i finally found time to install "jaguar" onto one of my computers and have mixed feelings. I am very curious to hear other people's responses as i havent heard much more than whisperings on various threads about what people thought.
Here are some of my impressions.
iChat: first thing i looked at. i am a huge adium fan, and keep it up 24/7 on all my computers even though i dont even talk to anyone most days (great as an answering machine though). so i wanted to see what apple's take on instant messaging was like. big thumbs down on this one. ugly, bloated, and SLOW. this thing is by far the worst application i have ever had on my computer (and i even had windows 95 installed via virtual pc for awhile). i cant believe apple is serious about this. i know its far from finished (most options and preferences arent enabled yet) but there are some serious interface, usability, and speed issues. lets hope they get them ironed out in time. on a positive note the menubar item is pretty cool, i would lve to see this expanded upon. and i like how i can be online without having ichat open.
speed/qe. i installed jag on my lombard and found the speed improvements interesting, but not wholey compelling. cpu usage while manipulating gui elements has been greatly reduced, and scrolling in mozilla is now faster than my lcdimac. all the new eye candy is also quite interesting, and doesnt seem to slow things down at all. but there is still a sluggishness in some functions. in fact some things are slower than 10.1. the dock still jerks around, hoping the imac ont have this problem when it gets jagwired. i paid $1100 for this thing and it can burn dvds but cant keep the damn dock from jerking around! but we will see if qe fixes this. launching things like system preferences takes forever to load. gui elements in quicktime, itunes, addressbook are very slow (im wondering if apple is retooling the brushed metal look somehow and it isnt quite finished in jaguar).
looks like they might be changing some menubar item things because these have become very buggy and slow (usually a sign that they are working on them). i dont see anything new yet, but it might be all backend stuff, hopefully it will give third party developers a lot more power with their menubar items. but im just hoping.
but i mentioned system preferences. i was wrong. those pictures that were leaked some time ago were real. darn shame too, because seems like useless bloatware to me. i was really hoping apple would clean up, reorgnaize, and add to the system preferences. there really isnt anything new there. and this brings me to my next point.
i cant imagine paying for jaguar. i assumed we would have new features that would finally fix all the major problems in 10.1, and i really cant find any real fixes. we have icon size list in the view options. we have a blue throbber now (you see it plenty often, depsite rumors to the contrary, you just see it in new places). dock is now blue instead of white. seems like QE is the only real improvement so far, and although a big one its not worth paying for since its something they should have done from day one. i wanted to see the interface bugs wiped clean. they have changed things but have largely ignored the feedback the beta testers have been giving them since the dp days two years ago! maybe i had my expectations too high, especially considering this is a very early (assuming a august or spetember release) preview, but i would gladly wait another year if it meant they would finally start listening to their own GUI guidelines.
and lastly the thing we have all been begging for and been promised since so long ago springloaded folders. bit of a problem here, they dont doesnt work in the dock! apple has spent so much time fighting for the dock. The dock is the main terminal for my ineteraction with all of my drives, folders, files, and apps. this is what apple wanted us to do. how many memos did we get about how to use the dock? huge oversight, i really hope this is simply just something that is not functional yet. springloaded folders are effectively useless to me until the dock gets access to it. i suspect this might be the case since some folder icons change (they open) when you drag an item to them, but there is no springloaded action. im holding out some hope.
something they got right? the icon badges on minimized windows. cheer. an example of one of teh rare case when apple has decided to listen to its beta testers. (only took what? two year.) but good job. one comment on them (its a comment not a complaint, really it is) they shoudl have the icon badge shrink at a different rate than the window icon when you resize the dock, at small sizes the badge needs to be larger.
so im eagerly waiting to hear what all of your thoughts and impressions of jaguar are because im on the fence here. either apple has a lot more work to do before august, or this is one lame duck. what do you think?
