What I Think of Tiger

I have to say I disappointed in Tiger (Mac OS 10.4). This makes two in a row, as I was disappointed in Panther as well.
It is not that either OS has problems. On the contrary, they are pretty much problem-free. That’s their best feature: they work well. I like that they don’t get in the way of my work, but at the same time offer huge depth. I love that I’ve got Linux and Apache running in there and can do Web work locally.
What I don’t like are the “features” that Apple pushes as the main reason to spend the bucks. Panther had Expose. That was the thing where you could hit a key and all your windows would rearrange themselves so you could find a window faster. It was supposed to change how I work. It didn’t. I think I used it once.
Now, Tiger has things like Spotlight and Dashboard. Spotlight so far has made it harder for me to work. It used to be that I could press Command+F, type a part of a file name, and then fine the file. Now, I type that file name, I get teased for a second with a glimpse of the very file I was looking for, and then 100+ entries fill the window, 99 of them not what I wanted. The file I want is now burried under a collapsed list or some such. I know you can tweak Spotlight to work like you want, but I shouldn’t need to do that just to get back to what Panther did.
As for Dashboard. I love it. I loved it even better when it was called “Desktop Accessories” back in Mac OS 6.
Don’t get me wrong, I love OS X. It’s the price that I have a problem with. Since I have a laptop, a work machine, my wife’s laptop and her work machine, it means that it costs 4x$130 to upgrade. Don’t even mention the “Family Pack” that the license is strictly for “non-commercial” use which rules me out. So paying $500+ to upgrade to Panther and then another $500+ to upgrade to Tiger really bothers me when all I’m getting is more speed and stability. At half the price I’d be much happier.