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Still on Tiger.. Am I missing out on anything?

J

JHNguyen

macrumors member
Original poster
I haven't used Leopard very much at all...

I had it on my Macbook for a brief period of time.. but switched back to Tiger cause it felt too different.. I also remember some compatibility issues.. but then again, I was using it when it was just released. Am I missing out on anything here? I'm pretty happy with Tiger. I was going to format the HD but was thinking about buying Leopard.. but I could always keep using Tiger and save that money towards the new iphone or something.
 
if you had it on your MacBook, why would you buy it again?

Leopard is now 10.5.3 and is a lot more stable. ive noticed that Safari just doesnt have random crashes anymore. most of your apps are probably Leopard ready by now have a look on their websites.
 
I've had a MBP since it came out, but I bought a Macbook, I think last year some time.. or maybe early this year.. I can't remember.

I kept it for about a week and realized I like my MBP much more, so I returned it. I got an eeePC instead and it worked out well.
 
Here is what I did on my system.

I used a firewire external HD and install leopard on the external HD and keeping my Tiger on the internal HD. If there are anything wrong with Leopard on the external, I could just start over. Also, I kept my library such as iTunes on the another external, so I could access it from Leopard and Tiger.

Why don't you do that and wait till you think Leopard is stable enough and switch over fully.
 
i don't know how i could ever live without QUICKLOOK again. to me that's the true star of leopard. and then yes spaces and time-machine are great too.

definately worth upgrading.
 
i have leopard on mini and Tiger on MB, i dont think there is anything significant enough that I can't live without
 
hell yea. you are missing stacks esp. an application stack. your dock becomes so much more mannagable with it. also like many have already said time machine. quick look is also sometimes useful. and my personal favorite that screen saver that uses all of your pictures in your iphoto library to make like a mosaic and make new pictures. i really can't remember what it is called but is is hella tight
 
I will never look back to Tiger after moving to Leopard

JHNguyen said:
I haven't used Leopard very much at all...

I had it on my Macbook for a brief period of time.. but switched back to Tiger cause it felt too different.. I also remember some compatibility issues.. but then again, I was using it when it was just released. Am I missing out on anything here? I'm pretty happy with Tiger. I was going to format the HD but was thinking about buying Leopard.. but I could always keep using Tiger and save that money towards the new iphone or something.
Click to expand...

I was going through the same thing for a while. Finally, I decided to ignore all of the woes and use upcoming HardDisk upgrade as an opportunity to migrate to Leopard.

I did clean install. It took some effort, but it worked exceptionally well not just on one mac, but on all of my four intel macs.

Here what I did:
1. Backup all my documents, bookmarks etc. (no applications)
2. Loaded Leopard disk (retail family pack 10.5.1) and rebooted in CD mode.
3. Loaded Disk Utility, selected old system partition and erased it (keeping the original volume name "Macintosh HD")
4. Installed Leopard on the clean partition
5. Refused Software update request to install updates.
6. Installed all of the software. (Do not try to run it - it will more likely to crash). Try to get the latest version of the software, if possible.
7. Open Software update and uncheck the "most recent" QuickTime and 10.5.3 OSX updates.
8. Let it install the rest of the updates (repeat until QuickTime and 10.5.3 are the only items left on the list)
9. Run Adobe updater, if applicable (repeat it until it will say - no updates available)
10. Allow it to install 10.5.3 OSX update (it will ask to restart - let it do so)
11. Same for QuickTime update. It may find more updates - you can combine them with it.
12. Copy your documents to the same locations. Especially "Music", "Movies" and "Pictures" folders. Once you launched iPhoto, iTunes or Apperture it will find your libraries and take the ownership automatically.
13. You just got yourself a rock-solid Leopard deployment
(14). Enjoy (just being superstitious 🙂

I would hold on installing Firefox until hang issue is resolved by Apple or Mozilla team (10.5.3 only issue)). Firefox 2.0 will give you a "poison peel" first time you use it, but after forced shutdown - it will behave. I heard, Firefox 3.0 may have a workaround for the issue when released.

I like: new printer & fax panel, network panel, sharing panel, stacks, spaces, Finder->Shared and time machine. It is also more responsive in networking. Dashboards and .Mac are snappier. Also, you can develop for iPhone on Leopard.

I had a copy of the Tiger on my old hard drive, but erased it soon after. There is no way I will ever go back.
You mentioned - you had it before, so it should not cost you anything. Retail package version is still 10.5.1.

Cheers...
 
I'd go back to 10.5. I bought it on release night and it wasn't very good for a while, but I recently reverted to Tiger on my iMac. Let's just say that it didn't last for too long before being bumped back up to 10.5.

It's worth an upgrade for sure. The new Finder is great, much better in my thoughts. I hardly ever use coverflow, though, as it's pretty much there for the ooos and aaas. But Spaces is great, and I'm also in love with Stacks. Quick Look is also a winner, big time. As for Time Machine, it's been working well since it came out (I recently moved the disk down to my airport extreme) and it's been backing up flawlessly. Fortunately, I've never had to use it but everyone that has used it says that it works great.

