Rating: 
Summary: Oh, so it WAS possible to improve on Jaguar!
Review: Software is funny that way. You can be happy with a release until you see the next generation, then you realize all its deficiencies at once. Now, finally, after 19 years of joy and suffering, with Panther we have what is very nearly the perfect desktop OS for the Mac - until the next one. I rate it 4.9 stars, and I'll round up this time.
If you own anything from 10.1.5 on down and have the supported hardware, the upgrade to Panther is the king of no-brainers. Everything is improved, and improved markedly - features too numerous to mention. It's even a bit faster.
If you're starting with Jaguar, the upgrade is more subtle, and you may want to take your time, maybe wait for 10.3.2 or 10.3.3. However, the improvement in Finder, which now goes by the iTunes model, is so dramatic that you will want to consider upgrading right away. Also, Panther plays really, really nice with a Windows network, which is the cross I have to bear, and if you do to, I think you'll want Panther now.
Deficiencies are mainly in the bundled apps, not the core OS, and they are mainly lack of features that were left off to keep the bundled aps from running away. I'm sure Expose will be great once I get used to it, but now it oftne surprises me when I don't expect it. iCal is nice, and I use it, but it could be a lot more powerful. Address book is beautfully done, and nicely integrated. Mail is generally excellent, but needs more formatting options. I use X11 frequently and it is solid, but there is room for improvement. Preview is very nice, but I wish it could export in more formats. For home use, iPhoto and iMovie are perfect for the casual user (like me), but more serious prosumer photographers and videographers will want unbundled apps like Photoshop or Final Cut Express.
Overall,very nice work by Apple, and will be hard to top. What's next - Tiger?
Rating:
Summary: Very happy with panther!
Review: I picked up a copy of Panther from amazon's new & used section for a really low price. I am very happy with it. I haven't had any real problems (knock on wood).There are a lot of really cool features. I do however think it is a little pricey if you are only upgrading from OSX 10.2. I would suggest trying to find a used copy.
Rating: 
Summary: Panther is great but fails a bit with clamshell iBooks
Review: As with most Apple products, Panther is very easy to install and get running. The box is very clear as to which Macs will be able to install and use the software. The sad truth is that some of the details were lost by Apple.
OS X.3 fails to correctly identify my iBook SE. The display looked terrible;it was all washed out. When I went to calibrate the display, I received an error message that said my display driver did not load.
There was absolutely nothing on the box, nor in the minimalist paperwork that came with the software nor was there anything on the Apple help page that offered any idea as to what was going on. My display worked fine before installation. It took about three hours of searching the discussion groups threads wherein the problem (obviously I was not the only one with this problem) was discussed and a possible solution presented.
Besides that I do not have any issues with Panther. I do like the way the Safari browser works. If your older Mac has the horsepower and memory, get Panther; it does speed things up.
Rating:
Summary: Tim Robertson MyMac.com First Look
Review: A First Look - Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther"
Tim Robertson
Publisher/Owner, Columnist, MacRelevant
Friday, 10/24/03 As the masses await the Fed-Ex truck to deliver to their eager hands a copy of the latest Mac OS X release from Apple, Panther, MyMac.com presents our early, first-look at the eagerly awaiting OS. First impressions: Wow, this thing is fast! Running 10.3 on an Apple Macintosh G5 1.8GHz, we noticed a huge speed boost to almost every finder-level task. Opening windows, scrolling large directories, accessing other machines over the network, you name it, it seemed faster. But lets take a look at some of the unique features in Panther. Exposé. This is a very, very cool new feature that I am simply in love with. What does it do? Well, for the uninitiated, it gives you instant access to any open window from any program, including the finder. What Exposé does is makes every open window shrink on your screen, and you simply click the window you want to spring to the front. So what's the big deal, you ask? Unlike the old Application window in Mac OS 9, which will only show you the applications running, this shows you all your open windows. So if you have three Safari windows open (I never do, I am in love with Tabs now) this will let you see every window. What's more, when you put your cursor over the mini-windows, the name of the window is displayed. You really have to experience Exposé live to appreciate just how much it is going to change the way you use the Mac OS. The only drawback for me is that it does not show any windows you may have minimized to the dock. To access Exposé, you first set it up in your system preferences pane. For myself, I have Exposé activate for all windows if I put my cursor in the upper-right hand of my screen. If I put my cursor in the lower right, only the front application (including the Finder) will show. By default, three F-Keys are also set to do the same. Even cooler, when you click F11, all open windows move out of the way to reveal the desktop, and stay out of the way until you call them back. If you have a multi-button mouse, you can also assign mouse buttons to do the same. I personally use my extra mouse buttons to launch applications, but I could set it up so that the scroll wheel button moves everything out of the way for quick access to the desktop. Exposé is one of those application