On the flip side, their more recent 'flat' designs are ageing horribly. I can't wait for the iOS 7 era icons to be replaced by something that's neither fully skeuomorphic but not a lazy collection of squircles and blobs either.
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Today Marks 20 Years Since Mac OS X First Launched
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I had my first Mac in 1990, the extraordianry Mac IIci running System 6.04. I have gone thru so many Macs and OS that I have lost track, worth to mention the grayscale Powerbook 5300/100, the 17" Powerbook G4 and the first bondi blue G3 iMac..
In my personal experience, pre Mac OS X systems were much more user friendly and straight forward, very easy to look under the hood and troubleshoot any ocasional glitch, nowadays Mac OS is very complex, maybe unnecessarily complex.
I now own a 21.5 iMac, a 13" Macbook Pro, iPhone 11 pro, Apple Watch, iPad mini, HomePod and HomePod mini.
Waiting anxiously for an Apple silicone iMac.
In my personal experience, pre Mac OS X systems were much more user friendly and straight forward, very easy to look under the hood and troubleshoot any ocasional glitch, nowadays Mac OS is very complex, maybe unnecessarily complex.
I now own a 21.5 iMac, a 13" Macbook Pro, iPhone 11 pro, Apple Watch, iPad mini, HomePod and HomePod mini.
Waiting anxiously for an Apple silicone iMac.
I still hate systemd but right now I better have systemd than others.
Flexibility always make software bloat up and most user will always take a system that is bloated but automate everything than a system that is clean but need a few more clicks.
Graphics also bloat the software, both from a disk space and performance standpoint.
Remember how some versions of the OS couldn't be installed on older hardware because of a lack of a certain kind of graphics processor? It's not like we're talking about a game here. This is an operating system. It used to be that an operating system would scale down graphics on older systems. Think about how Windows had its basic 16 color palette at one point for people who had a basic, no-frills system with regular VGA graphics and needed their computer for things like word processing.
Web graphics may require more than what a VGA can offer, but there's no reason to bloat an OS with graphics.
Remember how some versions of the OS couldn't be installed on older hardware because of a lack of a certain kind of graphics processor? It's not like we're talking about a game here. This is an operating system. It used to be that an operating system would scale down graphics on older systems. Think about how Windows had its basic 16 color palette at one point for people who had a basic, no-frills system with regular VGA graphics and needed their computer for things like word processing.
Web graphics may require more than what a VGA can offer, but there's no reason to bloat an OS with graphics.
Before we bought an iMac we were using the last iteration of the Performa, a 6118CD which was PowerPC. It wasn’t powerful enough to support Mac OS X on its own but SoNNeT Tech offered an expansion slot card for the towers that could make it compatible. We bought a used card at a trade show and I modified the case to fit the card. I added an additional fan and called it the FrankenMac. Mac OS X installed and ran much better than OS 9 did on that machine. It was a fantastic computer to edit on before the iMac AV edition was released.
SIP, Quarantined items, PPPC, config files for system services like file sharing, the list goes on and on
Yep, as with many products and companies. It isn't a problem with sufficient talent or resources. It's a management problem.
It's been fascinating to watch the system software evolve over the days, from a simple small OS that only had 1-2 basic applications, to the wealth of systems/applications in today's environment. iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, watchOS... and they all have the Mac to thank. Or, more specifically, Mac OS X, OS X, and now macOS.
To think that in 1984, a simple OS with a trash can, menu bar, and mouse pointer to get people from point A to point B started whole new generations of the OS... and nowadays, what we have is a trash can, menu bar, and mouse pointer. Pretty much the same, fundamentally. It's just that from 1984 to now, the OS has grown so much, added so much complexities, and went through quite a few transitions. Motorola > PPC > Intel > ASi. Throughout all this, the core Macintosh OS has stayed the same, pretty much, at its tight core. It's still an UI-based operating system designed to get people from point A to point B, to help people get needed stuff done, to type documents, play games, connect via social media, watch streamed videos online, and so many more.
What we see now, with Big Sur, with its flashy UI, is still the Macintosh, ~25 years later. Mac OS X turned the Macintosh around, made the user experience better and more user friendly. Sure, there were some bumps down the road, some dud versions, but the OS has came a long way in stability and maturity in the last 20 years.
Happy birthday, Mac OS X, err OS X, errrr macOS. It's been a great 20 years, and I look forward to the continued evolution of the OS, and who knows, the roots of then-NEXT OS/Mac OS X may lead us to a brand new system in the future.
