Can Apple ever make up for the big mistake?

[fryke]

Apple clearly made a mistake by 'reinventing' the wheels with OS X. Not only did it take half a decade to make the codebase of OpenStep into Mac OS X, it's also already taken almost a year to convert the Mac users (!) to the new system. This could have well been avoided by further improving the GUI of Mac OS 9 instead of supplanting it with the chimera (no, not the browser) that Aqua developped into. Instead of further developping the gap between Mac and Windows, this gap has vanished in a poof of smoke.

I'm a fan of OS X by the way. I've adopted the new features of the GUI very fast and I'm actually more efficient on X, but mostly on the underlying structure and stability and the speed of the OS, not because of the GUI - but inspite of it.

Now. A year has passed. The 'newness' of Aqua has gone down the marketing drain. Windows has better antialiasing throughout the system while OS X has a bit of it in a few apps only. Most Mac users still use OS 9 in hope that Apple will lead its way back, so they don't lose all of their productivity at once. But can that happen? Will Apple strip off their pride and do the right thing this time?

I don't believe so. They want to show the users how great Aqua really is, although they must have gotten a billion comments about how it actually sucks in most aspects. Translucent menus? Argh. Sheets? Great. Overall appearance? Gets in the way most of the time compared to Platinum. They invented Quartz. Great thing, I must admit. But did they have to use every f...ing feature of it in the UI? My graphical work would certainly suffer if I always were to use all the filters Photoshop offers (and then some third party filters).

Basically, Apple fucked up big time. Yes, Aqua is 'different'. But *no*, it doesn't really help the users.

Apple could have delivered Rhapsody 2.0 with Carbon API and the improved Platinum appearance of Rhapsody. Performance of the system would have been much better. Performance of the USER would have been infinitly better. And they could have delivered the system like 3 years earlier and be *well* ahead of Windows XP by now.

[RacerX]

posted by fryke
Apple could have delivered Rhapsody 2.0 with Carbon API and the improved Platinum appearance of Rhapsody. Performance of the system would have been much better. Performance of the USER would have been infinitly better. And they could have delivered the system like 3 years earlier and be *well* ahead of Windows XP by now.

On this point I would have to disagree. Aqua was not the reason for the delay, it was Carbon. Aqua was something to do while passing the time waiting for Carbon to be finished enough to at least release it to the public. Quartz was a great way to get out from under the thumb of Adobe (who charged a ton for the use of Display Postscript). Considering that, did Apple make a mistake not sticking closer to the OPENSTEP/Rhapsody model... yes and no. Given the choice between a very responsive system with hardly any apps or a slower system with a ton of apps, I'll take the one with more apps. I currently use Rhapsody daily to make sure I can deal with problems that come up in Mac OS X Server 1.x and Mac OS X without being able to fall back on the Mac OS of old. Even on my very slow ThinkPad it is quite responsive, so I do know what you mean in that way, but I do miss the app selection (which is even less than the selection for Rhapsody/Mac OS X Server 1.x for PPC). We shouldn't forget that developers basically told Apple that they woulld not rewrite their apps for Rhapsody, that set us on the 5 years quest for Carbon, not Aqua.

[BBenve]

I don't see X as a big mistake and as said previewsly ..Aqua is more than eyecandy ...and definetly it is worthed... X is great and it is not a mitake.. i thank apple every day... no more crashing..real Multitasking and all this.... THANKS APPLE

[Alexandert]

I totally disagree to this comment!!!

Windows ahead of OS X???

BAH!

First think than type man! I love OS X. It has some anoying bugs but its only 10.1!

Apple needed 9 steps to develop a system that really rocks! OS X is not the 10th step, its the first step into the future! I'm sure we wont have to wait for 10.9 or 19. But give Apple some time to develop!

AND IF YOU DONT LIKE IT GO BUY A PC!

[vanguard]

If Apple followed your suggestion by doing nothing but improving the OS9 gui I would have never bought my first mac.

To people who care/know about technology, OS9 is a toy. I lack the time to really get into this but I'll say this, it was a good decision to move away from OS9.

Vanguard

[Boyko]

He's right, you know. If apple was still using System 9.1, I'd never consider, even for a moment, using Apple.

It just was a simple thing for me, MacOS(X) started getting good around the time that Windows(XP) started to get too bad to use.

Brian.

[themacko]

I concur with boyko and vanguard. One of the main reasons why I got an iBook instead of a Toshiba laptop (the two brands our college bookstore sells) is because of OS X. Granted, I stayed in 9 for the first 4 months after I got the book because it was faster and thats what all my class software ran on, but now I'm in X and I have no problems with it all.

I believe that OS X may have helped convert MANY mediocre Windows users who wanted something different, like me. I know I always have people come up to me while I'm typing a report in the library or something, and they start asking me questions about my iBook. It's a bit bothersome but it's also pretty cool.

OS X may have been a definately step backward in a few catagories, but overall it's gotta be the best thing since .. well .. the original iMac.

[Zenzefiloan]

I am using three systems and i have to say that i started of with an Amstrad 646 back in 1982 and at the momment i am using MAC OS X,Linux and WIN XP!

I started using OSX in August 2001 so i am new to the system it took me just half a month to learn it and i have to say it is the most stable system i have ever used! My pc with WIN XP crashes almost twice a day and i am not happy!!! The use of antialising in Win is very nice but to me it does not make any difference i prefer to have something stable and secure than to have something which i dont know how long it will go on for!

I would be happy to swap my pc with a mac at anytime but unfortunately i cannot because at my work(phd student)everything is UNIX or WIN based!