If you just can’t get enough of other folks’ opinions of Mac OS X, then you’ll want to check out new CNET, ZDNet, the Independent, and ArsTechnica articles.
Joe Wilcox of CNET thinks OS X feels like a house under construction, but when finished, “what a building it will be.”
“Mac OS X’s Aqua interface is elegant in both styling and access to features,” he writes. “When Apple rolls out — with complete optical drive support and core applications — the Mac OS X welcome mat, the company will have built a sturdy and awe-inspiring structure.”
He does lament what’s currently missing, such as support for CD-RW, DVD, DVD-R and DVD-RAM drives. Wilcox added that, although Apple claims that Mac OS X is Internet ready, missing pieces “tarnish” the operating system’s potential. Despite all this, the columnist finds the next generation operating system filled with potential and a real eye catcher. “I installed Mac OS X on a Titanium PowerBook G4, which I carted down to the local Starbucks coffee shop where I meet high-tech companies when they come a calling,” he wrote. “Within a couple of minutes, I had gathered quite a crowd, first drawn by the PowerBook’s lithe beauty but quickly captivated by Mac OS X’s Aqua interface.”
Meanwhile, in a ZDNet article, Herb Bethoney of eWEEK Labs says OS X could mean a “rough ride for the Mac faithful.”
“With the release of Apple Computer Inc.’s Mac OS X Version 10.0, Macintosh users for the first time have a modern operating system that combines the power of BSD 4.4 Unix with the flexibility of the Mac GUI [graphical user interface],” Bethoney writes. “However, veteran Mac users trying Mac OS X for the first time might feel like they’ve come home to find that strangers have gone through their house, painted the walls attractive colors and rearranged the furniture.”
The article says that OS X still has some “rough edges” (mainly, the aforementioned missing features). For this reason, the author recommends that some Mac users wait a while before upgrading to the next generation operating system. But he thinks that UNIX users should dive right in as OS X combines the “ease of use of the Mac and the familiarity of UNIX.” As for his hands-on use of OS X, Bethoney seemed impressed.
“OS X was easy to install and rock-solid in tests: We never experienced a system crash,” he writes. “That’s not to say that applications didn’t crash, but when they did, they didn’t bring down the entire system. Apple has layered its proprietary interface on top of the Darwin foundation to give Mac OS X a Mac look and feel — most of the time. Unix is directly available via the Terminal application, which gives users command-line access to a full-blown Unix system. Apple also includes such Unix stalwarts as the Apache 1.3 Web server, sendmail, Tcl, Perl and OpenSSL.”
Cliff Joseph of the UK Independent News finds OS X worth the wait. He says the “good news” is that “it really is shaping up to be an impressive operating system, and a worthy successor to the ‘classic’ Mac OS that Mac users are so fond of.” The “bad news” is that (you guessed it) “it still isn’t finished.”
“Switching over to OS X may still be a bit of a shock for long-time Mac users, but the new operating system is full of so many clever little touches that exploring it can be pretty good fun,” Joseph says. “The real question is not whether Mac users will want to make the switch, but when.”
By the way, John Siracus of ArsTechnica, “the PC enthusiast’s resource,” has a seven-part series that looks at the history of Mac OS X. The writer has been following the operating system since its second developer release. His series covers Mac OS X and offers a pretty good mini-manual for using it.