There are still a few bugs to be worked out, such as dropping AirPort connections. But overall it's very stable. Since I've lived through Cheetah, the small stability kinks aren't really an issue for me.
 
clevin said:
i have leopard on mini and Tiger on MB, i dont think there is anything significant enough that I can't live without
Click to expand...

I agree here. I do think though that I tried to do something in Tiger on my laptop that I apparently do often in Leopard. I don't recall what it is though so it can't be all that important.
 
I've used it, don't have it though. I like Mail Activity and better iCal editing, as well as Quick Look which is brilliant IMO. Time Machine seems to make a lot of sense too. Stacks, Spaces and Cover Flow seem frivolous to me, akin to Automator from Tiger. Also, Web Clips from Safari are cool. Things I don't like particularly are many applications that I have found that either don't work or don't work well in Leopard, the drop down menus in Finder, and (this isn't directly related to 10.5, but is through my personal experiences with it) iPhoto '08, whose printing services seem to have all but disappeared. I haven't even touched iMovie. iChat still doesn't have the support for anything other than AOL and .Mac, but is a great program. This is nitpicky, but the dock is ugly and can't be hacked, at the moment anyway. Essentially, I plan to upgrade with a new computer, hopefully with this more stable Snow Leopard.
 
Not really my iMac came with Tiger which i love, i upgraded to Leopard because of all the hype and didn't really like it all that much so i downgraded back to Tiger and i've been happy ever since. Leopard is by all means a good OS very good but for me i just prefer Tiger overall. Maybe when Snow Leopard launches...
 
You're not really missing out on anything. The only thing I ever really take advantage of in Leopard on my Macbook is the downloads stack. I would use Time Machine, but I'm too lazy to get an external HD and back everything up. Leopard's a great OS, and I would recomend buying it, but it's not an extreme necessity.
 
Time machine - it's so fricken simple and powerful, no Mac should be without it!

Quicklook - view any document without having to launch a program. This productivity increasing convenience alone is worth putting up with the remaining few rough edges in Leopard.

Print window - now gives you a real preview of your printout right there in the print window and makes it much easier to print out what you want without wasting time and printer ink.

Networking improvements - networking stuff is greatly improved in Leopard. If you've ever had the Finder lock up for a couple of minutes just because a shared volume dropped its network connection, Leopard totally eliminates that problem.

etc. etc.

There's really very little reason not to upgrade at this point. There are still a few rough patches here and there, but what you get is worth dealing with those few rough patches. And with 10.5.4 seeming like it's not far away from release, my opinion is that right now is a good time to upgrade.
 
The new Finder/Quickly improved Spotlight and overall snappiness of Leopard was the main reason why I can't live without Leopard now. Not so much (for me anyways, I'm sure there are others who think otherwise) Timemachine, Spaces or any other "major feature". And believe it or not, I just find the new look cleaner/more consistent and less cluttering so that speeds me up as well.
 
I have Leopard on my family's iMac and Tiger on my eMac and the things I find very useful about Leopard are Spaces especially on a smaller screen, Time Machine is great, the new Finder is much better, and Quick Look is amazing. It is really useful to not have to open an application to preview a document especially with slow programs such as Word 08 and waiting for Preview to show pictures. Quick Look has been really useful to me when I fully discovered it. I've had no program incompatibilities and I've found that many of the newer versions of programs such as Handbrake, etc are only for Leopard. If I had an install CD (we bought our iMac with Leopard preinstalled) I would put Leopard on my eMac.
 
Quicklook is awesome, as well as the new Spotlight. Also, I absolutely love the new Finder, though I may be in the minority there.
 
JHNguyen said:
I haven't used Leopard very much at all...

I had it on my Macbook for a brief period of time.. but switched back to Tiger cause it felt too different.. I also remember some compatibility issues.. but then again, I was using it when it was just released. Am I missing out on anything here? I'm pretty happy with Tiger. I was going to format the HD but was thinking about buying Leopard.. but I could always keep using Tiger and save that money towards the new iphone or something.
Click to expand...

Get Snow Leopard instead when it will come out. Snow Leopard will be worth it for you. 🙂
 
Leopards alright, but it's not for everybody. I didn't use a single new feature of Leopard. (That's right, didn't use Stacks or Spaces or Time machine) I didn't like the transparent menu or the 3-D dock, so I "upgraded" to Tiger. It wasn't worth the immense speed drop.

But hey, whatever works for you. If you have a powerful enough computer, I bet you'd love it.
 
I think Leopard would be best for you. It's not running so amazingly on my PowerBook. I love the new features and UI. I run leopard on all macs now. It's a lot nicer. You have a nice new intel mac, go for it.
 
Cassie said:
Leopards alright, but it's not for everybody. I didn't use a single new feature of Leopard. (That's right, didn't use Stacks or Spaces or Time machine) I didn't like the transparent menu or the 3-D dock, so I "upgraded" to Tiger. It wasn't worth the immense speed drop.

But hey, whatever works for you. If you have a powerful enough computer, I bet you'd love it.
Click to expand...

Maybe if Snow Leopard supports PowerPC machines, you should give Snow Leopard a try. 🙂
 
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