Tuesday, August 23, 2005

When Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger shipped in April, the rest of the media fawned over its hot new features and made you feel that Tiger was a must-have upgrade.

While I was impressed with many of its features, I suggested waiting for the inevitable bug-fix releases. My last words were, "I'll let you know as soon as I feel that Tiger is 'safe and sane' for the average user. Until then, you're probably better off without it."

Four months and two minor updates later — the current release is version 10.4.2 — it's time to take another look.

So, is it safe yet? The answer is a qualified "maybe."

I read MacFixIt's recently released Troubleshooting Mac OS X 10.4.2 Special Report, and now I'm not so sure ... that most of the problems appear to be behind us now.

You really should read the MacFixIt report, which includes much more than just polls, including descriptions of dozens of issues users have encountered while installing or updating Tiger, plus strategies and fixes that have worked for other users.

While the trend is moving in the right direction, I still don't like your odds. So, if you haven't already upgraded to Tiger, you might want to consider waiting just a little bit longer.