Making great applications (small and big) for the mac is a lot easier now with Tiger development tools. Sometimes its the innovative aspects of of these tools that matters most. Other times its just the fact that they are bundled into the operating system that is important because it shows Apples commitment to improving them.
With the Intel announcement, Universal Binaries are essential, and I expect this to work as advertised. Distribution for these new binaries is troublesome, however, and I wish Apple would open up there "Software Update" system so that other vendors could use it to notify the user of updates. Some vendors will exploit this to get upgrade fees from their customers, however, so Apple should do what they can to discourage this practice.
Code translation with Rosetta becomes important during the Intel transition, but if it works OK, then I think most folks will tolerate it. The important change here is that Classic apps will no longer be supported
Brent Simmon's called Automator the sleeper hit of Tiger, and I have to agree with this. It breaks down the boundaries of applications and provides a cooperative environment for performing a wide variety of computational workflows. It is important because it allows people to automate tasks they already do manually - this alone is significant. To the extent that a workgroup can model their workflow with actions, Automator lets them create applications that run it, enforce policies, and notify users about progress. The key is that they won't need a programmer to do most of what they want - just one tech-saavy mac user in the group can program the workflow and since its self-explanatory, others could alter/improve it over time. This will be a huge hit in scientific areas where custom workflows and very common. I hope to see branching in Automator 1.1, however, so that workflows can be more complex and not require use of non-workflow programming to handle exceptional data.
Core Data schema and form designs tools are very nice. ER modeling and form development tools are pretty much what you'd expect from these. Tight integration with XCode and not having to use Oracle are big wins.
For Java developers, the Hotspot C2 Compiler for Intel means a bump up in speed for longer running programs (2.3X on Scimark 2.0 benchmark), and other intel-based optimizations to come.
Dashboard widgets are for "Marketing and Promotion" says one friend (I agree). Its a way for companies to advertise their internet services on the Mac, without having to learn Cocoa. It will also provide seed applications for Apple's future foray into home info-entertainment products.
