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I'm still on Tiger and I'm probably not going to upgrade. I have a first-gen "lapburner" MBP which works just fine. Leopard didn't really offer anything groun

I'm still on Tiger and I'm probably not going to upgrade. I have a first-gen "lapburner" MBP which works just fine. Leopard didn't really offer anything ground breaking and it doesn't appear Snow Leopard will either. And I figure anything ground-breaking will require newer hardware, so I guess I'll stay on Tiger until the machine stops working. Which coincidentally is also why XP users don't upgrade either.

zzkt 17y ago
I've upgraded a few MBPs (1st & 2nd gen) and even some old powerbooks all of which perform perceivably better with 10.5 YMMV
yardie 17y ago
I think it depends. If you have a first-gen MBP than you are better off getting the new OS. 10.4 "supported" Intel chips but it always felt like a hack between PPC and Intel platforms. 10.5, and each update since, has gotten progressively better for Intel chips. I think you've fallen for the marketing trap where a list of features has to be present for it to be worth something. Not many lists include code and platform optimizations because it doesn't market well. I've used OS X since 10.1 and each update has gotten remarkably better. Things have mellowed out in 10.5 but the OS feels fully baked.
- stuff4ben 17y ago
  Good points, but I don't think I'm falling for a marketing trap to want something tangible for paying out $130. The OS works fine for me now. If Apple wants more money for me then I want more than just optimized code. In the end I don't think there really is anything they can do to make me pay more money for the OS. I already bought iWork 08, I bought SuperDuper! for backup, and everything else I use is either open source or comes included with the machine. If Apple wants me to upgrade, then they need to discontinue security updates for 10.4 or some widget I badly need needs to be 10.5+. And honestly, it's not me that Apple has to contend with, it's my wife and her iron grip over the budget ;)
dasil003 17y ago
Time machine alone was worth the price of admission. There were also some good unix upgrades in there if that sort of thing carries any weight with you.
- stuff4ben 17y ago
  What Unix upgrades?
  - cubicle67 17y ago
    Leopard was the first version of OSX (actually, first BSD based OS) to receive UNIX 03 certification http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3555.htm http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3555.htm
    - rbanffy 17y ago
      That's not exactly a good reason to upgrade by itself. It could be if you were required by some regulation to use a UNIX certified OS. IIRC, there were little feature changes that warranted the certification. As for myself, I have an older iMac that won't run SL, a netbook that runs Linux and I am perfectly happy with both.
- ghshephard 17y ago
  Time machine is great, except for the fact that it Denial-of-Services my machine every time it does a back up. It reminds me of the late 1999-2000 when the Anti-Virus programs for windows (Norton/Symantec) would do a full system scan on a desktop and make it useless for an hour. That, and my 18 month old top-of-line spends an inordinate amount of time with the spinning beach ball. And crashes when I plug in a 30" monitor 20% of the time. I'm hoping that a scorched-earth fresh install of 10.6 will either eliminate the amazing flakyness or alternatively point me to a hardware problem.
tptacek 17y ago
Insanity. Before Leopard, Spotlight was a debacle. After Leopard, it just works. Also: isn't there a whole lot of software you can't install now because Tiger doesn't have Core Animation and isn't LP64? I also wouldn't trust Tiger security on an external network.
- boucher 17y ago
  Every security update Apple ships for Leopard it also ships for Tiger. And I preferred spotlight in 10.4. In fact, 10.4 was all around a much better OS than 10.5, which was the first update to Mac OS X that felt like a step backwards. Of course, I'll be updating to 10.6 as soon as I can get my hands on it. If nothing else, the promise of a 10.5 that doesn't suck is worth it. To be fair, 10.5 is much better now then when it shipped. When it shipped, it was terrible.
  - unalone 17y ago
    How was it a step backwards? Mind you, I was a bit late to the party - I started on 10.5.2 - but everything's much more polished than it was in Tiger, both graphically and performance-wise.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    You're making the assumptions that every security flaw fixed was: (a) intentionally, knowingly fixed (b) disclosed.
  - jsz0 17y ago
    Leopard, pre 10.5.2, was indeed a mess. Lots of performance problems. I don't think it was until 10.5.5 that it caught up to Tiger in terms of performance and stability. 10.6.0 is great out of the box.
laut 17y ago
The difference is that Mac OS X tends to get faster with newer versions. Apparently Snow Leopard even takes up less disk space. Not the case with newer versions of Windows.

