Apple's Beta Operating System

UPDATED

I'm selling my old Mac Powerbook, and bought a new one that has Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) preinstalled. The changeover -- migrating my old applications and data to the new machine -- has been nothing but trouble. I won't go into the details, but aAfter following instructions to the letter I find myself reinstalling for the third time. Who has time for this crap?

Update: I was asked in the comments what went wrong. This: The utility that brings old apps over during the install created system problems -- such as making iChat unusable -- and the after-install migration utility simply failed to work at all. Then, after another clean OS install (and after then manually moving and/or reinstalling apps, Filevault failed when I turned it on for the first time (hung up, forcing hard reboot, damaging Home directory). Ridiculous.

Is it a customer's fault for using third-party software that may or may not be part of the problems? Let's say for the moment that it is (though that's a somewhat bizarre notion if you think about the purpose of a personal computer with an operating system that has programming hooks designed to let third parties create new applications).

If so, Apple needs to change its installation procedures and migration tools. It could tell people to reinstall all applications one by one. Or it could keep a database of software it knows to be compatible with the new OS and tell the migration utilities to refuse to touch anything else. But to provide tools that either break the system or fail to work at all is not very useful.

Comments

[jeremy hunsinger]

strange, I've done three installs and two imports with tiger, and only had issues with an upgrade so far. well and virtualpc doesn't work yet, but i think there is a fix for that. what is causing your problems?

[Marco Rondoni]

I've had some 'issues' myself; but with a new PB that just arrived, for every application I am installing, I first go to the company's website and confirm Tiger compatabilty; in some cases updates are already available but many are still to come. I would keep your old machine . . I have a 'pristine' OS9 machine for some games my little ones like to play; and a pre-Tiger OSX machine for a bunch of apps I know won't be upgraded anytime soon.

Most excellent Dan, the bleading edge hurts at times!

[Alex Krupp]

I upgraded from Panther to Tiger without doing a clean install, and it is working fine for me. Granted, there are some bugs: Safari crashes every five minutes, the mouse scroll wheel doesn't work with widgets, etc. But no showstoppers at least. Although I suppose if I used safari instead of firefox I would be rather upset. Currently the only thing I use safari for is going to m-w.com, because in firefox 1.0.3 it won't play the words being pronounced for some reason.

[Jeff Hume]

By not going into your problems at all this just sounds like baseless complaining. Every new OS release has problems. Tell me of a company or group which has released an OS that didn't have some initial problems. I'd love to hear about them.

[Brian Jepson]

I did the exact same thing (sold my old PowerBook, bought a new one). I've always found that new PowerBook model + new release of Mac OS X = lots of rough edges. I seem to mix that combination up a lot more often than I should.

My biggest gripe is the fan noise--the GPU gets hotter than the other components according to X Resource Graph, and I've seen the fan spin up over 8000 RPM. Also, at first I had trouble with the trackpad, but it seems to be working OK now. I've also seen a lot of complaints (both about Tiger and the new PowerBooks) in the forums at discussions.info.apple.com.

(My Bluetooth keyboard has become suddenly annoying, sometimes multiplying keystrokes, at other times skipping them, making it hard to edit this post.)

Here's looooooking frwrd to 10.4.1!

[Ken Leebow]

Dan,

Because of the iPod, I'm one of those "halo" Apple users. The halo turned into one helluva learning experience. Sadly all computers have issues, but I for one, will remain a PC user.

My Apple experience was so bad, that I documented it at my blog.
http://bloggingaboutblogs.blogspot.com/2005/04/lemon-of-apple-g5.html

Kindest regards,

Ken Leebow

[Dan Gillmor]

The utility that brings old apps over during the install created system problems -- such as making iChat unusable -- and the after-install migration utility simply failed to work at all. Then, after another clean OS install (and after then manually moving and/or reinstalling apps, Filevault failed when I turned it on for the first time (hung up, forcing hard reboot, damaging Home directory).

If this is what people should expect, they might consider waiting for 10.4.2 or 3.

[Brian Stucki]

I have upgraded 23 different computers in different locations to Tiger and have had VERY little problems with any of them. It all depends on #1 How well you maintained your Panther Version and #2) which applications are Tiger Ready (which points the finger more at the software developers and not at the OS)

[Brian Emmett]

I'm with Mr. Stucki. I did an Archive & Install of Tiger on my dual-G5 and I've had zero major issues so far. Worked like a charm.

Spotlight isn't as "lightning fast" as I expected, but it's definitely not a speed slouch and still an exceptionally good searching tool.

Automator seems to be a generous resource hog and slows the whole system down a bit if you leave the Workflow editor open for hours at a time, but I've honestly had no show-stopping problems at all.

The only crashes I have are app crashes, and that's only limited to Delicious Library, which also crashed nicely in 10.3 during heavy usage, especially importing. Haven't had the Safari problems mentioned.

While I empathize entirely with your headaches, I don't think that your experience is necessarily indicative of the majority of upgrade experiences, including the ones I'm personally aware of.

[Scott Waters]

I think many users need a stronger prescription along with their new OS. Almost all of the problems I've heard about concerning Tiger are caused by third party products not being compatible, pre-existing problems or users doing things they shouldn't. Then their first response is to scream at Apple, which is quite immature. I've done thousands of upgrades, and a few sop far for Tiger and have not had any REAL problems. PS Anyone who turns on FIleVault or brings over old preferences before testing is just asking for trouble. Grow up!

