First, there’s no way that your computer supports Tiger but WON’T support Panther. If you want Panther so badly, just wipe your HDD and install Panther. It’s not like they released Panther and forgot to support your PowerBook G4 model and then suddenly realized their mistake and corrected it in Tiger.

Second, I highly doubt that RAM will “disable” your wireless adapter. If it is, then it’s a good sign that you bought shitty RAM. And you NEED more than 1GB? I have 1.25GB of RAM, and I frequently have Mail, iChat, Safari, Camino, FireFox, Terminal, Photoshop, Eclipse, Word, TextEdit, and Transmission open AT THE SAME TIME (oh, and I have Dashboard loaded with widgets, Spotlight fully enabled, and Expose in use constantly). Sure there are some slow downs every once in a while, but I can guarantee you that if you’re just running Photoshop and FireFox with 1GB of RAM on a G4 PB, it’s not going to be “slow as molasses” as you claim — unless, of course, you’re using a specialized, custom, 1MHz PowerBook G4.

1) Allow me to disable Dashboard from the System Preferences (not using Onyx)

Why would they want you to be able to disable Dashboard? Just close ALL the widgets, and it won’t consume anything more than neglible resources. And if you’ve found a way to disable it with a third party application, WHY are you complaining?

2) Allow me to quit Finder when I’m playing a game to free up system resources

I hope you realize that Finder is insignificantly small when it comes to resource usage. I’m looking at my Activity Monitor now, and Finder is using 11MB of RAM. The freaking Activity Monitor itself is using 13MB! iChat is using 20MB, and TERMINAL is using 16MB of RAM (and I’m not even running a task). So hopefully, you’ll realize that your games will run 0% faster and better with Finder disabled.

3) Include standard OpenGL, and stop using the 3D rendering capabilities of the video card to render text, OR, make it so I can easily disable those ‘features’

… I shouldn’t even have to comment on this. Standard OpenGL? I’m pretty certain that OS X doesn’t use Abnormal OpenGL or whatever you’d like to call it. Also, I don’t know if you know this, but *gasp* OS X doesn’t use the graphics card to render OS GUI elements when you’re playing a fullscreen game! Strange, right? Do you think that while you’re playing your game, OS X is in the background CONSTANTLY re-rendering unchanged GUI components such as text? People eventually will have to get it in their head that OS X does not utilize the GPU unless you’re actually doing things in the GUI that might prompt a rendering change. I bet that if they didn’t use GPU-accelerated GUIs (AKA, if they were Windows), then you’d bitch about how the windows and menus clip and tear and take forever to refresh… OH, and by the way, you CAN (mostly) disable GPU acceleration “easily”. /Developer/Applications/Performance Tools/Quartz Debug.app -> Tools -> Disable Quartz Extreme. Sheesh…

4) Have OS X recognize aftermarket batteries that have a larger capacity, and adjust the battery readings accordingly.

Again… ????? So, if I understand you, you’d like OS X to add special subroutines to detect the 0.0000000001% of users that use a non-standard, unauthorized laptop battery so the power readings are correct? First of all, I don’t see why they would be incorrect to begin with. Second, that’s like asking Dell to be compatible with Gateway laptop batteries. I’m not sure if you’ve had any business training, but it’s typically in the best interest of a company to make things like this proprietary.

5) Allow me to have more than 1GB of RAM without the OS making a mess in it’s pants.

Ah yes. Already commented on this. Of course, you didn’t mention WHICH PowerBook G4 you have, so it’s hard for me to correctly criticize you…

Although it’s good that Apple is including new features in Leopard, I feel left behind, and a little annoyed. I have a PowerBook G4, running Mac OS X 10.4.8, and I can’t have more than 1GB of RAM. If I do, my wireless will randomly disconnect and I cannot reconnect without rebooting. Not to beat Apple with their own OS, but I find Spotlight, Expose, and Dashboard to be completely useless. I dislike the way that these ‘features’ use up all the RAM that I’m limited to, which I would otherwise be using to make my Photoshop experience bearable. Just running Photoshop and Firefox (I have never liked Safari… for reasons that I won’t bore you with) makes the machine slower than molasses in the cold Canadian winter. Apple, if you have any prayer of getting me to shell out money for Leopard, you can make the following ‘improvements’ to your ‘features’.

1) Allow me to disable Dashboard from the System Preferences (not using Onyx)

2) Allow me to quit Finder when I’m playing a game to free up system resources

3) Include standard OpenGL, and stop using the 3D rendering capabilities of the video card to render text, OR, make it so I can easily disable those ‘features’

4) Have OS X recognize aftermarket batteries that have a larger capacity, and adjust the battery readings accordingly.

5) Allow me to have more than 1GB of RAM without the OS making a mess in it’s pants.

So you have this demo code out in the wild, which can run on Apples blazing new Intel hardware [which also runs Windows] stirring up heat all over the place. And Jobs *knows* it’s superior to anything else out there.

he can’t lose.

also, Leopard [full release] will be considerably cheaper than Vista, whenever the hell that finally gets dumped on PC users.