It was six years ago…

Time sure flies by. Wasn’t it just yesterday, when Apple launched Mac OSX Tiger (or simply: 10.4) for our Macintosh computers?

I remember April 29th, 2005. I was one of the “early adaptors” of Tiger. The initial version was still plagued by a bug that prevented me from connecting to my wireless network. Frankly, I wasn’t too happy about Tiger at first. Luckily an update soon followed and fixed the issue and I began to be more and more satisfied with Tiger. Love on first second sight.

I really started to like the new features. Spotlight was perfect for unorganized people like me. The Dashboard was arguably a memory hog, but had some cool small apps that I still use every day. Too bad it never really took off. I may actually do a separate posting about the dashboard. Also lots of new programs came with Tiger, such as iChat AV, the Mail 2 e-mail client and a powerful scripting tool called “Automator”. Not to forget Xcode 2.0, Apple’s Cocoa development tool for you coders out there. And of course the ability to finally create PDFs and share them via e-mail right away.

But most of all, it was the first OSX version that really felt “complete” to me. Both classic emulation and overall speed were improved over Panther. The look was still “aqua-ish”, but more elegant than the older “OSX meets Anime” versions. And everything simply worked as supposed. In fact, many users wondered what Apple could actually do to further improve the operating system from a user’s standpoint.

Well, they did some changes. Can’t say I’m too happy with most of them. Actually, it sometimes worries me how fast things develop in the computer industry. You set up your system, you learn the tricks and dodges and suddenly when you learned all the shortcuts, just starting to work efficiently, another version comes around with new incompatibilities and interface changes. I’m sometimes baffled by most people’s desire for the LAGS – the Latest And Greatest System. You just upgrade and upgrade, investing all your money but your level of productivity stays the same. I can somehow relate to gamers with a desire for photo-realistic 3D graphics, although there are so many great game classics you’ll need two lives to enjoy them all!

As for myself, I’ve lost the LAGS desire a long time ago. And I can only recommend that to everyone else. Takes some pressure from your shoulders. And besides, it helps saving a lot of money. Instead of spending two grands for a new Mac that basically does everything the old one did, I grant myself an update for my Dual 2 Ghz G5 PowerMac. Add some extra RAM here, a faster hard drive there.

This machine is from January 2006, Apple says we’re obsolete. Who cares? I will continue to use Mac OSX 10.4.11, as one of the most reliable and versatile operating systems ever made. What will you do?