Note: I am a current PC user planning to make the switch to Mac, probably around Christmas, when I can use Xmas money. 
My wife and I went to the Jaguar release event at the Short Hills mall in NJ last night. Since I got there later than I was planning, there were a lot of people in line waiting for the store to open. Being bored, I walked along the line taking a quick head count - there were over 500 people at this location.
Mind you, this is not LA, SF, or NYC. This is a mall in north central Jersey. The Apple store rep that my wife talked to said that they did not expect anywhere near the number of people that showed up. We finally got into the store at about 11:00 PM and saw the store demo of Jaguar at 12:30 AM.
This turnout was also despite the fact that the mall shut off the air conditioning at about 10:30, so it was pretty warm inside the store.
A number of people left with new computers of one sort or other, and the people waiting in line applauded (!) them as they worked their way through the line and out of the mall.
I got to play with Jaguar on a wide variety of machines, from the iBook on up to the dual 1Ghz. The OS is noticeably faster on all machines, compared to the last time I was in an Apple store trying out the previous version of OSX. I was impressed with how quickly all applications opened (all of the new iApps, the Office vX suite, Photoshop). Moving objects and windows around on the screen was snappier. Graphics overall seemed to be sharper, especially text in word processing apps. The iApps I was most impressed with was the new Mail app, and the Address book. I personally don't use internet chat very much, and the few people I do chat with are on Yahoo messenger, so iChat is not going to be of much use to me. Sherlock is pretty cool, but I think I have all equivalent features bookmarked in my browser, so I'm not sure how much more useful it will be. Checking flight arrivals was very cool, but as my wife suggested to the Apple store rep, it would be really useful if one could book tickets as well, as you can do for movies. Apparently Apple is already working on this. iTunes looks very nice, which is important for me as I listen to a lot of music.
One machine had Virtual PC (Win98) installed. This seemed to take a while to load, until I realized that (1) I was comparing it to the opening of native OSX apps, and (2) it booted Win98 faster than my PC's at home and at work. Once it loaded, it seemed pretty snappy.
I powered down an iBook and a Ti powerbook and restarted them to see how long it would take to start up. It took less time than I expected, but this was actually the first time I have watched a Mac boot up any version of OSX. Certainly it's faster than my current PC's.
Even though I am not a computer gamer, preferring to use a PS2 for games, I was impressed by the variety of games that were available for purchase.
Things that I am still waiting for before making the switch:
-native OSX support for my scanner to arrive
-to see if new displays will come out before Xmas
-I'll need a new printer to replace my current NEC laser printer. NEC will not be providing OSX support ever.
Overall, I was very happy to try Jaguar hands on, and was impressed with how well it worked. All I have to do now is to wait for Santa to come along.
My wife and I went to the Jaguar release event at the Short Hills mall in NJ last night. Since I got there later than I was planning, there were a lot of people in line waiting for the store to open. Being bored, I walked along the line taking a quick head count - there were over 500 people at this location.
Mind you, this is not LA, SF, or NYC. This is a mall in north central Jersey. The Apple store rep that my wife talked to said that they did not expect anywhere near the number of people that showed up. We finally got into the store at about 11:00 PM and saw the store demo of Jaguar at 12:30 AM.
This turnout was also despite the fact that the mall shut off the air conditioning at about 10:30, so it was pretty warm inside the store.
A number of people left with new computers of one sort or other, and the people waiting in line applauded (!) them as they worked their way through the line and out of the mall.
I got to play with Jaguar on a wide variety of machines, from the iBook on up to the dual 1Ghz. The OS is noticeably faster on all machines, compared to the last time I was in an Apple store trying out the previous version of OSX. I was impressed with how quickly all applications opened (all of the new iApps, the Office vX suite, Photoshop). Moving objects and windows around on the screen was snappier. Graphics overall seemed to be sharper, especially text in word processing apps. The iApps I was most impressed with was the new Mail app, and the Address book. I personally don't use internet chat very much, and the few people I do chat with are on Yahoo messenger, so iChat is not going to be of much use to me. Sherlock is pretty cool, but I think I have all equivalent features bookmarked in my browser, so I'm not sure how much more useful it will be. Checking flight arrivals was very cool, but as my wife suggested to the Apple store rep, it would be really useful if one could book tickets as well, as you can do for movies. Apparently Apple is already working on this. iTunes looks very nice, which is important for me as I listen to a lot of music.
One machine had Virtual PC (Win98) installed. This seemed to take a while to load, until I realized that (1) I was comparing it to the opening of native OSX apps, and (2) it booted Win98 faster than my PC's at home and at work.
Once it loaded, it seemed pretty snappy.I powered down an iBook and a Ti powerbook and restarted them to see how long it would take to start up. It took less time than I expected, but this was actually the first time I have watched a Mac boot up any version of OSX. Certainly it's faster than my current PC's.
Even though I am not a computer gamer, preferring to use a PS2 for games, I was impressed by the variety of games that were available for purchase.
Things that I am still waiting for before making the switch:
-native OSX support for my scanner to arrive
-to see if new displays will come out before Xmas
-I'll need a new printer to replace my current NEC laser printer. NEC will not be providing OSX support ever.
Overall, I was very happy to try Jaguar hands on, and was impressed with how well it worked. All I have to do now is to wait for Santa to come along.