zzkt 17y ago

I've upgraded a few MBPs (1st & 2nd gen) and even some old powerbooks all of which perform perceivably better with 10.5 YMMV

yardie 17y ago

I think it depends. If you have a first-gen MBP than you are better off getting the new OS. 10.4 "supported" Intel chips but it always felt like a hack between PPC and Intel platforms. 10.5, and each update since, has gotten progressively better for Intel chips. I think you've fallen for the marketing trap where a list of features has to be present for it to be worth something. Not many lists include code and platform optimizations because it doesn't market well. I've used OS X since 10.1 and each update has gotten remarkably better. Things have mellowed out in 10.5 but the OS feels fully baked.

stuff4ben 17y ago
Good points, but I don't think I'm falling for a marketing trap to want something tangible for paying out $130. The OS works fine for me now. If Apple wants more money for me then I want more than just optimized code. In the end I don't think there really is anything they can do to make me pay more money for the OS. I already bought iWork 08, I bought SuperDuper! for backup, and everything else I use is either open source or comes included with the machine. If Apple wants me to upgrade, then they need to discontinue security updates for 10.4 or some widget I badly need needs to be 10.5+. And honestly, it's not me that Apple has to contend with, it's my wife and her iron grip over the budget ;)

dasil003 17y ago

Time machine alone was worth the price of admission. There were also some good unix upgrades in there if that sort of thing carries any weight with you.

stuff4ben 17y ago
What Unix upgrades?
- cubicle67 17y ago
  Leopard was the first version of OSX (actually, first BSD based OS) to receive UNIX 03 certification http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3555.htm http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3555.htm
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    That's not exactly a good reason to upgrade by itself. It could be if you were required by some regulation to use a UNIX certified OS. IIRC, there were little feature changes that warranted the certification. As for myself, I have an older iMac that won't run SL, a netbook that runs Linux and I am perfectly happy with both.
ghshephard 17y ago
Time machine is great, except for the fact that it Denial-of-Services my machine every time it does a back up. It reminds me of the late 1999-2000 when the Anti-Virus programs for windows (Norton/Symantec) would do a full system scan on a desktop and make it useless for an hour. That, and my 18 month old top-of-line spends an inordinate amount of time with the spinning beach ball. And crashes when I plug in a 30" monitor 20% of the time. I'm hoping that a scorched-earth fresh install of 10.6 will either eliminate the amazing flakyness or alternatively point me to a hardware problem.

tptacek 17y ago

Insanity. Before Leopard, Spotlight was a debacle. After Leopard, it just works. Also: isn't there a whole lot of software you can't install now because Tiger doesn't have Core Animation and isn't LP64? I also wouldn't trust Tiger security on an external network.

boucher 17y ago
Every security update Apple ships for Leopard it also ships for Tiger. And I preferred spotlight in 10.4. In fact, 10.4 was all around a much better OS than 10.5, which was the first update to Mac OS X that felt like a step backwards. Of course, I'll be updating to 10.6 as soon as I can get my hands on it. If nothing else, the promise of a 10.5 that doesn't suck is worth it. To be fair, 10.5 is much better now then when it shipped. When it shipped, it was terrible.
- unalone 17y ago
  How was it a step backwards? Mind you, I was a bit late to the party - I started on 10.5.2 - but everything's much more polished than it was in Tiger, both graphically and performance-wise.
- tptacek 17y ago
  You're making the assumptions that every security flaw fixed was: (a) intentionally, knowingly fixed (b) disclosed.
- jsz0 17y ago
  Leopard, pre 10.5.2, was indeed a mess. Lots of performance problems. I don't think it was until 10.5.5 that it caught up to Tiger in terms of performance and stability. 10.6.0 is great out of the box.

laut 17y ago

The difference is that Mac OS X tends to get faster with newer versions. Apparently Snow Leopard even takes up less disk space. Not the case with newer versions of Windows.