TheUI and Graphics: They nailed it. It is quite a good improvement over Nextstep and every other OS. No news here, everyone has been copying them for a while. It has the good ole’ NextSTEP style rendering as well… no tearing or flickering. Every App has a good user experience and easy-to-use consistency. Everything is much less busy and a lot bigger. On my XP desktop, all the icons are your standard sizes, small, smaller, or tiny.
Nits: Same old nits. Keyboard shortcuts and window management, is ok. I think these would be easy to fix.
Big Value: The iLife apps and all the other good stuff.
Overall, I see myself getting into OS X in the future, when I have time. Not right now, though. The switching cost is too big. I wouldn’t be productive on that box for 3 weeks.
I had a big talk with one of the Mac guys here at work. Even he agreed that the tools that a programmer needs are just not there yet compared to what I’m used to on the XP box. We both agree that they will come to the platform, but it will just take a while.