Coming on a DVD, installation was super simple. Pop in the DVD, start up from it, and install. No need to restart half way through the install process. To install it on a computer without a DVD drive, it's possible to boot the non-DVD computer up using Firewire Target Disk mode, and install it from a computer with a DVD drive. The installation is fairly fast, only taking about 30 minutes on a Dual 2GHz G5, and 45 minutes on a 500 MHz iBook through Firewire.

After the installation is complete, the normal Welcome to Mac OS X movie/setup assistant is run. Also, Spotlight (see below if you don't know what this is) will begin it's initial indexing. Depending on how many files there are on your hard drive, it takes between 10 and 60 minutes to finish. This will make everything a little slow for a while, but it really won't take long.

The best way to review a whole new operating system is to look at it's individual parts. Starting with newly added features/applications, moving on to updated applications, and then smaller applications and new features. This will provide a nice overview of what to expect with Mac OS X 10.4.

Dashboard: One of the favorite features introduced in Panther was Expose. Tiger has taken that technology to a new level with Dashboard. Dashboard is the home for miniature web based applications known as Widgets, which will do anything from showing stock quotes, to weather, to TV listings, and pretty much anything else you can think of. Plus, one isn't limited to the selection that Apple provides. Widgets are very simple to create, which translates into hundreds of third party widgets popped up in the first few weeks, with many more to come. Dashboard has proven itself very useful already, and will become even more useful as time goes by. The only main disadvantage to Dashboard is that it cannot be turned off. For G5, users, this is no big deal. But for older Macs, this means it's always taking up memory, and maybe some CPU time (depending on the Widgets in use).

Spotlight: Everyone has searched for a file on their computer before. This is one area where the Mac OS has really excelled at when compared to Windows and Linux. With Tiger, Apple turned file searching up a notch with Spotlight. Spotlight is extremely fast at searching for files, folders, and applications, finding them as you type. It accomplishes this by keeping an index of all the files on your hard drive, which includes such things as files names and contents. The only downside to the automatic content searching is Spotlight often finds too many files. Sometimes, it can be a pain sorting through all the results to find the object you are really looking for.

Automator: The other big new addition to Tiger is Automator. This technology takes the coding out of automatic scripting. Using a drag and drop interface, anybody can set up a task that will automatically run, and hopefully save the user some time. The only thing that is disappointing about Automator is the limited number of actions it comes with. Although it does allow for plug-ins, it won't be a "killer app" until Apple adds more functionality to it.

Safari 2.0: The latest version of Safari has received a few nice improvements. The best one, in my view, is a major speed increase. I have certainly noticed web pages load much faster, and animated gifs use less CPU than with the previous versions of Safari. Also, for those who are into RSS (Really Simple Syndicate) feeds, Safari now has the built-in ability to read and update those. Therefore, no separate reader is needed. I am not a big fan of RSS, but I know many people are, and those folks will enjoy this update.

Mail 2.0: For some reason, Mac OS X's Mail.app always seemed to get a bad rap. I have enjoyed it since the beginning, and with Tiger, it has gotten even better. It has a new user interface, which takes some getting used to, but is an improvement overall. The toolbar buttons can seem ugly at first, but they grew on me fairly quickly. Plus, the new way of displaying the mailboxes is much better than the old way. But the most important feature of Mail 2.0 (for me), is individualized signatures. That is, each account can have it's own signature, which is something I have been wanting for a very long time. No longer do I send out emails which have the wrong address in the signature. This is certainly a big headache saver.

Xcode 2.0: Xcode has been the main development environment for Mac OS X for some time now. With Tiger, it has received a few new features which will keep it as the leading development tool. Most notably is a new graphical way of connecting together classes makes it easy to lay the framework for your entire application. Plus, CoreData is a new API which allows for such things as Undo and Redo in your programs without the need to code them yourself. Also, GCC 4.0 is now included, which brings forth new optimizations which include autovectoization (automatically create Altivec code). Furthermore, tiger brings forth better 64-bit support, and the only way to currently take advantage of that is with a command line driven program. However, Xcode makes it easy to create that program, and a graphical front end for it so it can look nice.