that, like I said, better experienced than explained. I cannot get over how useful this is to how I would with my Mac. If it were not part of the OS, I would call this the next Killer App for the Mac. Heads-up Application Switcher. This is yet another way to switch between applications without using Exposé or the Dock. Mac OS 9 also had it. All you do is hold down the command-tab keys to bring up a heads-up display of the open applications. You continue to hold down the command (Apple) key while you "Tab" to the application you want. I used the same method in Mac OS 9 for years, and fell in love with it. It is one of the most missed features for me in Mac OS X. Welcome Back Labels! Yes, you can, finally, use labels in Mac OS X. But this, my friends, is labels on steroids! Labels work in all three views, Icons, List, or Columns. In Icon view, the label is a rich full color, rounded around the text. The icon itself is not colored, as it was is Mac OS 9. In List view, the color again does not apply to the icon, but to the entire line of the item labeled, so that the rounded colored bar extends across the entire windows. The same is true for Column view, but when you have clicked the labeled folder, the triangle keeps the label color. These may seem like not such a big deal, but they really are. Many, many people used labels to help find items, or to mark items that are of special importance, and it is a much-welcomed re-introduction to the Mac OS. Like Exposé, you really have to see the new labels in action to appreciate them. Many people are all up in arms about the brushed metal look, which is used in all the iLife applications, now being carried throughout the finder as well. These worries are unfounded, in my opinion. While I actually like the look, you can toggle it off if you wish. You do, however, loose some of the new functionality of finder windows if you do. Rather than having application folders, favorite folders, document folder etcÉ at the top of each window, they are all now on the far left of your open windows. And they are all customizable. Personally, I think the new windows in Panther are a welcome improvement over the previous OS X windows. One neat, though small, new feature is Apple put the often-used "Software Update" in the Apple menu. Clicking this simply opens the Software Update pane, but it does save one step in the process. A small update, sure, but one I have already gotten used to. And as the Apple menu is unchanged system-wide, you are always one click away from it. Fast Switching. What is this? Well, if you share your computer with others, you will probably want to have multiple users accounts set up. A staple since the first release of Mac OS X, it was easy to switch to a different user. Now, however, it is even faster. When you activate "Enable Fast User Switching" in the "Accounts" pane in System Preferences, it puts the current users name in the upper right hand corner of your screen. It also puts in all the other names of any other user of your Mac. In my case, I have a "Basic" in which the system is basically as it would be fresh from the store. I also have one for my wife (even though she uses her own iMac, not my G5) and one named "Kids" which is for, obviously, my kids. (All they can do is create pictures in Illustrator or Photoshop, type up letters, and use Safari with bookmarks my wife and I approve, all others all deleted.) So what happens when you click one of those names? You entire screen rotates; bring that user to the front. If the name is password protected, in brings up the log-on screen. And best of all, you can leave your account just as it is, with all the applications running, and switch users. When you switch back, everything is just as you left it. This is amazing technology I don't think enough people utilize. All in all, Panther is a great OS. Of course, there will be some applications that will not run correctly and need updating, but that is true for any major OS upgrade. I am very, very pleased with Mac OS X 10.3, and think that for those with a newer machine, you will appreciate the added speed benefits and stability. The new features all work really well, and I look forward to delving deeper into Panther in the coming months. Tim Robertson
Rating:
Summary: Nice Upgrade, Great New Features
Review: I've had my copy of Panther for about a month, an so far I am very pleased with the performance of it, and the great new features. My favorite new feature is Expose, which allows you to easily have several applications open at the same time, and navigate through the windows without any trouble. The new finder is also much nicer. I can now find documents and pictures on my computer much faster than in Jaguar. My only complaint about Panther is that in the first few days, I would have many tabs open in Safari, and it would sometimes "unexpectedly quit". But since the 10.3.1 update, I haven't really had any other problems. The price of Panther is a bit stiff, but I think it's worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Good upgrade and worth the price IMHO
Review: I liked what Apple did with Jaguar, and Panther simply improves the performance and usability of OS X in my book. My PowerMac G4 starts up quicker and appears more stable (if that is possible over the already stable Jaguar). My OS 9 apps, like Hypercard (yes I still use that wonderful piece of software), and Photoshop, among others, work just as they are without alteration. I have also found new toys to play with such as Revolution (what Hypercard could have been) and the command line. My only complaint is that there is no true Outlook client for OS X. Yes, I know about Entourage X, and that is okay, or rather will be when my company migrates to Exchange 2003, or whatever comes after that. All in all a good upgrade and one I don't mind paying for.
