Thanks to the PCC Away Day at the weekend, although my copy of MacOS 10.4 Tiger turned up last week, I haven’t actually installed it.

I’d already decided that it could probably do with a proper clear down and rebuild. Previously I have always done an upgrade, so the results of a couple of years worth of fiddling and trying things out have probably taken their toll on performance. As I really need a clear weekend to get the basics back up and running, I hadn’t really got started.

However, having had a browse through the forums, and looked at various blog postings about the new operating system, I suspect I’ll be on 10.3 for a while longer, the chief reason being MissingSync.

MissingSync is the software that I use to keep my PDA in sync with the address book and calendar on the Mac. The way it does this is through a Mac application called iSync which has been extensively rewritten for Tiger, making it incompatible with the existing version of MissingSync. An update is currently due to arrive in June, however what makes it more annoying is that MarkSpace are pulling the old “we’re not updating the existing version, please buy our new version with more features” routine. Of course I don’t need the new features, so it is generally a bit of pain. As I have issues with a couple of bugs with certain appointment types, I may use the opportunity to jump ship to the opposition, and buy a copy of PocketMac instead.

Hopefully by the time the third-party software is all Tiger compatible, Apple will have ironed out some of the hiccups in the OS, chief among them being the new Mail application which seems to be causing some people a lot of frustration!