Preview 3.0: Preview has received a nice set of updates with Tiger. Most users use Preview for viewing PDFs, although it can also be used for many other graphic formats as well. Therefore, it makes sense that most of Preview's new features deal with PDF files. For instance, it can now open PDF 1.5 documents and also annotate them. Preview 3.0 is also faster at opening PDFs than before. One thing to note, screen shots in Tiger are no longer in PDF format, but rather produced in PNG format, which makes them much more web ready. Speaking of web ready, Safari now uses preview to open PDFs in the browser window, instead of requiring the user to download them first.

iChat AV 3.0: iChat is yet another application that has received a bunch of enhancements in Tiger. One of the new benefits is the ability to video conference with up to three other people. Plus, audio chats can be done with up to nine other people simultaneously. Moreover, they have added the ability to use the Jabber instant messaging protocol, which is an open source alternative to AOL Instant Messenger. Other improvements include the ability to set one's AIM profile (finally!), as well as a new buddy groups organization that actually works.

Quicktime 7: This is more of a technology update than an application enhancement. The biggest change with Quicktime 7 is the new H.264 video codec, which creates very high quality video using less space than inferior quality codecs. This new codec is what allows iChat AV 3.0 to have up up to four video chats at the same time. Besides that, Quicktime Player now allows one to resize a movie without the normal stuttering or delay. Furthermore, better audio and video controls are built in, making the viewing experience much better.

Grapher/Dictionary/Migration Assistant: A brand new application to Tiger is a graphing calculator. Grapher allows for easy 2D and 3D graphing of mathematical equations. Dictionary is just what is sounds like. It's a built in dictionary and thesaurus based on the Oxford American Dictionaries. This is very handy for looking up a definition when you don't have an internet connection handy. Migration Assistant is for those people purchasing new Macs. It allows them to set up their new Mac using their older Mac as the basis for all the settings, applications, users, etc. This makes it very easy to migrate to a new Mac.

Updated iCal/System Profiler/Disk Utility: These three applications have only received minor updates. iCal now has the ability to pull in birthdays from Address Book, group calendars, and better printing options. System Profiler now shows more detailed information, something everyone seems to want. Disk Utility's main new feature is better RAID support, including RAID 10.

New Features: The next few paragraphs explain some of the new features built into Tiger, which aren't necessarily limited to a particular application. We'll start off with the slightly new look. With every version of OS X, some things have simply looked different. With Tiger, this is mainly in the menu and title bar areas. The menu bar is now less pin striped, with a bright blue (or grey, depending on the Appearance setting used) Apple logo on the left, and Spotlight logo on the right. The title bars have more of a metal look, and sometimes run down into the tool bars. Overall, this gives the OS a slightly cleaner look.

Mentioned earlier was Preview 3.0, and its enhanced PDF capabilities. But that's not the only place there have been PDF improvements. When saving as PDF during printing, there are now many more options, such as compressing, encrypting, and saving PDFs to a web receipts folder. Furthermore, printing in many applications has been enhanced, with new drivers and new options.

There have been many updates in the way if graphics. First, the display drivers have been updated to allow for rotating of a display (on video cards that support it). Also, OpenGL has reached version 1.5, which is supposed to bring some speed enhancements to games. Also, there is a new feature called Core Image, which is only supported on higher end video cards. This allows for real time transitions, and easily programable image transforms. However, the feature which was supposed to bring forth some of the biggest speed improvements, Quartz 2D Extreme, is not enabled in Tiger as of this review. That technology allows all of the 2D rendering to be sent to the video card, freeing up the CPU for more important tasks. This is supposed to give a hefty speed boost to many operations, and it's surprising that it is not yet enabled.