Rating:
Summary: There Is No Power Greater Than X
Review: I have been a Mac user since the beggining...and I always will be. I had every upgrade and to tell you the truth, if you have 10.2 you really don't need to upgrade yet. There are no major differences bu the expose feature is real nice..and also my computer starts a LOT faster. With 10.2 my comp usually took about a minute to a minute and a half to start up but now it starts up in around 30 seconds...Really cool! If you still have 10.1 or earlier, then you must upgrade now. 10.1 and 10.0 really SUCKED! Performance, stabibility, and security is a lot better in 10.3. And for those of you worrying wether your old apps will work in this new 10.3 enviornment, have no fear. Almost all my apps worked and the few that didnt work I was able to go to the website and upgrade for free.
Rating:
Summary: Fixes some bugs, introduces new ones... plus some cool stuff
Review: Panther now upgrades your iChat/AV software to a non-beta - selling the chat software separately for $30. I have to wonder if there is anyone on earth who will bother to buy the chat software separately when they can use AIM for free... and I have not seen significant changes in this chat software to make the upgrade anything worth writing home about. It still sometimes quits mysteriously w/o acknowledgement from the system. Ptooey. Brought back from the dead are color labels... weeeee! Thank you, Apple! If you're relatively new to the Mac platform, you may not yet realize how wonderful it is to be able to color-label folders and documents to organize your work. This was a mainstay of the Mac platform since 1992, but they took it away in 10.0 and everyone screamed in horror. Thankfully, Apple listened and brought it back. When you highlight an icon on your desktop, it now has a nice rounded square halo around the icon and a rounded rectangular halo around the name. There is now no question what file you're highlighting. OS 10.x also introduced an annoying problem - control-clicking in a window with list or column view to create a new folder did just that, but just named it "untitled folder" and unselected... so you had to click on the folder you just made to rename it... but in icon view, it stayed selected so you could rename it as soon as it was created. Panther makes the OS more consistent so this ability is available in all views. This was a major pain... at least to me, and I'm grateful it has been eliminated. The finder is different this time - a search box is built into each finder window and it is SUPER fast. Opening a new finder window now has two panes - on the right is the list of the items in that folder, on the left is a split pane - on top are your disks and on the bottom are commonly used folders (desktop, applications, home, movies, documents, pictures, favorites, etc.). This means less dragging across the landscape of your monitor and just an inch worth's of dragging. A new widget menu in each finder window allows you to color label or do different things to a file without having to control click if you just have a one-button mouse. Some of this new finder look is similar in appearance to Windows Explorer... I give credit to Apple for finding the few (very few) features of Windows that are worthwhile and incorporating better versions of them. Also now available is the ability to move a file from one volume to another instead of copying it, then deleting the original. Thank you, Apple! The user-switching is tres cool... but only if you have a newer G4 or G5. I have a G4/400 AGP (non quartz graphics), so I don't get the cool Rubik's cube effect when I switch users. A major let-down, but about the only thing missing other than the cute shadow under my cursor arrow. Even without the ultra-cool animation, user switching is still incredibly awesome. If you're in the middle of rendering something in Photoshop, or doing batch processes and someone else needs to use your computer for a jiffy, you can swith users and your stuff still gets processed in the background without much degredation in performance for the other user or drop in performance/time for your background processes... and this is just with one processor, not dual processors! Quite amazing. If you are in the middle of jamming with iTunes, your music will mute while the new user logs in and works on their project, but your music continues where it left off the minute they logout and you log