Introducing Mac OSX.

January 10, 2001 12:06 AM

Introducing Mac OSX. Due for release on Sat., March 24, 2001, at $129 a pop, mac users of the world, let the hoopla begin!!!
posted by leo (21 comments total)

(And my friends from the non-mac world, remember: you look so much nicer when you're sporting a positive mental attitude -- share in our joy/relief if not in our OS).
posted by leo at 12:16 AM on January 10, 2001

um, Mac OSuX ?
posted by lagado at 4:13 AM on January 10, 2001

I think iDVD is bigger news than the OS

/2 cents
posted by Mick at 5:32 AM on January 10, 2001

I agree with mick. Someone buy me one, and one of those snazzy cameras.
posted by corpse at 5:52 AM on January 10, 2001

At this point it's gotten so that the arrival of OSX is like the Red Sox winning the series: what will be do when it actually happens? OSX (or at least the underlying concept) has been slipping since I was a wee lad...

I wonder how it will turn out. The idea of hiding working, accessible BSD under the covers is anathema to the way Apple has run their company for the last twenty years. I'm optimistic, even though I no longer own a working Mac.
posted by tingley at 6:30 AM on January 10, 2001

I think ensuring that BSD is accessible is a good step forward.

The OSX interface is a pretty slick GUI (debatable, as everything is) and for the majority of users going deep into the OS will be completely uneccesary. For the first time though, Mac users really do have the option to more deeply explore their system and see how well they can blow it up.
posted by cCranium at 6:34 AM on January 10, 2001

I dunno - I was really uncomfortable with the Beta, and much prefered my OS 9.

Jobs demonstrated some really nice UI improvements at MacWorld, but I'm still suspicious. How can my apps run as well as they do in OS 9 if they're being processed by an emulator (Classic)?

Still, the announcement that Maya will be one of the first apps for OSX is REALLY exciting. This may just work out after all . . .
posted by aladfar at 6:57 AM on January 10, 2001

i'll stick with 9.0.4 (mebbe 9.1), thanks...
posted by judomadonna at 7:33 AM on January 10, 2001

Personally I'm bowing down to the god of Protected Memory. That alone is worth the hundred or so bucks. The misgivings I have go a long way -- from the decision to go with the Next model instead of BeOs to Jobs' problems with the Traditional Finder (which I love) but, hey, if any of you Mac people out there are like me, you'll have been waiting for this one for quite a long time. See you at the overnight vigil to get the first copy of the thing.
posted by leo at 8:02 AM on January 10, 2001

I've been using OS X Public Beta, and I've been suitably impressed. I don't use it every day (not until Photoshop and BBEdit are native) but in combo with my iBook as a portable web development platform it can't be beat. I mean, really. A very decent www browser (IE5.5) and all the php/mysql/etc I can eat.

Oh, and the builtin mail client is a joy.
posted by mattw at 8:23 AM on January 10, 2001

It's true that using OSX is going to be frustrating while all your favorite apps need to run in emulation, but I would imagine 95% of everyone's favorite apps will be "carbonized" within 6 months.

I'm quite encouraged by all the Finder/customization tweaks they announced this time around. I love Aqua, but the X Beta still isn't as easy to use as the excellent OS9.

When they get all my apps running natively in OSX and these nice enhancements in full swing, I won't look back to OS9.
posted by jragon at 8:31 AM on January 10, 2001

it's not emulation in the sense that you guys seem to be suggesting -- it's not like running virtual pc, where all the instructions need to work overtime to get translated from the pentium instruction set to the powerpc one, slowing everything down. rather, it's just a matter of making sure that classic apps can get launched within the os x environment -- once the os9 stuff gets going (which, admittedly, requires a bit of a wait) there's a lot less overhead than there would be with something like virtual pc. it's the native chip.

in fact, using the beta, i actually discovered that some of my classic programs ran faster, rather than slower. oddly enough.
posted by monstro at 9:24 AM on January 10, 2001

Some of mine faves are a little faster too - could it be because there are extensions and other things that don't get loaded when you run OS 9 as an OS X process in the beta version? There's some stuff that wasn't designed to work in that version, specifically things like USB peripherals and etc.
posted by m.polo at 9:55 AM on January 10, 2001

in fact, using the beta, i actually discovered that some of my classic programs ran faster, rather than slower. oddly enough.

This is probably because of the greatly improved virtual memory in OS X, which Classic apps benefit from whether they know it or not.

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 12:43 PM on January 10, 2001

The OS X version of IE is just 5.0 recompiled. If it sports a 5.5 version ID, that's a mistake.
posted by sudama at 3:25 PM on January 10, 2001

"Mistakes" are supposed to be accidental.
posted by rodii at 4:48 PM on January 10, 2001

Hey... if OS X is overdue, so be it. I would rather have a finished product then one that is rushed and bug ridden. (Do I even have to say who I'm implying?)
posted by thirdball at 10:55 PM on January 11, 2001

"Overdue" in this case is something of an understatement. While this incarnation of the "next generation MacOS" is only a couple of years late, the next-gen OS itself is now some six years behind schedule, having been originally announced as "Copland" in the early nineties.

The truly cynical may observe that Apple's Advanced Technology Group began working on "Pink", which was later to become the "Taligent" joint venture with IBM, all the way back in 1986.

If they actually do end up shipping MacOS X this year (and, I'll admit, signs suggest that they may be able to pull it off this time), it will be the end of an extremely long wait.

-Mars, who gave up waiting a while ago
posted by Mars Saxman at 12:34 AM on January 12, 2001

It is horribly behind schedule, but it's not like anyone else has come up with anything better in the interim. (Yes, this includes Linux.)
posted by aaron at 2:30 PM on January 12, 2001

Microsoft actually released a 5.5b1 version of Internet Explorer for Mac at last year's MacHack conference. It was a Classic application then but it did have a few (minor) new features, and I would expect that the Mac OS X version is a further refinement.
posted by kindall at 8:43 PM on January 12, 2001

I'm fairly certain it's not. It's IE 5 for OS X.

The IE 5.5b1 was supposed to allow you to create toolbar buttons, right? I couldn't get that to work -- probably because it was beta.
posted by sudama at 8:26 PM on January 15, 2001