Apple's Mac OS 10.2 packs in a raft of new features, such as a centralised address book, handwriting recognition, new technologies for discovering printers, better access for users with disabilities, Quicktime 6, junk mail filter, and more.

But for many users, that is just the icing on the cake. The real question is whether or not some of the annoyances of the system have been sorted out.

Many have, but some remain - windows still have a nasty Microsoft-like tendency to switch to the foreground when you're doing something else.

The Finder is much improved. You can, for example, do an 'open with' without having to change the associations for a file.

Sharing files with Windows is much easier now, as you can properly browse a Windows network, and our test network appeared perfectly.

Hooking up to printers is promised to be easier with the new Rendezvous software, when it appears in other hardware.

In the meantime, there are some glitches. Our Brother printer no longer works in PCL mode under 10.2, printing garbage instead. Check driver compatibility before upgrading.

It's now much easier to control what different users can do, down to restricting the applications they can run, and many of the control panels have been rearranged into a more flexible system.

Speed improvements aren't major, at least not on our test system. But they are certainly welcome, and the Finder seems more responsive, although it still lags on a 400MHz Mac.

There's a lot packed into 10.2, and it's a great upgrade for anyone using OS X, or reason enough to switch if you're not already there.

But why should those of us who've been loyal to the platform since 10.0 have to pay the full price for things that should have been present from day one?

DETAILS

Price:
£99 (£84.25 ex VAT)

Contact: Apple 0800 783 4846
www.apple.com/uk

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
128MB of Ram
G3 or G4 processor