macOS Archive

"Both John Siracusa at Ars Technica and Bruce Tognazzini have raised the same concerns, with Tog warning that Apple's dismal OS X user interface was leading the company into a New-Coke style disaster. But if we can indulge you, this is a battle-tested road report on rubbing along with OS X. That's eight months spent on our own personal kit, trying to justify the investment. And watching the gold CD-ROM cursor spinning, and spinning." Read the rest of the story at TheRegister.

Macslash.com reports that according to the Software Update readme, the 30.3 MB MacOSX upgrade brings the following: "The 10.1.2 update delivers improvements and new functionality, as well as expanded peripheral support for Mac OS X. Enhancements include: Updated and new USB and FireWire device support, including FireWire-based digital cameras, PC Card storage devices, including media readers, IrDA modem support for FireWire-based PowerBook models, Audio, Display, and Speech improvements, Networking and Printing improvements, AirPort v2.0, Apache web server v1.3.22, AppleScript v1.8". Update: Of the version that potentially will become 10.2 or 10.5, leaked screenshots have been released on the web.

"Mac OS X 10.2 may not make it to Macworld Expo San Francisco early next January. Sources close to the development of Apple's Unix-based operating system, cited by eWeek, claim that the major update won't be released until the summer, to cash in on the back-to-school period. In its place, Apple will roll-out more minor updates, just as it did a little while back with Mac OS X 10.1.1. A further update, 10.1.2, is expected early this month, having recently been seeded to developers. Then, in early spring, Apple will release what will presumably be known as version 10.1.3, the source said." TheRegister reports. In related news, thanks to cracking details posted on the Web, Mac diehards discovered a way to turn a complimentary MacOSX 10.1 upgrade CD into a free copy of the operating system itself.

"Phil Schiller, Apple's VP of worldwide marketing, has gone on the record to suggest March as the date when new Macs ship with OS X as default. Macs have shipped with both the old and the new operating systems preloaded since May, but with OS 9.x as default, and Apple has been pretty cagey so far on even suggesting a date for the big switch." TheRegister reports.

Apple has posted Mac OS X 10.1.1 and it is installable via via System Preferences' Software Update pane. Last week's Installer Update 1.0 must be installed first. MacOSX 10.1.1 "delivers improvements for many USB and FireWire devices, including support for additional digital cameras, and overall improvements to CD and DVD Burning. The update includes enhancements to AFP, SMB and WebDAV networking, updates to the Finder and Mail applications, as well as improved support for printing. In addition, hardware accelerated video mirroring has been enabled for the new PowerBook G4." The download weighs in at 14.4 MB.

"This is the third and final installment of my MacOSX 10.1 saga. For six weeks now, I have attempted to use 10.1 exclusively during my workday. When I first embarked on this adventure, I knew it would take several weeks to thoroughly test-run the new OS. In part two of my empirical extravaganza, I revealed software that I've found indispensable under 10.1, and admitted that I cheat daily by rebooting into 9.2.1 to perform backups. Now, I will present my final conclusions." Editorial by Stephan Somogyi.

OS News' review of Mac OS X last week certainly stirred up controversy, partially because some die hard Mac fans perceived that it was improper for an outsider (someone who is not an everyday Mac user) to me making broad criticisms after only a superficial introduction to the New operating system. Well, folks, that's why they call it a review. We thought that Apple's major new OS also deserved a road test, and there were two very important events in Mac OS X history just a few days ago that toppled the last major obstacle to making it ready for millions of Mac users to start using it as their everyday OS: the 10.1 release and the release of Microsoft Office X. Last week, I made the switch and started using Mac OS X as my everyday OS. Here's how it went:

I went on and wrote a review about MacOSX 10.0.4 a month ago, but it was never finished as I had to fly to France for my own wedding. I came back and MacOSX 10.1 had been released. I scrapped completely the old text, as 10.1 brings some more speed and new features to the system, and restarted writting the review from scratch.

At Seybold Expo Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that MacOSX 10.1 would be available on September 29th. Retail price is $129, having an upgrade CD shipped to you from Apple is $19.99, and it will be available in all Apple Retail stores (and official resellers' stores) for free. Update: Saturday. A visit to our local neighborhood Apple Store (Tyson's Corner, VA) yielded no free CD. Apparently over 1000 people lined up at 6 am this morning to get theirs.

A PC World article says that all indications point to Apple releasing OS X 10.1 this month, as promised. The article covers some of the shortcomings that users dealt with in the 10.0 release, and how they've been addressed with 10.1. The article also mentions that Microsoft Office for OS X is expected in November. Update: A news.com article has more details, and reports that current Mac OS X users will be able to obtain the upgrade CD at no cost from Apple dealers and Apple retail stores. Apple had originally said it would charge $20 for the upgrade.