[havent jagwired your system yet? why not? AL will hook you up, just ask]
Here are some of my impressions.
iChat: first thing i looked at. i am a huge adium fan, and keep it up 24/7 on all my computers even though i dont even talk to anyone most days (great as an answering machine though). so i wanted to see what apple's take on instant messaging was like. big thumbs down on this one. ugly, bloated, and SLOW. this thing is by far the worst application i have ever had on my computer (and i even had windows 95 installed via virtual pc for awhile). i cant believe apple is serious about this. i know its far from finished (most options and preferences arent enabled yet) but there are some serious interface, usability, and speed issues. lets hope they get them ironed out in time. on a positive note the menubar item is pretty cool, i would lve to see this expanded upon. and i like how i can be online without having ichat open.
speed/qe. i installed jag on my lombard and found the speed improvements interesting, but not wholey compelling. cpu usage while manipulating gui elements has been greatly reduced, and scrolling in mozilla is now faster than my lcdimac. all the new eye candy is also quite interesting, and doesnt seem to slow things down at all. but there is still a sluggishness in some functions. in fact some things are slower than 10.1. the dock still jerks around, hoping the imac ont have this problem when it gets jagwired. i paid $1100 for this thing and it can burn dvds but cant keep the damn dock from jerking around! but we will see if qe fixes this. launching things like system preferences takes forever to load. gui elements in quicktime, itunes, addressbook are very slow (im wondering if apple is retooling the brushed metal look somehow and it isnt quite finished in jaguar).
looks like they might be changing some menubar item things because these have become very buggy and slow (usually a sign that they are working on them). i dont see anything new yet, but it might be all backend stuff, hopefully it will give third party developers a lot more power with their menubar items. but im just hoping.
but i mentioned system preferences. i was wrong. those pictures that were leaked some time ago were real. darn shame too, because seems like useless bloatware to me. i was really hoping apple would clean up, reorgnaize, and add to the system preferences. there really isnt anything new there. and this brings me to my next point.
i cant imagine paying for jaguar. i assumed we would have new features that would finally fix all the major problems in 10.1, and i really cant find any real fixes. we have icon size list in the view options. we have a blue throbber now (you see it plenty often, depsite rumors to the contrary, you just see it in new places). dock is now blue instead of white. seems like QE is the only real improvement so far, and although a big one its not worth paying for since its something they should have done from day one. i wanted to see the interface bugs wiped clean. they have changed things but have largely ignored the feedback the beta testers have been giving them since the dp days two years ago! maybe i had my expectations too high, especially considering this is a very early (assuming a august or spetember release) preview, but i would gladly wait another year if it meant they would finally start listening to their own GUI guidelines.
and lastly the thing we have all been begging for and been promised since so long ago springloaded folders. bit of a problem here, they dont doesnt work in the dock! apple has spent so much time fighting for the dock. The dock is the main terminal for my ineteraction with all of my drives, folders, files, and apps. this is what apple wanted us to do. how many memos did we get about how to use the dock? huge oversight, i really hope this is simply just something that is not functional yet. springloaded folders are effectively useless to me until the dock gets access to it. i suspect this might be the case since some folder icons change (they open) when you drag an item to them, but there is no springloaded action. im holding out some hope.
something they got right? the icon badges on minimized windows. cheer. an example of one of teh rare case when apple has decided to listen to its beta testers. (only took what? two year.) but good job. one comment on them (its a comment not a complaint, really it is) they shoudl have the icon badge shrink at a different rate than the window icon when you resize the dock, at small sizes the badge needs to be larger.
so im eagerly waiting to hear what all of your thoughts and impressions of jaguar are because im on the fence here. either apple has a lot more work to do before august, or this is one lame duck. what do you think?
[havent jagwired your system yet? why not? AL will hook you up, just ask]
), but on the other hand, it sounds like it's a bit of a disappointment. I'm hoping probably just as much as you are that most of where it lacks is due to it still being a work-in-progress.
