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Paying Some Heavy Dues (9/7/99)
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Geez, it seems like Mac OS 9 is the operating system at the bottom of the karma wheel-- the poor little OS just can't seem to catch a break. In fact, given the sheer number of irritating little annoyances cropping up, we hate to guess what heinous crimes Mac OS 9 must have committed prior to its incipient incarnation. Perhaps it was Windows in a past life? Or even Copland? One thing's for sure, though: whatever the sins of the past may be, Mac OS 9 is surely paying for them now.
First, there's the lawsuit. You've heard all about this: despite knowing full well that there's another operating system out there called OS-9, Steve Jobs just couldn't help himself. "Microware trademark be damned," he said. "Let's call this next release Mac OS 9. It just sounds so right." So Microware sued, and now only time will tell if Mac OS 9 actually ships as "Mac OS 9" and not "Mac OS 3+6" (as faithful viewer Tim Rzeznik suggests) or "Mac OS 32" or "Lemmy" or whatever else Apple winds up having to call it. (Note to Steve: calling it "Windows 2000" is not a constructive, nonlitigious solution-- not that we wouldn't relish a little Apple-Microsoft lawsuit action.)
Next, there's this little matter of massive hard disk corruption that seems to have snuck into one of the latest beta releases of the software. We last saw it referenced in a Mac the Knife article; apparently Beta 6 of the Operating System Still Code-Named Sonata™ was pulled from Apple's developer servers due to a "File Manager bug that can on rare occasions cause disk corruption." Sure, it's better that they catch it in beta than hide under the desks later as thousands of irate customers storm the Cupertino gates with pitchforks and torches following widespread data loss, but still.
Lastly (for now, anyway), there's the fact that one of Mac OS 9's key features may get squashed before it even gets out of the gate. You know how Apple's touting Sherlock 2 as your own personal Internet shopping assistant, or whatever? One of the hip demos that gets trotted out every time a crowd gathers is Sherlock 2's comparison shopping feature-- tell it what you want to buy, and it returns a list of which e-commerce vendors have it, how much each of them charges, and whether or not it's in stock. Keen! But while in all the demos Sherlock 2 searches and returns results from online auction megagiant eBay, now if looks as though that particular feature might be dead in the water. A CNET article notes that eBay is working to prevent "outsiders" from accessing their databases, citing "site performance" concerns. Looks like Apple marketing dude Phil Schiller will have to cobble together a new demo...
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SceneLink (1765)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 9/7/99 episode: September 7, 1999: If everyone wants a new G4, how come prices on the blue G3s haven't dropped through the floor yet? Meanwhile, Mac OS 9 has still more troubles to overcome on its way to release, and Apple's stock keeps doing that "up" thing, despite the longstanding tradition of Wall Street skepticism as far our fave computer company is concerned...
Other scenes from that episode: 1764: Blue-&-White-Light Special (9/7/99) Silly us; here we figured that now that the Power Mac G4 has been announced (with "immediate" availability, no less), it might be easy for us to pick up a blue and white G3 for a song. Nobody knows better than our faithful viewers that AtAT could use a new server from which to broadcast our happy little show, especially after that roller coaster ride last week... 1766: As If It Were Apple.com (9/7/99) Another day, another analyst upgrade, another record for Apple's stock. It's almost getting boring, isn't it? For instance, after AAPL closed at a new all-time high last Friday, analysts William Shope and Charlie Wolf of Warburg Dillon Read found themselves compelled to raise their price target...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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