[Scott Waters]

I've decided that I'm not done yet.
Dan, as a journalist you owe it to your readers to keep your personal flames under control until you at least have something real to talk about. This is embarassing. You've made a fool out of yourself now and all of us who do this sort of thing for a living will be disappointed in how you're dealing with it.

[Dan Gillmor]

Scott, so it's the user's fault for following Apple's instructions? Interesting theory.

[Da Geek]

WHY... is it Apple's responsibility to maintain the myriad of your 3rd-Party software settings? If you install XP it sure as hell doesn't even think about what you had before. I've installed Tiger on 15 different machines ranging from a 600Mhz G3 iBook to a Dual 2.5Ghz G5. Some of those installs I did an upgrade and some I did a fresh install (my preference). I haven't seen any more problems than setting the default browser back to Firefox and other such "adjustments". I'm not a Apple zealot by any means but I can tell you without a question in my mind the OS X is the best commercial commodity OS available hands down. All this negitive press is just a bunch of griper leeches who have nothing better to do.

Don't like Tiger...fine...go heat yourself up a steaming pile of XP. Mmmmm ENJOY!!

[Scott Laird]

My 3-year-old PowerBook G4/550 has been upgraded from 10.1 to 10.2, then 10.3, and now 10.4, all without a reinstall. There are obviously a few rough edges in Tiger, but the only real problem I've had is with The Missing Sync for Palms--everything else that I've tried has just worked.

[Dan Gillmor]

Scott, you do it for a living. Most Apple customers do not.

If Apple wants people to reinstall their applications one by one, or if it wants to have a migration utility that refuses to touch anything that Apple doesn't know to be compatible, that's totally fine with me. Just don't provide tools that either break the system or fail to work at all.

[David]

WIthout going into details all you've done is whine without any chance that someone with knowledge and experience might be able to help you. And of course, feed the flames of the PC trolls.

My experience is the exact opposite of yours. Five important machines have been moved to Tiger and not a single problem with any of them.

I have been called in to help a few people with problems but I expect you are smart and savvy enough not to have fallen for their errors. Indeed, since you are moving into a new machine you almost certainly aren't having those problems.

But, if you are using Apple's transfer software - stop. I've had nothing but trouble with it and that's Panther to Panther. I don't want to think about Panther to Tiger issues with it.

Does the new book boot into Panther? How about cloning the old onto the new and then archive and installing?

[Dan Gillmor]

David, you say, "if you are using Apple's transfer software -- stop." Do you think it's acceptable for Apple to be encouraging people to use software that's causing "nothing but trouble" (for you, at any rate)?

[PXLated]

Like others, I've installed on several machines and used all three types of installing. Haven't had one single glitch on any of them. I did however, keep track of third-party utilities installed and temporarily removed them.
Apple can't protect you from yourself and all the goofy crap you can install on your machine. My guess is it's not an Apple problem.

[PXLated]

Since it's come up...when I did the erase/install, I first cloned the drives, installed, then used the migration tool and stlll had "zero" problems. But, I did remove all the third party utilities first.
By the way, I'm not a pro, did it for friends.

[Joe I.]

Dan,

Apple has been unresponsive to my calls. Even though I am a business user who bought through them. I have 12 Mac's installed at my consulting business and upgraded my personal PowerBook and Safari stays stable for about a minute, iChat doesn't work, Filevault is broken like you experience, and the computer is having trouble with my VPN with a large film studio (it doesn't work and worked fine in 10.3). What the hell! I am not going to upgrade my entire installed base until maybe version 10.4.2 but I must say what bothers me the most is Apple doesn't give a rats ass about even talking to me and suggesting solutions.

[michael]

Dan -

I have a client who had similar problems.
After some nosing around I found it to be his use of FileVault.

Once disabled [restart]. The transition went well.

hope this helps [any]

[Experienced]

I have learned the hard way, that any major OS upgrade (Windoze, Mac, UNIX, whatever) is best dealt with with a reformat and reinstall - now matter WHAT the vendor says.
It should be looked at by the consumer as a way to verify your backup procedure (You DO backup regularly), your passwords (you DO change them regularly), your software licenses (you DO keep them in a safe place).
Vendors do everyone a disservice by promoting the "ease" of upgrading - this is done, of course, to boost sales (and if y'all forget that Apple is a HARDWARE company first and foremost - shame!)

[Josh H.]

Dan,

I find this highly ammusing. If you were on a windows machine, you would be reinstalling ALL of your aplications, as well as moving data by hand. I don't doubt that you are having problems, and I have a litttle sympathy for you but keep in mind a couple of things.
First, anyone who installs a new operating system on a mission critical machine before the first maintenance release deserves exactly what he/she gets. It is impossible to test an OS with every possible softare/hardware configuration. Wait and see what the early adopters' issues are before taking the plunge. I'm writing this on my Panther powerbook because I had the foresight to google powerbook and Tiger before upgrading.
Second, and most likely to make you feel a little better, imagine how much longer the transition to a new machine would have taken under windows

[Dan Gillmor]

I didn't install a new OS on a mission critical system. I got a new system with the OS preinstalled, and followed the vendor's instructions to bring my old data over to it.

[Steve]

Dan,

I think the problem in your migration was the large amount of trans-gender porn you have collected over the years. If you manage to delete - oh, let's say - 40 gb of this, then you should have a smoother upgrade.

I think you're the only beta around here ;)

S