For the security concerned (as we should all be in this day and age), Apple has updated Tiger to be more secure than ever. Features such as encrypted virtual memory will make the most secure Operating System (no e-mails please) even more secure than before. However, I have not enabled that feature for fear of massive slow downs. It seems to me that encrypting and decrypting virtual memory on the fly will slow down anything that requires virtual memory. Another security related feature is more pop ups to protect the users from themselves. Some people may become annoyed by such pop ups, but I think they are a necessity.

In the same boat of higher security is more parental controls. Admin users can lock other users out of pretty much anything, including modifying the dock, burning CDS, or even using a printer. However, Parental Controls aren't limited to lock downs. Tiger also makes it possible to filter email based on a trusted address list. E-mails from someone not on the list are sent to the parent for approval. Moreover, iChat and Safari can be adjusted to keep kids from talking to those they shouldn't, and visiting websites that are inappropriate. All this is on an account by account basis, so you can lock out your children without limiting your abilities.

Getting away from security, and onto a more frivolous feature, the built in slide show. Select a bunch of images in the Finder, or image attachments in Mail, and a slideshow can be started to cycle through them. This could come in handy once or twice, but this should be limited to an application feature rather than built in to the OS.

Some other new Finder based features are Smart Folders and Burn Folders. Smart Folders are similar to Smart Playlists in iTunes. When creating such a folder, one can set a bunch of options on what kind of files will be in there, and it will be automatically populated. I never used Smart Playlists, and I doubt I will use Smart Folders. Burn Folders are another special type of folder which makes it easy to burn a CD or DVD. Create on of these folders, and drag files to it like normal. However, aliases of the files will be created (instead of copying), and when one chooses to burn that folder, all the aliases are resolved, and the files are burned. A neat idea, but I don't know how well it will catch on.

For the mobile users, energy saver has been enhanced to allow for better battery run times. Now, when running on battery power, the display will dim much sooner, saving battery life. Also, the battery menu item allows one to select from the pre-set optimizations. For desktop users with Uninterruptible Power Supplies, energy saver has a handful of new settings which gives more control over the way the system runs when on UPS power.

.Mac users also get a nice update. Syncing with .Mac has been much improved, including the ability to sync third party applications (developers have to add this feature to their programs). Syncing multiple Macs has often been a major selling point of .Mac, so improving that area makes sense.

Finally, Mac OS X is becoming more accessible to those who are impaired. This time, the visually impaired get a new way to navigate the OS. VoiceOver is the new spoken interface, which allows document contents to be read aloud, items under the cursor to be spoken, and the keyboard can be used instead of a mouse to move the cursor. Personally, I think it's about time computers get better equipped to be used by those with disabilities.

There are many more features, enhancements, and improvements to pretty much every area of the OS, but this list should have given you a good overview of what's good and what's not so great. Luckily, the good stuff outweighs the bad, something you want from any software update.

The majority of problems that crop up from new Operating Systems is when older software has not been updated for compatibility. Tiger is no different. Most software developers are quick to release patches, but some may take a while. Overall, 99% of the software I tried with Tiger worked perfectly. For the occasional program crash (often caused by incompatible programs), Tiger offers a new button in the unexpectedly quit dialog which lets you quickly relaunch the program and pick up where you left off (as long as you saved your document).

I feel that Tiger is well worth the $129 (shop around for a deal, or if you are a student/teacher, you can get it for $69). Dashboard is wonderful, Mail 2.0 is a much heralded upgrade, and the multitude of minor updates makes this a very nice system update. For those who don't need/want to be on the cutting edge, I recommend waiting a bit for a few updates (to Tiger and third party applications), although it's completely ready for everyday use.

Pros	Cons
Dashboard is a wonderful addition Mail 2.0 is a big step up Safari 2.0 is much faster and has RSS capabilities Spotlight is very fast at finding files Xcode 2.0 has some nice new features Much more 64-bit compatible than Panther Automator will become a great tool over time Cool new apps such as Grapher and Dictionary Many internal and minor improvements	Spotlight can sometimes find too many items Quartz 2D Extreme is not enabled (as of 10.4.0) Automator is somewhat limited Extra steps and costs involved in getting the CD version (as of this writing)
9/10 stars