Mac OS X turns 5 years old

[Durandal]

Mac OS X has turned 5 years old today, with 10.0 shipping on 24 March, 2001. Ars Technica has a nice little piece about 5 years of OS X.

A lot of people think that the iMac is what brought Apple as a company back from the grave, but it was really OS X. As John Siracusa points out, the iMac was really a stay of execution. Apple needed a modern operating system to really keep up with what Microsoft had already been delivering with Windows 2000.

OS X brought Apple a whole lot of geek cred, and a lot of computer enthusiasts have gone from dismissing Macs as toys with no legitimate uses to having at the very least a passing interest in the platform if not trying to get the money for a new Intel Mac mini together to just play around a little. It's refreshing to tell fellow geeks that I use a Mac without them telling me what a moron I am. Now supporting OS X an integrating it with existing infrastructure is something a lot of people are starting to take seriously.

OS X has come a very long way since 10.0. The development cycle has been a welcome relief from typical OS releases, where everything just gets more bloated and slower, like in Windows or even the later versions of the old Mac OS. OS X has only gotten better and faster with each release. It's a great for regular use and development, and I'm happy I stuck with Apple for the past 5 years.

[Ace Pace]

Almost makes me intrested in picking one up.

[The Kernel]

Oh come on Durandal, you know as well as anyone else that it was the iPod that saved Apple, not OSX. You just don't want to admit that your religion was saved by a scroll wheel.

EDIT: This is not to say that I don't think that OSX was a tremendous achievment for Apple and an excellent OS in its own right (which I do).

[Durandal]

Apple was well out of the hole by the time the iPod came around. Sure, they weren't in the position they are today, but they were pretty well turning themselves around by that point. And the iPod didn't really become big until Apple released a Windows-compatible version. By then, 10.2 was already getting glowingly positive reviews.

Without a modern OS centerpiece to tie the digital hub together, all of the other stuff is just fluff.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Computers for humanities majors who want to look cool while having not a clue about how a computer works.

[Durandal]

Computers for humanities majors who want to look cool while having not a clue about how a computer works.

Very funny, coming from someone who thinks "color" is spelled with an "ou".

[Admiral Valdemar]

Very funny, coming from someone who thinks "color" is spelled with an "ou".

That's because it is, you damned colonial. Now get back to loading that tea into the hold, I've crumpets to finish eating.

[RThurmont]

Actually I would disagree with the notion that any single product "saved" Apple. In business, companies must continually develop new and exciting products in order to thrive. Apple's problems in the mid 1990s were largely due to the fact that Apple's leaders (Sculley*cough*) had been too busy dabbling in politics and promoting pet projects like the disastrous Newton PDA to pay any attention to the serious competitive threat Microsoft was becoming. Spindler, who replaced Sculley, lacked the leadership skills needed to bring focus back to Apple, and so the situation only became worse. A series of factors ultimately resulted in Apple's turnaround, and they were:

1. The cost-cutting initiatives of Dr. Amelio, Spindler's successor (which substantially reduced Apple's operating costs, preserving funds needed for product development activities).

2. The appointment of Steve Jobs as Interim CEO in 1997.

3. A renewed focus on product design, starting with the 20th Anniversary Mac and continuing with the successful iMac.

4. Improved advertising and marketing iniatives.

5. The elimination of superfluous and loss-making businesses and the streamlining of the organization under Jobs.

6. OS X.

7. iPod+iTunes

Apple at the moment appears to be in a continual upward cycle. I could see a scenario in which Apple could easily control 25% of the consumer PC market, considering the continued dominance of the moronic "Performance+Price" marketing mentality at Apple's competitors. Apple's main weaknesses include the lack of a compelling product range for corporate users, and the lack of a PDA/smartphone product (analysts have been practically begging for an iPod-derived PDA for years now).

[BabelHuber]

Apple at the moment appears to be in a continual upward cycle. I could see a scenario in which Apple could easily control 25% of the consumer PC market, considering the continued dominance of the moronic "Performance+Price" marketing mentality at Apple's competitors.

I've heard statements like this one for years, and it never has come true. Apple is a niche player right now, let's see if it stays this way or not.

I don't want to start a flame war here, but in my opinion the crucial phase of Apple and the whole computer industry was during the 1980ies:

In the 1970ies, everybody and his uncle released computers with proprietary operating systems (Apple, Commodore, Atari, Sinclair etc.). Standard operating systems like CP/M couldn't achieve market penetration.

In the 1980ies, with the IBM PC and its clones and with PC-DOS/MS-DOS, an industrie standard was created.

The MS-DOS PCs 20 years ago often were technically inferiour to Apples, Amigas and Atari STs, and yet they succeeded on the market.

The reason for this was that Apple, Atari and Commodore didn't realize that there was a need for a standard, instead they tried to remain competitive in their niches (Amiga in graphics and games, Atari for musicians and Apple for the desktop publishing and WYSIWYG-crowd).

