Apple's Tiger takes a big bite out of tech coverage

You must have noticed that in days building up to Apple's OS X Tiger update, news stories, commentaries, reviews, and blogger posts about the software have appeared at every corner of the Internet. Now, that the culmination of the media frenzy has finally arrived---and the countdown on Apple's home page has finally ended---here a few worthwhile takes on the client and concurrent server release of Apple's latest operating system:

John Siracusa takes a critical look at Apple’s yearly release cycle, and concludes…Mac OS X versions 10.0 through 10.3 represent ‘the fourth trimester’ for Apple's new baby.

News.com commentary: Will consumers hear Tiger's roar?

Analysts at Forrester Research say Apple has made improvements in safety, convenience, entertainment, and simplicity. Recommendations for next time: movie-trailer-style promotions and interactive teaching tools to walk consumers through the benefits and features.

Macworld: Survey: Mac Users Ready for Tiger

The majority of Macworld readers are very likely to buy the Tiger update, with roughly half planning to purchase it within the next two months.

Malik points to an impending RSS dilemma: Most RSS readers are set to poll for updates every hour, and imagine when half-a-million Tiger Safari users who start hitting a server at the same time, pulling down RSS updates, because they have not changed the default settings. Server meltdown?

This article goes through and covers the key new capabilities, like 64-bit addressing, improved connectivity with Windows systems, and a built-in distributed computing architecture, Xgrid.

Thought I'd mention that as a PowerBook owner, I too will upgrade to Tiger, but rather than racing down to Apple’s San Francisco store after work to install it tonight, I will go and have a beer with friends. When I’m ready next week, the family pack version will be in the office mailroom waiting.