![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger first impressions
(10.4.1, actually...)
Graphics operations do seem faster; I'm currently running at a resolution that taxes my video card, and things like full-screen QuickTime VR panning are noticeably faster now.
Now that Spotlight's indexed my drive, it's pretty remarkable. I haven't used it enough to know how usable it is, but it sure is fast. I don't like the use of grayed-out labels and icons in the search results dialog; things that look like they're inactive aren't.
The idea of Dashboard is interesting—an environment for extremely easy-to-develop tiny little apps—but did the user interface for these things really have to be totally different from, oh, everything else in the entire system? Keyboard shortcuts don't even seem to do what you'd think they do.
It really feels half-finished, and also a little like Apple is trying to invent desk accessories again after gradually erasing the distinction between them and everything else years ago. I'm a little uneasy about the duplication of services that results. The new dictionary feature has a dictionary application, a dictionary service and a dictionary Dashboard widget. The iTunes miniplayer widget now coexists with the minimized iTunes app and the iTunes dock-icon controls. There's a Stickies widget as well as the original Stickies app (unless that's gone from a pristine Tiger installation; I don't know). It all seems a bit redundant. I will grant that Stickies do seem like a natural thing to put on a separate worldsheet that shows up with a magic keystroke.
That said, I think my favorite widget so far is the Yellow Pages one, with its one-click integration with the system address book; I can see that being immediately useful (I just got my dentist's contact information in there with a couple of clicks). I wish you could change the size of the thing, though; it's tiny. And I wish the map link brought up Google Maps rather than Mapquest; it seems like these widgets usually allow extremely little customization.
The new features generally seem to violate established UI standards in wacky ways, and it's going to take a while for me to get used to them.
Graphics operations do seem faster; I'm currently running at a resolution that taxes my video card, and things like full-screen QuickTime VR panning are noticeably faster now.
Now that Spotlight's indexed my drive, it's pretty remarkable. I haven't used it enough to know how usable it is, but it sure is fast. I don't like the use of grayed-out labels and icons in the search results dialog; things that look like they're inactive aren't.
The idea of Dashboard is interesting—an environment for extremely easy-to-develop tiny little apps—but did the user interface for these things really have to be totally different from, oh, everything else in the entire system? Keyboard shortcuts don't even seem to do what you'd think they do.
It really feels half-finished, and also a little like Apple is trying to invent desk accessories again after gradually erasing the distinction between them and everything else years ago. I'm a little uneasy about the duplication of services that results. The new dictionary feature has a dictionary application, a dictionary service and a dictionary Dashboard widget. The iTunes miniplayer widget now coexists with the minimized iTunes app and the iTunes dock-icon controls. There's a Stickies widget as well as the original Stickies app (unless that's gone from a pristine Tiger installation; I don't know). It all seems a bit redundant. I will grant that Stickies do seem like a natural thing to put on a separate worldsheet that shows up with a magic keystroke.
That said, I think my favorite widget so far is the Yellow Pages one, with its one-click integration with the system address book; I can see that being immediately useful (I just got my dentist's contact information in there with a couple of clicks). I wish you could change the size of the thing, though; it's tiny. And I wish the map link brought up Google Maps rather than Mapquest; it seems like these widgets usually allow extremely little customization.
The new features generally seem to violate established UI standards in wacky ways, and it's going to take a while for me to get used to them.
no subject
It makes sense to put them on a separate plane of the desktop interface from full-fledged application windows, I'll give it that. But I don't see the logic behind making users learn two different ways of interacting with program objects, or making developers learn two different ways of developing them. Anything that's good practice for a standard application should also be good practice for a lightweight app-let.
no subject
Furthermore, remember that widgets are just HTML and Javascript, not Cocoa or Carbon programs. Not conforming to the usual Aqua look makes things much easier for developers.