Mac OS X.1 Upgrade

Improvements across the board within the operating system and support from numerous companies have made OS X a viable upgrade. Internal improvements have brought the performance and reliability up to professional levels, while software from such companies as Canon, Epson and Hewlett-Packard make a wide variety of printers and scanners compatible. As soon as 10.1 was released, we upgraded our Dual G4-450 with nothing but positive results. With multiple hard drives on our system, we're able to dedicate drives for booting into either OS 9 or OS X, thus ensuring backward compatibility.

However, since upgrading over a month ago, the only times we've needed to boot into OS 9 was for using a Firewire card reader (for reading compact flash cards from a digital camera) and only because the drivers aren't yet available. But you don't need a high speed G4 to use it. It's now become the default OS on our Powerbook G3-400 (Firewire model), responding quickly and running reliably. Airport networking works flawlessly, and Internet and intranet access is rock solid.

In addition to performance improvements, Apple has added DVD-video playback. Since OS X is a true multi-tasking operating system, you haven't really watched a DVD until you've made it a half-size window in the background while checking e-mail, shopping on Amazon.co.uk and copying files at the same time--without skipping a frame. iTunes for OS X will play and encode music, as well as burn audio CDs using an internal or external CD-R/RW drive. If you need to burn data CDs, simply insert a blank disc. OS X will detect it and ask how you'd like to format it: Mac/PC data or audio CD?

Additional improvements in AppleScripting, a customisable Dock, videocard and printer drivers, and networking add to the appeal. One important missing feature is the ability to print to a remote USB printer. Using OS 9, Apple included the USB Printer Sharing control panel, which allowed remote Macs to print to any USB-connected printer on a local Mac. This worked flawlessly for us when printing from our Powerbook to an Epson 1280 connected to our G4. However, there seems to be no such facility for printing to remote USB printers under OS X. Aside from that, OS X on a contemporary Mac is a solid performer and a glimpse of how things ought to work. --Mike Caputo

I've been running it on my 233 mhz iMac for several months now and have found it incredibly stable. Once I'd bumped up the RAM a bit (well, more than a bit - this system likes RAM and uses it well) it's been humming along at a good pace for what's really quite an old machine nowadays.

The new update is out and 10.1 is an impressive update - performance is boosted at least threefold and best of all you can burn CDs from the desktop with just one click - something we'd been missing in X until now. Lots of the hardware incompatibilities have been ironed out and hardware manufacturers seem to be coming out with updated drivers in much more force.

The best thing is due in a couple of weeks time - Office v.X for OSX. It looks fantastic (and according to beta testers it is fantastic) and there's a really good deal for Office 2001 owners in the UK. If you've bought your copy of Office 2001 between Sept 1st and Nov 30th you can upgrade to the version for OSX for the cost of postage and packing(I should say here that I do not work for Microsoft)! Go to Microsoft's UK site and follow the links to Office for Mac to find out more. It has to be one of the best deals I've seen them offer for a while....


Unix as it should be   August 9, 2001
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

I've been using unix in various forms for about 12 years now and think Apple have a winner here. Mac OSX hides all the unix characteristic from the user, so much so that I had no worries in installing it on my 50-something mother's iMac. She's never heard of unix and doesn't know she's now using it!.

From a non-technical user's point of view, OSX is just a cosmetic facelift for Apple's OS9. You will not need to learn any new cryptic commands or understand anything related to unix.

For the more adventurous or those familiar with unix, OSX does give you a full unix system without compromises. You'll get a shell (tcsh default) interface to all aspects of the system, and thanks to the beautiful Aqua window manager you'll drool over the best looking unix GUI ever made.

All types of user will enjoy the ever growing library of software, free, shareware and commercial that's appearing for OSX. After only 4 or 5 months, there's already more software available for OSX than I ever had access to with the other unix systems I used. At this rate, software support for OSX is extremely promising.

Right now (Aug 2001) I would recommend people wait a few more weeks for OSX 1.1 to be released, since it promises significant speed improvements and wider hardware support.