We know who this turned out: Amigas and STs died, and Apple survived as a niche player.

I really do think that if Apple, Commodore and Atari would have formed a standard OS basing on the 68000-series CPU twenty years ago, the PCmarket would look different today.

[RedImperator]

My iBook G4 has turned me into a full fledged Mac whore. Yeah, I could have gotten a Dell for half the price, but by now it would be choked with malware and the machine itself would be getting creaky. It's a great operating system running on well-engineered hardware.

[Admiral Valdemar]

No one wants a Dell. Buy IBM if anything, or Fujitsu-Siemens and Medion, which I've only had good experiences with. As for malware and crap, I get around that by running Ubuntu, not that magnet for virtual crap that is Windows. I may not be one to fork out for a Mac at extortionate prices, but their mentality is more in line with my way of thinking than MS'.

[phongn]

Mac OS X has turned 5 years old today, with 10.0 shipping on 24 March, 2001. Ars Technica has a nice little piece about 5 years of OS X.

Man, NeXTStep is a lot older than five years old

[Admiral Valdemar]

Man, NeXTStep is a lot older than five years old

Gawd, Phong, you are, like, sooo geeky!

[Seggybop]

OS X has only recently reached its greatest level of awesomeness-- that is, running on my cheap Taiwanese PC laptop better than it does on a twice as expensive PowerBook. Yay for OSX86!!

[Praxis]

OS X has only recently reached its greatest level of awesomeness-- that is, running on my cheap Taiwanese PC laptop better than it does on a twice as expensive PowerBook. Yay for OSX86!!

Twice as good...not quite. Since apparently the MacBook Pro is the fastest Windows laptop on the market.

[Durandal]

OS X has only recently reached its greatest level of awesomeness-- that is, running on my cheap Taiwanese PC laptop better than it does on a twice as expensive PowerBook. Yay for OSX86!!

And your cheap Taiwanese laptop probably looks just like a cheap Taiwanese laptop. I'm more than happy to pay Apple's prices for the MacBook Pro, frankly. (And I think they're plenty reasonable.) It is easily the best-looking notebook on the market. It makes everything else look like cheap, plastic crap that's covered in hundreds of meaningless fucking stickers.

Wanting to build your own tower to run OS X I can understand. But I want a laptop that doesn't induce vomiting through its design, and Apple is the only one who delivers on that.

Man, NeXTStep is a lot older than five years old

Okay fine, NeXTStep 6.0 has turned 5 years old.

[mizuno]

Since apparently the MacBook Pro is the fastest Windows laptop on the market.

The windows laptops got beat on photoshop scripts (lol?) but beat the macbook pros in windows media encoding. 7:40s vs 8:07 and 9:17

compare for yourselves
http://www.pcmag.com/image_popup/0,1871 ... 601,00.asp
http://gearlog.com/blogs/gearlog/archiv ... /8212.aspx

[RThurmont]

I'm more than happy to pay Apple's prices for the MacBook Pro, frankly.

I don't know, I have a feeling my ThinkPad X41 Tablet can kick your MacBook's fat ass.

My iBook G4 has turned me into a full fledged Mac whore. Yeah, I could have gotten a Dell for half the price, but by now it would be choked with malware and the machine itself would be getting creaky.

I am posting this from a Dell 8100 built in late 2000 that continues to perform perfectly. My only actual trouble with it was a CD-R drive that went bad (it also had a cheap Maxtor HD that I replaced before it had the opportunity to fail). I upgraded the OS to XP in 2004 and I can safely say, this system is mal-ware free and with a 1.4ghz processor, is still competitive with entry-level systems.

Apple is a niche player right now, let's see if it stays this way or not.

Actually, I would debate whether or not Apple is a niche player in the consumer market. In the business/enterprise market they definitely are, but in the consumer market, I think their machines are broadly competitive with your typical Windows box, especially from the perspective of the non-gamer "average user," in which case the Apple might conceivably appeal to a broader audience than your typical Windows box, thanks to the excellent pre-installed software package and the superior GUI. Apple already has a nice slice of the consumer market, and increasingly, given the level of mainstream applications availible for that platform, the massive stupidity at Microsoft and most of the PC OEMs, and Apple's outstanding brand equity, I see evidence that this slice could grow to represent a huge, massive chunk of that marketspace.

What will really determine Apple's success in the consumer market, near term, is whether or not Vista blows. If it does, Apple's leadership of that segment is, in my opinion, virtually assured.

[Stark]

Vista would have to have significant flaws to fail in the corporate world. My experience with corporate purchasing makes me think any major change will need substantial impetus.

[Durandal]

I'm more than happy to pay Apple's prices for the MacBook Pro, frankly.

I don't know, I have a feeling my ThinkPad X41 Tablet can kick your MacBook's fat ass.

