I admit it - I'm one of those that rush out for the latest and greatest, plus I have two Macs at home and work in an office full of them (by design). I even recommended an iMac for my mom and so, I've come to spend a lot of "quality time" with the Mac OS.

I know there are a lot of different Macs users out there who never think to update their systems for one of the following reasons: things run pretty smoothly (why mess with a good thing?) or they have things set up just the way they like 'em, or perhaps they simply don't feel up to a lengthy download of an OS update (such as 8.6 over a modem).

That said, if you are running anything earlier than 8.6, you might consider taking the time to upgrade. Overall the stability and performance improvements that were achieved with this release are remarkable.

Special note to iMac users: the first round of iMacs shipped with 8.1. If you own an iMac and haven't upgraded from this version of your system, this review applies especially to you. I've know several iMac users who have not had to get the dreaded paper-clip out to restart their computers for a while now since they upgraded to 8.6. Plus, you've got a blazing fast, cool computer there with the iMac - you might as well take maximum advantage of it with system stability in addition to the interface enhancements of 8.6 and Sherlock.

If you're running 8.5 on your iMac, you're probably pretty happy, but your overall network connectivity for both local file sharing and Internet could be improved by 8.6 (read, you will crash less). Plus with 8.6 you'll get some "Apple Extras" such as lots of new Apple Scripting enhancements, if you're in to working smarter, not harder.

Note: Don't think Apple Script is a "specialty" kind of a thing. I'm nothing close to a programmer yet I've found lots of great ways for it to help with the little stuff I do often (such as automating repetitive steps in HTML production - It works great with BBedit, for example).

One caveat is that 8.6 is a serious download, and most people I know don't have it as a stand alone CD-ROM (most downloaded it from Apple). Therefore, should you ever have to revert / reinstall your system software that came on your original disk (8.0 or 8.5) you'll have an extra installation step to go through to get back "up" to 8.6.

Is this review moot in light of the forthcoming release of OS 9? Well, 9 might not be for everybody - maybe you want to be cautious and wait to see if it has kinks, or maybe don't feel like shelling out 100 bucks right now. Well, it may be good sense to take a "wait and see" postion (though I rarely do, heh). But if you're waiting with 8.1 or 8.5, you might was well step up to 8.6, it's got a great track record by now in my book.









Recommended: Yes