By now I’m sure you’ve read our Tiger review (and if you haven’t, read it!). But we didn’t cover everything. Hell, this article omits a lot of stuff (which I’ll try to come back to in a future writeup). Here are some of the winners and losers of Tiger…

Dumbest UI change
What is up with the PDF button in the Print dialog? It looks like an ordinary push-button and you’d expect it to behave as such…

...but you click it and it spawns a menu?

Huh?
Message to Apple’s UI designers: there’s already a UI widget for that: the drop-down menu widget. This is one thing that’s going to bug me as long as I use Tiger.

Dumbest UI change, runner-up
Mail’s toolbar icons. Not only are they of questionable design (though they don’t bother me as much as they used to), but violate the Human Interface Guidelines, which say that each toolbar icon should have a distinct shape to better distinguish one from the other. Fortunately for those of you who don’t like the new look, there is a solution.

Dumbest UI change, bronze medal winner
The gloss menubar. It’s not exactly ugly, but definitely looks awkward at first and doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the UI. In my opinion, the Tiger UI isn’t bad, but can’t quite match the clean lines and elegance of Panther’s iteration of Aqua.

Best new iCandy
Um, eye candy. I mean eye candy. This award goes to Dashboard. When you combine the zoom effects when you engage/disengage Dashboard, the morphing effect when dragging a widget icon out, the ripple effect when placing a widget, the sucking effect when closing a widget, and the screen-moves-up-to-make-room-for-widget-list effect, you have something that’s really fun to play with. Oh, and it’s useful too.

Best new feature
Smart folders. I’m already hooked on them. I see this coming in handy to consolidate files for a project that are located in different places. Here’s an idea: create a new smart folder to contain all items created in the past week. It’s great for maintaining backups.

Best new feature, runner-up
Automator. I’ve already made two simple workflows: one to let me move the selected file without having to drag the file around and another to allow me to specify a spotlight comment to any selected file or files. It helps extend the abilities of OS X, and helps OS X work better for you. Outstanding.

Worst new “feature”
System Preferences. The lack of a customizable toolbar is annoying. The back and forward arrows are utterly useless.

Mastering the fine art of stupidity
No iPhoto included. I think the boxed version of Tiger can do without iMovie, iDVD, and GarageBand, but omitting iPhoto, considering how integrated into the rest of the OS it is, is just plain dumb.

Biggest ripoff
Full screen video requires paying Apple $30. Sure, you get other features like editing tools and video recording, but come on, Apple! Every other free media player out there lets me watch video clips in full screen. Get on the ball, guys.

Bummer.
High definition h.264 video has astronomic system requirements. In other words, unless you own a Power Mac G5 or iMac G5, you won’t be able to see h.264 in all its glory.

You can do that in OS X?
Hold down command-option-d while overing your mouse over text to get the dictionary palette. Keep those three keys pressed and move the pointer over text. The dictionary palette will define every word you hover over while holding this key combo down.

Cool text tricks
You can select multiple blocks of text in Tiger. Select a block of text while holding down the command key, then highlight another block of text while holding down command. Also, try holding option. Cool, eh? Thanks to Arden for pointing those out.

Biggest surprise
Speed! Aqua window resizing is very fast. Metal window resizing is finally becomming acceptable for the most part. Even smooth scrolling, something which irritated me to no end on Panther, behaves well.

Biggest disappointment
The Finder. Why no new sort options for the Finder? Why can’t I sort by author in list view if I wanted to? Why can’t I use the Spotlight view elsewhere in the Finder? Why is the Finder still so inconsistent with window behavior?

Welcome back, Classic Mac OS features
The Print menu item is back in the Finder (at last!). Selecting multiple items (10 or fewer, according to John Gruber) brings up a separate Get info window for each when using command-I.

r0x0rz t3h b1g one111!
Spotlight. How did I ever live without this? I’ve only been on Tiger for a few days and I already rely on it. I can have 2,000 search results in a matter of seconds. It may not quite be WinFS (provided WinFS ever gets completed, that is), but it’s damn good, damn easy to use, damn useful, and damn cool. Well done, Apple. Well done.

OS X on steroids
Fortunately, steroids don’t have adverse effects on operating systems. aTiger has a mess of under-the-hood enhancements which mean even cooler applications for us to play with. w00t!