Mac OS X Leopard still not ready for prime time
Summary: If you haven't upgraded yet - don't!I bought my first Apple computer in 1978 - the original Apple ][ - and the obvious quality of the products has kept me coming back for more.
If you haven't upgraded yet - don't! I bought my first Apple computer in 1978 - the original Apple ][ - and the obvious quality of the products has kept me coming back for more. Good thing the Leopard upgrade wasn't my first experience of Apple quality.
10.5.1 isn't it, either. I had great hopes that the first dot release of 10.5 would fix most of the problems. Sadly, that is not the case.
Most Leopard installs are trouble-free. But if you rely on your Mac to make a living, you have to ask yourself if it is worth the risk to upgrade for nifty but non-essential features. I haven't upgraded my backup Mac and I won't until Leopard is stable.
Tales of woe I use my Mac for writing, research, Skype, web site creation, video production and much more. Since installing Leopard, I've had to re-install OS X 3 times, Final Cut Studio 3 times (it is on 8 DVDs, so it takes a while) and boot up into the Unix command line twice to re-create the user database.
In addition there are numerous other inconveniences, such as Keychain problems, out of date third party apps, broken application services and more. They slow me down.
But the biggest problem is not knowing if the system will start up reliably. I don't need that problem from my Mac. With OS 10.4 I didn't.
The Storage Bits take AFAIK, the vast majority of people don't have problems with Leopard. But if you are a power user who needs a reliable Mac, the problems are common enough to wait for Apple to resolve them.
I suspect that Steve's commitment to ship Leopard in October led to some corner-cutting in development. Once released developers also have to deal with the bugs customers report.
A few more months of development bake time would have brought Leopard up to Apple's normal high standards. Steve, next time let the developers, not the calendar, tell you when the release is ready.
Comments welcome, of course.
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Talkback
True but...
software and even hardware that it's hard to predict what kind of problems will
show up. I am using Leopard since it's early betas and I am pretty happy with it. As
for our Mac servers I am waiting a little bit before we upgrade;-) Leopard brought
some major enhancements (time machine, real UNIX subsystem, spaces, very nice
ichat and many more) and to me it's worth to suffer through some reboots (like one
a week?). If I would have to re-install OSX multiple times I would be really mad
too. But I fear that there might be something else very wrong with your system. At
the end it's a nice BSD core. Why in the world would you have to re-instal it over
and over again? I never had problems like that. Sounds strange to me.
RE: Mac OS X Leopard still not ready for prime time
Cult of Apple
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F9gdx_LIAc
I calls 'em as I sees 'em
Sorry to hear your transition was as bad as my Vista upgrade...
though, I'm not surprised to see the negative crap being thrown on ZDNet.
I've now used both Vista and Leopard for over 2 years (yes, even during beta
periods for each). My experience at this point in time: Leopard currently functions
more reliably and allows me to work my way (not a way that some non-technical
user would attempt). I'm _still_ waiting on decent video drivers and some app
upgrades for Vista.
Yes, I am a software (and IT) developer. Yes, I use the big 3 (Linux / OS X /
Windows). Yes, I'm more technically apt than the average 30+ year old. YMMV.
My main point: 1 year on and Vista still has some issues that have been sorted for
me by the latest .1 release (and my final issue has been handled in the forthcoming
.2). While I eagerly await Vista SP1 and XP SP3, I am utilizing 10.5 right now.
Kelly
I wasn't comparing Leopard to Vista
is a 2+ hour drive to the nearest major city - don't recommend it, I don't have any
data.
The bottom line for me is that for whatever reasons, Leopard didn't have the bake
time needed for typical Apple quality.
As a developer you have little choice but to use the latest and greatest. I don't need
to and I'm wishing I hadn't.
Robin
Where have you been?
Some feel the need
I find it odd as when I had mentioned to my brother-in-law and niece about some of the issues people are having with the upgrade, yet they have (to my knowledge) not had any issue with their upgrade to Leopard.
What is it that these systems have in common (or do not have in common) that will cause many of the problems we are hearing, vs some people who have had no issues to speak of?
It is odd....
read where in it's end of year tally Leopard is considered a PLUS for
Apple. Yet I find here an article written about it not being fully
cooked. People write in response that they have had no problems yet
the author replies read the blogs and web reports. Last night at a
Christmas party I ran into a fellow who said he has a G5 running
Leopard and Final Cut Pro in which he uses to edit local TV
commercials. I would think that makes he a power user yet he gave
me no indication that he was having issues with Leopard. Very odd
indeed.
Pagan jim
Not odd at all...
The vast majority of Vista users I know upgraded perfectly seamlessly, and most enjoy it and have no regrets. But it's not the case for everyone, and MORE are having problems than did for XP, it's a very similar parallel for Leopard.
