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It's All About The Speed (4/16/01)
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Okay, so maybe you're not as charitable as we are, and Mac OS X 10.0.1 still doesn't float your boat. We admit it: Apple's still got a long way to go before Mac OS X approaches even a tenth of the polish and functionality of Mac OS 9. It may sound harsh, but it's true. Then again, the classic Mac OS has also had the benefit of seventeen years' worth of tweaking and repair, so it's no big surprise that Mac OS 9 currently has an edge over Mac OS X as far as overall productivity and consistency are concerned. That said, given how young it still is, we're extremely impressed with just how good Mac OS X is already. Sure, it's sluggish, yes, the apps are scarce, and no, it's nowhere near as fluid as Mac OS 9-- but it's the future, and it's here now.
Still, "normal people" are probably going to want to stick to Mac OS 9 until X is more mature-- at least mature enough for Apple to feel comfortable pre-loading it on all systems, including iMacs. When Apple thinks Mac OS X is ready to pass the Mom Test, then it'll be ready for prime time. According to Apple, that's supposed to happen this summer, and unless your synapses are misfiring badly, you're likely expecting the real Mac OS X to surface at this July's Macworld Expo. That will be the so-called "Cheetah" build that is destined to bring Aqua to the masses.
Well, MacEdition's CodeBitch took a brief time-out from her one-woman crusade for Web standards to inform us that the Naked Mole Rat is at it again, and this time his drug-addled musings are all about Cheetah. (Well, okay, all about Cheetah and some hallucinatory "major diplomatic incident" in Apple's parking lot that would likely sound strangely familiar to us if we ever watched the news instead of old "Get Smart" reruns.) Reportedly Apple's top priority with Cheetah is to make it faster; like you couldn't have guessed that from the code name alone. Apparently the Cheetah build will rely on "minimizing I/O times, calling faster APIs and waiting to load services and frameworks until they're needed" in order to fulfill this need for speed.
So, with luck, come this summer Mac OS X will start fulfilling its promise of super-speed in a big way-- just in time for what we assume to be a slew of new Apple hardware that can really make the operating system sizzle. We're looking forward to July in a big way, not only because our one big beef with Mac OS X is its lack of speed, but also because we've been holding off on replacing our desktop Mac until we could get a G4 preconfigured with Mac OS X. Hmmm... time to starting cashing in those penny jars...
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SceneLink (2993)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 4/16/01 episode: April 16, 2001: We're back-- mostly. Listen to us moan and groan about our recent tribulations. Meanwhile, Mac OS X 10.0.1 finally surfaces, much to the delight of early adopters everywhere, while Apple decides to make speed the number one priority for the "Cheetah" release of Mac OS X destined to go mainstream this summer...
Other scenes from that episode: 2991: D-S-HELL: Feel Our Pain (4/16/01) Okay, so after an impromptu ten-day Dead Air Festival courtesy of the phone company, we're finally back and broadcasting from our normal digs. That is not to say, however, that everything is "back to normal," and so we thought we'd take this opportunity to fill you in on the gnarly sequence of events that's been plaguing us for the past couple of weeks... 2992: An Update On The Update (4/16/01) One of the downsides to a weekday-only broadcasting schedule is that when something exciting happens on Friday night, we're pretty much relegated to playing the less-dramatic "follow-up" role on Monday, because everyone's already heard the news...
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