Grading Jaguar

After 10 days or so of using Jaguar non-stop, I think I can offer a little insight into my impressions of how the operating system upgrade works in the real world on an older PowerBook system.

Overall

Even on my Pismo PowerBook, Jaguar feels snappier and simply works better than Mac OS X 10.1.5. The Finder is faster, which was expected, but even my Web browsers run faster and display pages quicker under Jaguar. My take on Jaguar is that, if your Mac can run it, you should upgrade.

Compatibility

One of my biggest worries when I upgraded to Jaguar was that some of the peripherals might not work immediately under the latest and greatest OS upgrade. Hosts of other Mac users have noted that their HP or Epson printers won't work under Jaguar, and the vendors have been working to release updated drivers. But in my case, I was shocked that my Samsung 1210 laser printer worked just fine without any intervention or a new driver.

In terms of software, Jaguar has proven compatible with most programs. As was expected before the OS was released, what broke with Jaguar was third-party hacks that add to the Mac OS X environment at or near the system level. Tinkertool, haxies, and many programs that put icons in the menu bar at the top of the screen were broken initially, and some have been fixed now. But all in all, critical software needed to get actual work done - the MS Office suite, AppleWorks, Web browsers - mostly just work, and in some cases work considerably faster.

Bundled Apple apps

Those new and upgraded applications that are the window dressing in Jaguar are what I have found the most disappointing.

iChat, while interesting and more functional than I initially thought, suffers from incompatbilities with all but the latest chat clients on the Windows side of the computing spectrum, and it lacks any way to organize your buddy list. I have also seen some oddness when trying to sleep my PowerBook when iChat is running - the machine sleeps for a second and then comes back to life, or at least it did for me yesterday when I also had a second monitor hooked to my machine. But the biggest deal killer with iChat is that I cannot see all of my work chat buddies with iChat unless they upgrade to a newer version of AOL Instant Messenger for Windows. That isn't comething I can compromise on, so iChat is no longer in my Dock.

I will still use iChat in some cases, especially for doing peer-to-peer file transfers, which it does very well in certain circumstances. iChat also works with Rendezvous, the new automatic network sensing technloogy in Jaguar, to automatically sense potential chat buddies on an available network. That could help make iChat a useful tool.

Mail 1.2 does offer some compelling new features, most notably the Junk Mail system that seems to catch most Spam and keep it from my eyes without any effort on my part. I really wanted to give Mail a good chance, and I used it off an on over the last 10 days, but on my system - even with 1GB of RAM - Mail is horribly slow in general use. With the volume of email I receive, I cannot afford a one or two second delay between each time that I delete a message and the time it takes Mail to display the next message in the mailbox. And Mail still takes 5-10 seconds to switch from one mailbox to another. Both of these actions are instant in PowerMail, and I am back to using that capable email program now, even though I would like to find some kind of Spam filtering system to help weed out the junk with the much faster PowerMail program.

If you don't receive tons of email every day, Mail 1.2 may work just fine for you. Many Mail users I corresponded with on one Mac mailing list confirmed that Mail showed delays on their machines as well, but that they were so used to their email program working that way that the time delays didn't bother them. Mail 1.2 has much better filtering capabilities, it has tight integration with iChat and the new Apple Address Book application, and it does have the Junk Mail feature. It may work well for you.

The other bundled Apple apps work fine under Jaguar in my experience. iTunes - the best iApp of the bunch since it forces the smallest number of compromises from the standpoint on a power user - works great under Jaguar. And I haven't used iPhoto under Jaguar, but I have yet to hear any negative comments about its performance.

Quartz Extreme and some of the other high-end enhancements in Jaguar are outside the capabilities of my two-year-old PowerBook. I have yet to hear anyone comment that the new graphics performance has blown them out of the water though. Sherlock 3 which seems to be something that impresses people who don't use Mac OS X, has not been of use to me yet. And though I have played with Inkwell a little bit using a Wacom Intuous art pad, I don't have the patience to get proficient at pen-based writing on my Mac right now.

Possibly the most exciting features in Jaguar are some of the least hyped - its compatibility with Windows networks. I saw this the first time I hooked up my PowerBook at a friend's house and could see all of the Windows network drives when I did a Command-K in the Finder. Cool! Now I can move files to and from a Windows network without having to fire up a FTP client or something along those lines! Before Jaguar, I would have paid serious money to buy software that would make it so simple to mount a Windows network drive from my Mac OS X installation.

PowerBooks and Jaguar

Judging from its performance on my PowerBook, Jaguar works great on portable Macs. The improved Energy Saver options offer more customization for setting separate parameters for running Mac OS X 10.2 under battery power, and by using standard battery saving tricks - dimming the LCD screen, shutting down Classic, and only running critical applications while under battery power - I get just as much time and maybe a few minutes more out of a single battery in my Pismo.

My experience may be different than others though, especially those running newer G4 PowerBooks that are more power hungry. I have read posts on mailing lists from some users who claim they are seeing shorter battery times with their PowerBooks under Jaguar, but I have yet to hear if those shorter times are the result of failing to adjust their Energy Saver settings to take advantage of prudent power management options.

The only bug I have seen with my PowerBook under Jaguar is that the battery icon in the OS X menu bar fails to ever display the little plug in icon when the PowerBook is plugged into a power outlet and the battery is fully charged. It appears that the battery is always charging, even though the battery is 100% full. Hopefully Apple will address this small bug in OS X 10.2.1, the update that is rumored to be coming soon.

Conclusion

If you can run Jaguar on your Mac, go for it. Sure, the cost is $129 but the speed and features offered in Mac OS X 10.2 outweigh the annoying fact that Apple failed to give a price break to the greatest supporters of OS X. I cannot jump for joy about Jaguar though. For all the hype leading up its release, my Dock looks the same today as it did before Jaguar. In other words, none of the new whiz-bang features like an improved Mail or iChat or even Sherlock 3 make the grade as a must-have or must-use addition for someone working on their Mac. The only new thing in my Dock after loading Jaguar is the improved Address Book. Now I await iCal and iSync to see how those new features stack up on the usability scale.

Apple is getting enough things right to keep me interested. Just keep making OS X faster and more compatible with other platforms and a lot of people will be interested in what Apple is doing.

Rob McNair-Huff is a longtime Mac user and writer from the Pacific Northwest. In addition to writing about the Mac, and running this Web site, Mac Net Journal, he is the author of two books - Insiders' Guide to the Olympic Peninsula and Mountain Bike America: Washington - and he is working with his wife Natalie to write a third book this year called Birding Washington. If you have a need for Mac consulting, writing, Web design or photography help, check out Rob's business site: White Rabbit Publishing.
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9/4/02; 8:17:56 AM by RMH