Moving Ahead

As you can see, Mac OS X 10.3, or Panther, is a feature-rich upgrade to an already powerful operating system. With the many applications Apple includes with Panther, your Mac is more versatile than ever.

I haven’t mentioned the many changes Apple has made under the hood or the many subtle interface changes that make working with Panther a pleasure: Apple has improved its dialog sheets, making their display smoother and faster, introduced finer LCD font anti-aliasing for improved readability on flat panel displays, and optimized scrolling, so scrolling in any application is smoother.

But I’ve saved the best for last. What impressed me most working with Panther, first as a beta version and then after the final release, was its speed. My Macs run much faster under Panther as they did under Jaguar. Apple has optimized the video display, so even older Macs run much faster using Panther. If you hesitated about upgrading to Panther because you were afraid your Mac wasn’t fast enough, this version of Mac OS X is for you.

So, read on to find out more about these new features and to get the most out of Panther.