A review of Tiger by somebody who actually paid their own money for it

Go Todd go! Todd continues on his blogging tear. OK, must buy Tiger tomorrow!

From holycola.net: Tiger - first impressions.:

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Finally. Worth the price? I think so. The benefits continue to unfold as I use it more and I did start out pretty cynical about the price. Which I didn't pay. I also complain about the results of elections in which I didn't vote.

One discussion that keeps coming up is whether this is a minor or major upgrade. Paul Thurrott wrote an obtuse review of Tiger in which he found a lot to like, and then as if to placate his Microsoft patrons labeled it a minor upgrade. Like many geeks, Paul makes the mistake of trying to count features or the extent of code-level changes, rather than using the more realistic measure which is how much does the upgrade change the user experience with the product. The answer to that is not a lot at first, but over time immensely. As Dashboard widgets come into their own I think it will become a lot more than the eye-candy stand it is now. Spotlight pays dividends out of the box, and does so at every turn (I just found Search with Spotlight in a contextual editing menu). Automator might also fall into this category and be a bit slow to come into its own. It's success will be largely dependent on 3rd party developers getting on board.

I think this can be called a major upgrade, in that it gives users dramatically new ways of working with their stuff. Not just their photos, or music, or community newsletters which nobody writes but everyone makes fifty templates for, but all of it. Tiger unifies applications and their data like only some kind of high-end database could before, and does it with elegance. If that isn't a major change, I don't know what is.

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