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Sherlock For Hire (5/14/99)
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Remember when Mac OS 8.5 first came out, and Apple went into hype overdrive? Steve Jobs went so far as to say that installing 8.5 was "like getting a brand new Mac for $99." Now, don't get us wrong-- we love Mac OS 8.5, and after having used it all this time we find using an 8.1 system a little confining. It's just that we really don't feel like we got "brand new Macs" in the bargain. Still, we can hardly blame them for trying; after all, "Get a native version of AppleScript, an improved Find File, and a few nifty interface enhancements for $99" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
So if you remember those times, you probably recall that one of Apple's biggest selling points for Mac OS 8.5 was Sherlock, which, until something like three minutes before the software went off to the manufacturing plant to be pressed onto millions of CD-ROMs, was called "Find File 2.0." (There's nothing like a new name to stir up consumer interest, right?) In fact, if you search for "Sherlock" in the Mac OS Help system you won't find anything; they never had enough time to splice the new name into all the help files. Regardless, Sherlock was more than just a new name: it could index your hard drives and search them for content, and it could also search the Internet. Pretty cool-- not exactly a brand new Mac, but somewhat useful and a nice gimmick for the marketing folks to play up.
Little did we know, however, that Apple had such big plans for Sherlock. First it came to light that Apple had hooked up with Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble so that a cut of any sales originating from a Sherlock search went straight into Apple's coffers. And now it looks like Apple's reaching for the sky with Mac OS 8.7's Sherlock II, which may turn out to be the way to comparison-shop on the Internet. A MacWEEK article examines the possibilities of Sherlock turning into the ultimate e-shopping "portal;" you'll be able to type in what you want to buy, and Sherlock will return a list of sites that can sell it to you, ranked by price. There'll be little reason to use anything but Sherlock II to buy your stuff online. But we all know how portals make money: ads. So will Sherlock turn into the next big "THIS SPACE FOR HIRE" desktop utility? Heck, if it really becomes as good as it has the potential to be, why not?
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SceneLink (1533)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 5/14/99 episode: May 14, 1999: Start warming up those brains, because in the future you'll need them to control your Macs. Meanwhile, Apple prepares to turn Sherlock II into the ultimate price comparison e-shopping tool, and Microworkz, the self-proclaimed kings of the cheapo PC, may be having some problems meeting their obligations...
Other scenes from that episode: 1532: Now THAT'S Mind Control (5/14/99) Twenty-first century, here we come. A few days ago, AtAT's collective "wow alert" got tripped by the upcoming advances in voice technology-- not so much the announcement that Dragon Systems was finally planning to release a decent continuous speech dictation system for the Mac, mind you; while that's nice, that's more of a catch-up for the Mac side than a cool futuristic advance... 1534: So Where's WEBzter? (5/14/99) Despite that a third of all iMac purchases are going to new computer users and a healthy chunk are being bought to replace Wintel systems, the overall attitude on the PC side of the fence remains hostile to the whole iMac phenomenon...
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