The Irish Times’ Ted Felton calls OS X “probably the most impressive consumer operating system ever written” in his sometimes humorous, sometimes acerbic analysis of Apple and its new product, entitled Can Apple score a perfect ten?
Felton spends much of his time on a retrospective of Apple. The writer gives props to Apple for changing the world with the introduction of the Apple II back in 1977, but says that the company “failed to make much of a dent” in the computing universe since the introduction of the Mac in 1984. To that end, he blames corporate greed and mismanagement, along with Microsoft’s concerted focus on making Windows the standard.
Since Apple starting asking customers to think different, said Felton, the Mac world has since had distinct improvements. More powerful Macs, have followed, and now a new, robust operating system has replaced the aged Mac OS of old.
Felton aims a few criticisms at Mac OS X, however. Mac OS X is held back, said Felton, by a dearth of native applications and some cosmetic faults. Felton also criticizes some stylistic embellishments to OS X, like cumbersome animations and a “well intentioned but pointless” interface.
OS X’s big achievement, said Felton, is its ability to bring the user friendliness of the Mac to a tried-and-true UNIX architecture. “The point of Macintosh is, and always has been, to make life easier,” said Felton.
“OS X won’t be causing Bill Gates and the gang in Redmond, Washington, too many sleepless nights, but with luck it will give Macintosh a new lease of life and the Mac faithful — daft bunch though they may be — something, finally, to celebrate,” said Felton.
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