The Pipeline: Tiger, Tiger, burning bright

Welcome to The Pipeline, where you can check in on the MSM without getting your fingers dirty. This week, we almost ended up with an all-Tiger edition, since Apple's OS update (officially known as Mac OS X 10.4) has swallowed up much of the media world's attention (in all fairness, the same can be said of much of the blogosphere). But there were journos who chose to ignore the Tiger stampede (do tigers stampede? are we trying a little too hard with our metaphors here?), including John Dvorak, who returned to his reliably cranky mode this week with a list of gripes, and Johanna Jainchill of The New York Times, who offered some guidelines on avoiding gadget theft. But for the most part, this was Tiger's week to roar (sorry, couldn't resist).

We started our Tiger prowl

looking for a negative review. Surely someone had something bad to say about it. But negative reviews were harder to find than an iPod in Redmond; it seemed all tech journalists had fallen victim to Steve Jobs' infamous "reality distortion field" — either that, or Tiger really was as good as Steve said it was. In The Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg focused on Spotlight, Apple's desktop search technology, and called Tiger "the best and most advanced personal computer operating system on the market." David Pogue of The New York Times, meanwhile, highlighted features that haven't been aggressively marketed, including the system's security, and called the OS "the classiest version of Mac OS X ever." Even PC World — not exactly a publication known for gushing over Macs — declared Tiger a win, with Narasu Rebbapragada calling it "a giant leap" over OSX 10.3 (also known as "Panther").

We thought we caught an inkling of a negative writeup by Business Week?s Stephen Wildstrom, who actually starts his review by knocking Steve Jobs down a peg for hyperbole, and calls Tiger an ?incremental improvement.? But that incremental improvement is pretty good, since Wildstrom sums up by saying Tiger ?bolsters OS X?s edge as the best personal-computer operating system around.? After days of hunting, the closest we came to criticism was Rob Pegoraro?s Washington Post review, which is headlined ?Mac?s Tiger Gives Panther Owners Little Reason to Pounce? and hits Apple for not making Tiger compatible with older Macs and requiring more memory than OSX 10.3: ?Given how halting and sluggish Tiger ran on a 256 MB Mac Mini, doubling the memory seems wise.? Pegoraro also found a handful of interface quirks and minor bugs and ? horror of horrors ? actually had one serious crash in five days of testing on three Macs. Nevertheless, he declares that ?[f]laws and all, Tiger still beats Windows soundly, from its smooth, nag-free installation (save a brief but heavy-handed promotion of Apple?s $100-per-year .Mac online service) to its sleek, shimmering graphical interface.? Oh, well. Guess we?ll have to suck it up and spring for a copy after all.

Walt Mossberg - Tiger Leaps Out in Front
David Pogue - From Apple, a Tiger to Put in Your Mac
Narasu Rebbapragada - First Look: Tiger Lives Up to the Hype
Stephen Wildstrom - Tiger Makes Mac?s Edge Even Sharper
Rob Pegoraro - Mac?s Tiger Gives Panther Owners Little Reason to Pounce

On a recent trip, we accidentally left our iPod in our hotel room, and thought it was gone for good. But it turned out the maid actually turned it in after we left. We?re not sure if it was a sense of altruism or our hefty gratuity that sparked her generous act, but we?re not going to take that chance again. Fortunately, The New York Times? Johanna Jainchill has some good tips on protecting your gadgets from theft. First up: specialized insurance, which can cover replacements with no deductible ($52 a year can cover a music player; not bad if you?re as careless as we?ve been). For computers, she cites track-and-recover software such as PC PhoneHome, which will send you the thief?s IP address the first time they go online with the stolen box (the developer claims a 90% recovery rate). We?ve learned, however, that one option Jainchill offers may be the best one: be more careful. Next time, we?ll wear one of those goofy travel vests with a dozen pockets and make sure each precious gadget is nestled in its own secure nest. Go ahead and mock us; at least we?ll know that our iPod, Treo 650, flash drive, digital camera, spare batteries, extra memory cards and multiple headsets are safe. Of course, we may not have any room left for our wallet, but we?ll figure something out ?. or make sure to leave a big tip again.

Johanna Jainchill - Combating Gadget Theft

We like it when John Dvorak complains; like Andy Rooney, he?s a natural at it, and unlike Rooney, we don?t have to actually listen to him gripe (though it?s easy to imagine Dvorak putting on a faux-Rooney whine and intoning ?didja ever wonder why Apple gets so much ink??) Dvorak?s latest gripes are a grab bag, including the lack of functioning outlets on airplanes, poor mobile phone net service and the domain-name registration process. Entertaining? Sure. Irrelevant? Maybe, but still worth a read.

John C. Dvorak - Concerns with the Future