Tiger!!!
 

Macintosh OS X 10.4 "Tiger" will be released on Friday,
April 29th finally! Anybody gonna preorder?

what's so great about the Tiger?

Better performance and better stability, I imagine, so what's not to like? :D

Looks good in green and has a hot wife

The "Dashboard" component of Tiger looks pretty cool. I haven't ordered yet because I'm thinking about treating myself to a new Powerbook and I'll just get it that way! ;)

For the uninitiated: http://www.apple.com/macosx/

looks nice
 

although, I was not happy to hear that the mac mini will not be able to take advantage of the Core image display functionality and use of the video card, and will still be resigned to using the older current openGL video acceleration.

So, bummer

So 10.3 was unstable and didn't perform well?

My 10.3 has been very stable.

I've noticed that every time I upgrade with a major release (10.1 to 10.2 to 10.3), the machine performs much better on the same hardware. It's also not a small increase, but usually something like 1/2 the boot up time for example.

I guess that just means that their older releases weren't as optimized.

Also, Apple has been tweaking and honing the user interface elements every time.

What I don't like is that I have to pay $129 for each of these, unless I buy a new computer where it would be included. They have also been releasing these paid upgrades every 12 months or so. After this release, Apple claims that they will be slowing down their cycle.

does apple lock the os?
 

Does apple lock the os? Or does one get a copy when buying a computer,
because, for the money of this new upgrade, I would just buy a man mini, and put that os on my other MAC and keep them both?

Is there a product activation, ala redmond?

There wasn't any product activation in their previous 10.x releases.

The higher-ed price of 10.4 is $69.

Some campus stores are pretty anal about making you show an ID to get educational pricing, especially in cities where otherwise everyone would walk in off the street and buy stuff. Others, especially if they're away from a city so they don't get a lot of non-campus traffic, tend not to bother.

You also may be able to convince the Apple online store that you have an educational connection. I'm not suggesting lying about your situation, I don't know how (or if) they check, but it might be possible. I haven't tried.

Should I upgrade?
 

I just went mac this past weekend and I'm already glad I did. My only regret is I didn't realize that Tiger was coming so soon. So as a new mac person who is only going to surf the web and play with digital photo's is there a need to upgrade? Also can anyone recommend a good mac program for ripping DVDs

thanks

I think
 

I think, you may have come in under the wire, and the cutoff was last week, so you can get a copy from apple for 9.99$ shipping.

It is either the 2nd of april, or the 12th.

So, depending on when you bought it, you can get a free copy. I would chat with the retailer, and tell them you will either return, or would like a receipt with the proper date.

I bought 10.2 for $3 in Johor Bahru a couple years ago...

The cutoff date was April 12th. I would try to get the place you bought it from to return/exchange it. Over the last few years, I've always felt that the upgrades are worthwhile.

Tiger includes something new called Core Image which will probably be incorporated into the next release of iPhoto / iMovie. The rumor is that it will greatly increase the performance of those applications.

http://handbrake.m0k.org/ is an opensource program and very easy, though slower than other solutions.