As Apple polishes Mac OS X, its “brawny, beautiful new operating system,” Mac lovers are “rejoicing” at the prospect of new capabilities, Charles Haddad writes in his Byte of the Apple column for Business Week Online.
“If online discussion boards and my e-mail are any indication, OS X has already won the hearts of a cadre of hardcore users,” Haddad writes. “They forgive OS X its eccentricities and failings the way a doting teacher excuses the occasional bumblings of a child prodigy.”
Things are looking up, he opines. The first versions of Mac OS X “ran about as fast as coagulated molasses,” but now runs a little faster, though its “still sluggish,” Haddad says. So why are developers hanging in there with the still developing, next generation operating system? Because it combines good looks and stability.
“It’s this combination of beauty and microprocessing brawn that’s winning over developers, inspiring them to design ever more powerful software,” Haddad says. “Now they dream of creating a Web browser that doesn’t crash every day, and of streaming video that streams in real-time. This is the potential of OS X in coming years, if not months.”
The columnist admits that a “sizable minority” is complaining that Apple has failed to provide a reliable set of programming tools to make finished applications. But he’s betting that “most of this griping will subside as Apple finalizes OS X and releases a finished set of programming tools and guidelines.”
Version 10.1 of Mac OS X is due next month. It’s supposed to add much better performance, more printing support, beefed-up networking abilities, a tweaked user interface, DVD playback, CD burning, and new system menus that places controls for such features as volume, display, battery life, and AirPort on the menu bar, among other features.