During my short holidays, sources sent me a lot of information about the latest Panther seeded builds allowing me to write this full review of the latest developments on Panther. I know that other sites have already posted reviews with screenshots and that I'm quite late but, I think it's still interesting to post my review with the information I could gather. It's possible that I mention some features that were present on builds prior to 7B21 because I currently don't have the possibility to compare several builds at the same time.

Generally, the system is faster, especially for the Finder and Quartz Extreme even on G3-based Macs featuring acceptable graphic cards like the latest generation of iBooks which see huge speed improvements from this build. On the other hand, in terms of stability it's said to be a catastrophic build. Sources faced crashes even during the installation process and especially on the system itself while running applications with unexpected quits occurring very often. For example, Macromedia Dreamweaver cannot stay open more than one minute. Other sources found the overall stability of the system quite acceptable though.

The Finder also receives some new and very exciting features. The most exciting one is the Finder-level zip compression. The selection of several files that are not grouped on a list is possible and Finder preferences are now more complete with different tabs: "General" (which includes the old Finder preferences), Labels "settings for the file labels), "Sidebar" (settings for the items of the sidebar) and "Advanced" (gives the ability to show extensions, hidden files, warning before emptying the Trash). Some features from Mac OS 9 are also back: It is now possible to switch to a "Simple Finder" mode and the get info window looks quite updated though it maybe was already so on the first änther builds.

System Preferences have been improved and expanded on this build but there are still things that remain undone. For the multi-user preferences, I notice that some Mac OS 9 features are also brought back: namely the possibility to allow or disallow certain applications or tasks for some users.

Safari was updated to version 1.1 v89. I could not find any new features in this build but I guess most of the changes are bug fixes related to compatibility with and improvements to the web-core. Sources confirmed it's likely that we will see a new public release of Safari before Panther is released.

Mail has also seen slight improvements. It looks like Microsoft Exchange support is being implemented and that is very good news. There are also some minor cosmetic changes that will make the management of mail-boxes easier.

The Address Book not only seems to bring support for Exchange synchronization but has also an improved template with new fields in it's re-organized preferences window and more options for printing mailing labels.

As expected in my earlier Panther postings, iCal (v1.5) has seen improvements. It's faster than the current version and there is no longer a palette to add and edit events. It is now possible to do that right on the calendar. There is still a slide-drawer to put notes and make some settings though.

On the latest build of Disk Utility we can notice some minor interface changes reflecting, in particular, the fact that Panther brings case-sensitive file-system.

This new build also brings some minor user-interface changes and improvements like the new smart help buttons, improvements to the application switcher that now also allows the user to quit applications and on the open/save dialog boxes. There is also a small new icon zoom-in effect when you launch an item from the Finder.

Finally, Chess fans will appreciate the new Chess game which has a new 100% 3D and transparent display mode and some cool new features.

As you can see, Apple is working actively on Panther and, as expected, new unannounced features like Exchange synchronization are coming in this new version of Mac OS X making it more and more worth the upgrade. According to sources, Apple is now finishing implementing the new features and then will be working hard on stability though it's not impossible that we will see other new features in future builds. If you have anything to add, questions or comments, don't hesitate to drop me an e-mail.