back in. Sweet! Mail is now MUCH MUCH faster, Hallelujah! Apple has supposedly improved their junk mail filtering and added threading, but I am not so impressed with these "improvements." The threading does not thread by sender AND subject - just sender or just subject. This means I get spam and real mail threaded together, even though it's not related. For example, I've had a bunch of friends (and spammers) send me messages with the subject line of "Howdy" ... every message I ever received with this subject is threaded together, even though none of them are related. Who needs threading if this is all it does? New out of the box, there is a bug that when you select more than one item on your desktop and try to drag them to the trash, the finder restarts. This has been fixed only in the past few days w/ a downloadable free updater. Apple has been dutifully fixing the minor bugs with at least 5 updates popping up in Software Updater since I installed Panther last month. One of the coolest features in my opinion is Expose - with just a click of a button, all windows (in all applications) will tile and fit in your window so you can see what is going on. Holding on to that key, you can then move your mouse to the window you want, and it will be brought to the front. If you can't afford a high-end font management software program at the moment, you can use the new Font Book application for activating fonts and organizing them by groups. Also new in Panther is built-in 128-bit encryption called FileVault... you can secure your home folder so well, even you won't be able to get in if you forget the password. The new encryption bypasses the ability to boot up off the CD to gain access to lost passwords. Once you lock it w/ FileVault, only your password will unlock it. Apple claims it will take 149 trillion years for someone to crack your 128-bit key... but once they come out with the G6, it will probably only take a few billion years. :-) Not perfect, but still the best, easiest to use and beautiful to look at user interfaces on earth... and warts and all, it's worth the price for what you get. My only gripe is the 20 day upgrade policy... if you just bought a new Mac 21 days or more before Panther came out, you have to pay full price for the upgrade. C'mon, Apple! This should be at least 90 days... otherwise it's just insulting. Still, it's worth the money. You're only punishing yourself if you don't upgrade.
Rating:
Summary: ... New, exclusive, multi-PIP; the post-Gutenberg effect
Review: The explosive capabilities of the Web over the past few years are now matched by a fast, highly stable OS. One little noticed feature of this exciting new computer software is the Expose' capability for multiple screens (PIPs) open and active at the same time. My experience with recent fast Macs allows combinations of multiple QT movies, iTunes visualizer, tabbed Web pages (video and webcam), DVD or CD, and Photo slideshows displayed simultaneously. As usual, these presentations are constrained by the increasingly cheap memory and speed installed by the user. With thousands of times greater capabilities every ten years or so, unimaginable feats will continue to surprise us. This assistive technology, cheap and ubiquitous, may change how we individuals express the human condition. What we have here may be new avenues for individuals, "carnal beings of blood and flesh ...relate to the world in a passionate way", by the "sheer senuous, aesthetic and moral experience of being embedded in that universe" to engage and communicate. And not by the alienating challenges of violent videogaming or us-vs-them fundalmentalism so attractive and appealing to furious adolescent males. 'Thought is more imperishable than ever; it is volatile, irresistible and indestructible.' --Victor Hugo
Rating: 
Summary: Is this money-ripping pressure really necessary?
Review: $129 every year for something that has a 20-day upgrade policy? What a JOKE! QUITE obviously, Apple marketing and I do NOT earn our monies in the same company. On top of that rip-off, it obviously has bugs, as I have learned to expect from the company that somehow every year manages to churn out half-beaten butter for our Macintosh ego-bread. Well, don't know about you, I feel that one predator is quite enough in my household for at least two to three years. Good luck, and buye buye (not misspelled).
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