In the WSJ today, Walter Mossberg reviews Apple’s upcoming OS upgrade called Tiger. Apple could not have asked for a better review from the most prestigious technology reviewer. Walter just plain loves tiger.

(Tiger) …finally solves the missing file problem…

(Tiger’s) …key feature, called Spotlight, is the first universal, integrated search system ever offered as part of a mainstream consumer PC operating system…. This is a big deal.

Spotlight is only one of the impressive new features in Tiger…

(Mac’s are) …the best choice for average consumers doing the most common computing tasks.

The new Apple system boasts some key capabilities Microsoft won’t introduce for another 18 months or so…

…Tiger is a beautiful and powerful operating system that advances personal computing.

Wow!

That said, Mr. Mossberg does have one issue with Tiger. In some applications, it tends to be slow — displaying the spinning “waiting” icon. This seems to be specific to just a few applications (like Apple’s email program), so is probably not a huge deal. In addition, Apple is aware of the issue, and says it plans on fixing it in the future.

Unfortunately, Apple’s share of the PC market is very low at 2.3% (but up 0.3% in the first three months of this year) according to IDC. Morgan Stanley estimates that Apple may achieve upwards of a 5% market share this year from the iPod “halo” effect and the new release of Tiger — a far cry from the 16% share that Apple held in the mid-1980s.

Hopefully Apple can gain some market share to become a credible competitor to Microsoft. The operating system market is long overdue for some competition. Windows is so twentieth century.