So Mac OS 8.5 finally arrived on Saturday, and there was much rejoicing (yayyy). For the most part, people seem pleased with Apple's new system software release, which appears to be a solid upgrade with enough fun little features to justify the $99 retail price tag. For our part, we ventured bravely into unknown territory to secure a copy-- namely, the newish CompUSA in Cambridge. We've never been great fans of CompUSA ("Your Dank, Spooky Warehouse Filled With Computer-Type Stuff!"), whose stores seem universally underlit and staffed with brusque and unknowledgable salespeople as a general rule. Not that we haven't found some great exceptions: in the past, we've encountered a few genuinely helpful and technically-savvy CompUSA employees, but we should have radio-tagged them as members of an endangered species, because their breed is few and far between. As for exceptions to the rule that CompUSA stores must be vast, yawning warehouses lit by a few ill-placed kerosene lanterns placed atop some dusty and teetering stacks of dot-matrix printers, we hadn't encountered one until Saturday...

Cambridge's CompUSA is actually mostly on the second floor of what is almost a small office-type building; upon entering the first-floor lobby, we were greeted with the sight of several customer service representatives sitting along the back wall, and an escalator up to the second floor, which was the main store area. Surprisingly enough, the atmosphere was almost pleasant, as the ceilings weren't six miles high and the lighting felt more appropriate for a department store than for, say, that giant government warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Most CompUSA's we've visited somehow manage to make us feel claustrophobic despite the empty space overhead; this store, conversely, seemed more cozy than flat-out cramped. It was definitely a more pleasant shopping atmosphere than we had expected.

Some things really are constants in the CompUSA universe, though. All of the PowerBooks were either off completely, or stuck at the Password Protection screen, making them useless as demo models. There were several poor souls (ourselves included) wandering the aisles of the tiny Apple store-within-a-store, looking lost and vulnerable, with nary a salesperson to be found. (There were plenty wheeling and dealing fifteen feet away in the PC section, of course.) Even on Mac OS 8.5's intro day, there was nobody demonstrating the software-- but it was after six by the time we got there, and we're sure we just missed the festivities. On the way out, we were eyed suspiciously by a security guard who checked our receipt before letting us leave. And while the atmosphere wasn't really appropriate for the presence of a giant stocking ladder blocking the Apple area, instead the Mac OS 8.5 boxes were on a shelf obscured by a big supporting pillar. But hey, it is a CompUSA, after all...

Speaking of huge warehouse-style retail outlets, have we mentioned that this weekend marks Best Buy's grand opening in New England? There isn't one very close to AtAT's studios yet, so we haven't ventured out to take a look, but one's due to open at a mall in nearby Cambridge fairly soon. Best Buy, you probably recall, used to sell Performas until Apple pulled out of all national retailers except for CompUSA almost a year ago; Best Buy was the first chain reported to be "dropping" its Macs. However, it's also the first dropped retailer to be welcomed back into the Mac fold; as announced last week, Best Buy will start selling iMacs on November 8th, in time for the big holiday buying rush.

Now, we're certainly not getting our hopes up about knowledgable salespeople or good customer service or any of that stuff; we've heard from numerous sources that Best Buy makes CompUSA look like the Apple Company Store. Since the chain sells home appliances and electronics in addition to home computers, Best Buy employees in general are apparently hired with no regard to their computer knowledge or experience. Faithful viewer Barry Hamill notes an article which indicates that this may be changing over time, as Best Buy plans to start hiring some technically-savvy salespeople at each store who will "explain the new products and help [the customers] set up their custom-configured computer or home entertainment systems." But in the meantime, consider Best Buy a place to buy a boxed iMac with little or no help available.

In a way, the iMac is the perfect computer for Best Buy to sell; since it's marketed as more of a computing appliance than a computer itself, people may be more likely to buy it even if they can't talk to a salesperson first. After all, everything you need to know is contained in those thirty-second commercials: plug it in, turn it on, and you're well on your way to sending your first email message. And since Best Buy claims to sell one out of every three computers in cities where they have one or more of their 300 stores, we're very interested to see what this deal will mean to the sale of iMacs to first-time computer buyers.

Okay, we've only been messing with Mac OS 8.5 for a couple of days, but so far, we dig it. The Themes support is fun, but we really wish the software had shipped with the holdover themes from Copland, as originally planned. Sherlock's cool, though not necessarily all that helpful to us-- we pretty much only ever use one Internet search engine, and we're almost always already surfing in a browser when we need to search. And only time will tell if "Find By Content" will because invaluable to us, but right now it's more of a nifty tech demo than a necessary tool. All in all, it's a likeable upgrade, but one we consider somewhere between System 7.6 and Mac OS 8.0 in terms of new and improved features provided-- and neither of those upgrades cost anywhere near $99 to owners of the immediately-prior system versions.

But we were willing to consider Mac OS 8.5 "reasonably priced" because it includes a free upgrade to QuickTime 3 Pro-- a $30 value. Then again, we have a video capture card, so editing QuickTime movies is something we want to do; for most buyers, QuickTime Pro may be little more than a way to stop that spam-like ad from popping up every day. (Yes, we know about the date trick.) Anyway, after installing the upgrade late Saturday night, we registered our purchase at Apple's web site, which, according to the included documentation, was supposed to result in our receiving email with a QuickTime Pro unlock key. We got the confirmation email-- but with no unlock key. And after cruising some web sites, we found we weren't the only ones. According to MacNN, Apple's now planning on snail-mailing those unlock codes one week after the online registration, which directly contradicts the information in the box. So much for e-commerce and instant gratification.

That's okay; we're willing to wait a week or so, we suppose. In the meantime, we'll just keep on playing with the "Soundtrack" feature. It's a blast to hear what you're doing as you're doing it-- in stereo, no less. And while the default soundset is fun, we highly recommend faithful viewer Todd Wheeler's Marathon soundset, which uses sounds from Bungie's classic games. Nothing makes us happier than hearing those terminal access sounds while clicking on and scrolling through a menu...