Both MS and Apple seemed to release their OS too soon, just to meet market expectations. Let's see if MS's .1 release can do better than Apple's, though they are taking a lot longer to put a lot more polish in, so it's not a direct comparison, either.
One thing that Apple did
Since the beginning of time Apple had 2 methods of upgrading, or reinstalling, the OS and there were few, if any problems.
One was the usual wipe the drive and install everything fresh. The other was "clean install", which Apple renamed "archive and install" with OSX. That one took your System folder, renamed it "previous system folder" and left it on your hard drive. Then the installer created a new "system" folder which would be the new startup system.
It appears that the people with the greatest number of problems are those that used the new "upgrade" rather the "archive and install" or a total HD wipe.
I have not read of that many problems with machines that came with 10.5 installed other than the usual problems with apps or peripherals that don't work properly with the new OS.
That might make for an interesting poll
Robin:
Scary Crashing
RE: Mac OS X Leopard still not ready for prime time
We avoid just about all OS upgrades
We bought some 20 inch G5 iMacs a while back, at the 10.3 to 10.4 transition. The machines came with 10.3 loaded, but Apple put 10.4 disks in the box. I never bothered with it.
Last summer we brought in some Macbooks with 10.4 on them. They?ve worked just fine but the users didn?t notice any real difference from 10.3 and did not use any of the new bells and whistles in 10.4.
I assume that I would upgrade the OS if it was required for a specific app or an upgrade to that app, but would probably just buy new machines with it installed. In fact, we brought in the original 10.3 machines to run Indesign. Other than that, I don?t see that much benefit to OS upgrades.
Completely agree.
We've only recently..
For the record...
Aperture etc) and have no problems aside from a few cosmetic annoyances (mostly
related to Spaces). I did a CLEAN install and migrated everything back using
Migration Assistant. Time Machine works as advertised (not with Aperture but I
have vaults anyway) and the system is perfectly stable (iMac 24 non aluminum
w/2gb ram).
I'm not saying no one has problems, but the fear mongering is getting a little old.
Plus we're due for 10.5.2 very soon. That's two updates within months of launch. A
far cry from Vista SP1 over a YEAR LATER!
If you're not sure, just have a working, bootable backup and test Leopard thoroughly before committing. It's what I did and I wouldn't go back to Tiger.
Fearmongering about Vista has been old for quite some time.
"I'm not saying no one has problems, but the fear mongering is getting a little old. Plus we're due for 10.5.2 very soon. That's two updates within months of launch. A far cry from Vista SP1 over a YEAR LATER!"
Microsoft has been releasing ".1" patches for Vista throughout the year through Windows Update.
There are several problems here.
[b]not[/b] a trivial matter. Microsoft and Apple (yes,
and Linux, too, I guess) have made it seem so, but it
isn't.
At one time, the OS was much more separated from
applications than it is now. Applications contained
their own graphics routines and their own printer
drivers. The OS was merely the go-between. You'd
call a file subroutine from the OS, but really, you'd
write your own interface.
That changed with the GUI. Now, you call the OS for
everything from file storage to printing to "Cancel" or
"OK" buttons.
Anyone using a computer for mission-critical
applications is foolish to upgrade purely for the sake of
using the latest OS.
Secondly, Leopard is much more than a point upgrade
to Tiger. The fact that it's now UNIX compliant shows
that there was a lot that went on under the hood.
Calling it OS X has lead to situations like yours.
At work, we've had to specify Tiger, and, in some
cases, PPC Macs, because of this issue. Protools plug-
ins don't work with Leopard, and some of our people
use Logic on PPC Macs and home, and, for
compatibility, we specify identical machines for them
to use at work. We're about to change our audio
playback system from Windows to OS X, and we're
specifying Tiger for those machines.
[b]If it's mission-critical, you don't change what
works.[/b]
In your case, with video production, you should have
realized, as a professional tech writer, that Core
Animation [b]could[/b] wreak havoc on non-Leopard
video software, and due diligence on your part would
have save you a lot of aggravation.
I've upgraded both of my Macs to Leopard, and have
been incredibly happy. Quick Look is worth $129
alone. For the critical apps, we've stayed with Tiger.
For now.
I'm sure this is the same thing that's happened with
Vista. Certain applications (*cough* Quicken) broke
the rules, and ran into trouble, and I'm sure that there
were more changes under the hood that made some
incompatibilities. But for most users, there was no
problem (I haven't had any problems with Vista. I like
the way it looks, and, after adding RAM, it runs just
fine. The Start menu is a disaster, though. How do I
turn my computer off?).
In my experience, with fairly normal applications, I find
both Leopard and Vista quite ready for prime time.