Tiger Field Guide

The box for OS X 10.4 features Apple’s X logo bathed in a spotlight. It’s no coincidence—the new Spotlight search technology is at the center of this OS upgrade.

The latest version of Safari adds RSS features to Apple’s Web browser. But, as Dan Frakes explains, those aren’t the only changes to Safari that Tiger has introduced.

Apple built .Mac syncing directly into Tiger. Chuck Toporek looks at what this enhancend syncing ability will mean to Mac users.

Think of Automator, one of the new features added in Tiger, as one of those 21st-century robots you used to see in old cartoons—it’s a user-friendly application designed to tackle the repetitive tasks you don’t have time to do yourself. Jason Snell explains.

The latest update to OS X also brings a new version of QuickTime. The biggest enhancement is the addition of the H.264 video codec, but there are other notable changes as well.

Much like the Core Audio and Core MIDI changes introduced in Panther, OS X 10.4 adds a technology of its own—Core Image. Find out what this will mean to the graphics you’ll see in future software.

While it doesn’t have the cool factor of things like Automator and Spotlight, the Unix plumbing in Mac OS X has gotten just as much attention in Mac OS X 10.4, and has as many changes in store for technical users as the user-interface improvements.

A new version of Tiger brings a new version of the built-in Mail application. And Apple has taken great care to integrate OS X 10.4’s Spotlight search technology into the e-mail client.

With Tiger, Apple has upgraded iChat AV with the ability to set up multi-person video and audio chats. But there’s more to this latest version of OS X’s built-in instant messaging software than the prospect of having more than one person staring back at you in video chats. Jason Snell has the details.

You’ve read about the features, you’ve bought the upgrade—but how do you go about installing Tiger? Ted Landau has some tips that will help you avoid installation headaches.

VoiceOver, a built-in screen reader, highlights the improvements to accessibility features in OS X 10.4.