Introduction Back in early November of 2003, I introduced my Mac OS X 10.3 Panther review with some concerns about Apple's OS release cycle. It's strange to have gone from years of uncertainty and vaporware to a steady annual supply of major new operating system releases from Apple. But do I really want to pay US$129 every year for the next version of Mac OS X? Worse, do I really want to deal with
![Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger](https://cdn-ak-scissors.b.st-hatena.com/image/square/0cf1f8a6182ec0ee725f6f13667cb84b966f3258/height=288;version=1;width=512/http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.arstechnica.net%2Fwp-content%2Fthemes%2Fars%2Fassets%2Fstatic%2Fars-logo-open-grey.png)