Mark April 29th on your calendar if your an Apple user. That's the day the public will get its hands on Tiger the next major upgrade to the Mac OS X operating system.
It's a significant release with major improvements across the board including the Apple web browser Safari which while pleasing to the eye, has seen its market share drop slightly as Firefox, the independent browser, has stormed the market in the last six months. According to Apple, Safari is now faster than Firefox and also incorporates RSS into the browser, an important feature.
One hot new application these days is desktop searching which both Yahoo and Google provide for free. However there have been privacy issues related to how their desktop searches are incorporated. With Tiger, Apple users now have Spotlight which does the same thing but without the privacy issues.
Another new application is Dashboard. "Dashboard is home to widgets: mini-applications that let you perform common tasks and provide you with fast access to information" from your desktop. The widget concept is not new though, Konfabulator created by Pixoria has provided an almost indentical application for years and boast nearly 1000 widgets to date and is also availble for Windows.
Apple users have been patiently waiting for this upgrade and I doubt they'll be disappointed. For $130 US I think it will be worth the upgrade.
I should note that I am former Windows users having converted fully last fall. For my day to day work nothing beats my Apple G5. As a developer though I also still work with a Windows based PC occasionaly and Linux servers.
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