Um ... what? The MacBook has a dual core processor and an ATi X1600 GPU. The X41 has a 1.5 GHz Pentium M and Intel Integrated Graphics. The MacBook would run circles around it.

[Praxis]

Actually, I would debate whether or not Apple is a niche player in the consumer market. In the business/enterprise market they definitely are, but in the consumer market, I think their machines are broadly competitive with your typical Windows box, especially from the perspective of the non-gamer "average user," in which case the Apple might conceivably appeal to a broader audience than your typical Windows box, thanks to the excellent pre-installed software package and the superior GUI. Apple already has a nice slice of the consumer market, and increasingly, given the level of mainstream applications availible for that platform, the massive stupidity at Microsoft and most of the PC OEMs, and Apple's outstanding brand equity, I see evidence that this slice could grow to represent a huge, massive chunk of that marketspace.

What will really determine Apple's success in the consumer market, near term, is whether or not Vista blows. If it does, Apple's leadership of that segment is, in my opinion, virtually assured.

I would have thought it would be the other way- I know many businesses and schools with dozens, sometimes hundreds of Macs, and only a few consumers that own Macs (personally that is, I know many online).

[Seggybop]

OS X has only recently reached its greatest level of awesomeness-- that is, running on my cheap Taiwanese PC laptop better than it does on a twice as expensive PowerBook. Yay for OSX86!!

Twice as good...not quite. Since apparently the MacBook Pro is the fastest Windows laptop on the market.

I'm aware that the MacBook is the best, which is why I said PowerBook. When I got my laptop several months ago, a friend of mine bought a PowerBook with almost identical specs for twice the cost.

And your cheap Taiwanese laptop probably looks just like a cheap Taiwanese laptop. I'm more than happy to pay Apple's prices for the MacBook Pro, frankly. (And I think they're plenty reasonable.) It is easily the best-looking notebook on the market. It makes everything else look like cheap, plastic crap that's covered in hundreds of meaningless fucking stickers.

Apple definitely has the best designs, and I don't understand why other manufacturers aren't copying them more. However, they're not so amazing that they're worth an additional thousand dollars. My computer isn't nice as a Mac, but it could be far worse. Like a Dell or something.

[Stark]

On design, I've noticed people getting brand new x86 laptops that still look like black, square lumps of shit. Its not just the shape: the plastic used and build quality just screams shit. I'd never buy a laptop that wasn't a Mac.

[Durandal]

Apple definitely has the best designs, and I don't understand why other manufacturers aren't copying them more. However, they're not so amazing that they're worth an additional thousand dollars. My computer isn't nice as a Mac, but it could be far worse. Like a Dell or something.

I wasn't aware that you could get a 1.83 GHz CoreDuo notebook with a Radeon X1600 from Dell or whoever for $1000.

EDIT: I just configured a Dell Inspiron E1505 to match the MacBook as much as possible. Here are the MacBook specs.

15.4-inch TFT display with 1440x900 resolution
1.83GHz Intel Core Duo with 2MB shared L2 Cache
667MHz frontside bus
512MB (single SO-DIMM) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
80GB 5400rpm Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128MB GDDR3 memory

Full-size backlit keyboard,
AirPort Extreme
Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
ExpressCard/34 slot
Dual-link DVI video out
Gigabit Ethernet
USB 2.0
FireWire 400
Optical digital and analog audio in/out.
Built-in iSight

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger
Apple Remote

Price: $1999

Here's the Dell configuration.

15.4" TFT
1.83 GHz CoreDuo (2 MB shared cache)
667 MHz FSB
512 MB DDR2 SDRAM
80 GB SATA HDD
8x DVD+/-RW
ATi Radeon X1400 with 256 MB VRAM

10/100 Ethernet
802.11b/g wireless card
Windows XP Pro

Price: $2,019 (before $250 mail-in rebate)

So, you get less for more before the rebate, and even then, the MacBook gives you gigabit ethernet, a built-in camera, BlueTooth 2.0, a better GPU, a back-lit keyboard and a remote. I don't see a huge premium on the MacBook here. In fact, it's very reasonably priced, considering what you get.

[RedImperator]

My iBook G4 has turned me into a full fledged Mac whore. Yeah, I could have gotten a Dell for half the price, but by now it would be choked with malware and the machine itself would be getting creaky.

I am posting this from a Dell 8100 built in late 2000 that continues to perform perfectly. My only actual trouble with it was a CD-R drive that went bad (it also had a cheap Maxtor HD that I replaced before it had the opportunity to fail). I upgraded the OS to XP in 2004 and I can safely say, this system is mal-ware free and with a 1.4ghz processor, is still competitive with entry-level systems.

You've obviously had better experiences with Dell than I have. I've had nothing but problems with them, including a cracked case and keyboard which occasionally stops working. As for keeping Windows malware free, it's possible, but on a broadband connection it's frankly more time, money, and effort than I'm willing to invest when there's an alternative.