The fact beos might be able to move windows on a p 2 300 (actually my friend runs win2k on on eof them and its fine she LOVES it goes great according to her) dosnt say much. I used to use GUI’s in DOS and they were fast.. this said little about the performance of the operating system.
For instance the little stalls that happen through menus in win XP sometimes (hey sometimes it does have to read from the hard disk!!) show nothing about its performance.. view the cpu meter.. its hard disk lag not the the OS stalling. This is a big difference when your compiling or whatever all your services continue to run. Just because beos might keep the windows updated dosent mean it turns a p2 300 into a p3. Unless someone was running a different version of BEOS to me i crashed it lots and it was obvious it was OS bugs not just applications or driver (my drivers seemed to work sweet). I killed the GUI before .. arg it just rememds me of windows 95 at times but anyway.. it would have been good.. but it still needed a lot more work before i could considerit instead of win2k. I tried i really did i do audio and beos is designed for that… it had great apps but the immaturiry of the OS shows.. it would crash and bleh anyway .. in a parrallel universe where beos is stable i might use it
Glenn
my last post a few people quoted my experience with XP. I don’t think I explained it enough, XP is nice, better than and windows I have used to date, it is faster and wonderfully tweaky. But my point was that I still go back to the little white iBook with OSX why, becuase it is stable and easy to use. Yes a lot of people have posted some draw backs about OSX, but each OS has draw backs EXCEPT BeOS…..??????……..
One post said that OSX was good for only one app, that shows he does not use OSX with only 384megs RAM I have 6+ apps open all the time. Doest not bog down.
What I would like is OSX on my ATHLON 🙂
And OSX is tweakable, just it is well planned out so less tweaking is needed. That I think has to do with the closed hardware,
For all who have disagreed thanks for being civil.
Charles