To think that in 1984, a simple OS with a trash can, menu bar, and mouse pointer to get people from point A to point B started whole new generations of the OS... and nowadays, what we have is a trash can, menu bar, and mouse pointer. Pretty much the same, fundamentally. It's just that from 1984 to now, the OS has grown so much, added so much complexities, and went through quite a few transitions. Motorola > PPC > Intel > ASi. Throughout all this, the core Macintosh OS has stayed the same, pretty much, at its tight core. It's still an UI-based operating system designed to get people from point A to point B, to help people get needed stuff done, to type documents, play games, connect via social media, watch streamed videos online, and so many more.
What we see now, with Big Sur, with its flashy UI, is still the Macintosh, ~25 years later. Mac OS X turned the Macintosh around, made the user experience better and more user friendly. Sure, there were some bumps down the road, some dud versions, but the OS has came a long way in stability and maturity in the last 20 years.
Happy birthday, Mac OS X, err OS X, errrr macOS. It's been a great 20 years, and I look forward to the continued evolution of the OS, and who knows, the roots of then-NEXT OS/Mac OS X may lead us to a brand new system in the future.
And, all of those older versions, despite their flaws, were visually better than whatever Apple dishes out these days, because it had contrast and color. Fire up a system with 10.6, 10.8 ... black text, larger and colorful icons, color icons in the Finder sidebar, ... it is a breath of fresh air!
Instead of all the smaller fonts in different shades of grey and small grey ui icons.
The UI these days is just too minimalistic.
We see in color ==> Let us have full color UI.
Text is best read black on white ==> let us have plain old black text, on whatever shade of white, don’t have to be ultra-pure-white. Something a tick warmer will be just fine.
Instead of all the smaller fonts in different shades of grey and small grey ui icons.
The UI these days is just too minimalistic.
We see in color ==> Let us have full color UI.
Text is best read black on white ==> let us have plain old black text, on whatever shade of white, don’t have to be ultra-pure-white. Something a tick warmer will be just fine.
You haven’t been paying attention to OS X naming detours lately, he/she has not only been drinking but trying controlled substances since the end of the cats saga
Before 10.9 you could set it that double clicking on a folder in an open window would open a new window on top. Now you have to hold a key, command I think.
I had the good fortune of working on NeXT computers in research labs in the mid to late 90s. I recall they were the best computers I had used at that time (owned a PowerBook and had used Win95) in my perception, so was very excited when Apple bought NeXT.
Running this on my aqua-colored (sorry, “blueberry”) clamshell iBook G3 still might be the best pairing of software and hardware ever
It took Jobs to focus on revamping (and simplifying) the Mac line to buy Apple the time to finish OS X. And, honesty, it wasn't until the iPod came about did Apple finally have the cash to do it right. That was something no previous CEO seemed to have the stomach to do. The previous train of thought was to continue to diversify the product line in hopes capturing some mythical hidden market that was going to save the company. Who knew, fewer products, fewer ports, and colored plastic would be the magic formula.
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I think those times are long gone, unless you want the barest bones of a Linux distro. Even old farts on here grew up with GUIs, and the new generation is growing up with touch interfaces.
“High” Sierra, anyone?
I worked with SVP of engineering Bertrand Serlet on OS X 10.4 - 10.6. There were some issues with early releases of Snow Leopard that related to the PPC to Intel transition but they were very few.
thinking back on those years it’s amazing what we were able to accomplish in OS X development while also working with the Intel transition. I look at Big Sur while Apple transitions to silicon and shake my head. There are no excuses for the mishandling of a massive OS overhaul when we juggled numerous projects behind the scenes such as the iPad and iPhone while maintaining an OS that ran on older PPC Mac’s and newer Mac’s with Intel CPU’s. This comes down to leadership. Serlet was the head engineer and departments ran smoothly while Apple was still growing as a company with projects yet to be released that eventually helped transform numerous markets.
Apple is a massive tech giant now and should better manage their product lines and services. It’s not 2006. Big Sur has been a mess and Apple needs to get their QoS under control.
Little known fact:
OS X names weren’t just cats, but German Tanks. This was an intentional nod as Jobs and others often joked that OS X was built like a tank. Some have made that connection outside of the small Apple circles from back in the day:
www.oscarberg.net
OS X names weren’t just cats, but German Tanks. This was an intentional nod as Jobs and others often joked that OS X was built like a tank. Some have made that connection outside of the small Apple circles from back in the day:
Apple Mac OS X Versions named after German tanks? — Oscar Berg
My former college and web development guru Robert Nyman has an interesting theory regarding the naming of Apple Mac OS X Versions... We were sitting around a table in the beautiful Swedish archipelago, having a drink and chatting a little. Big men talk about big guns, right? So, we were discussin
www.oscarberg.net
Those days are long gone. I have a 4 year old 12" MacBook with 1.5GB of VRAM available to it. My G5 tower topped out at 256MB and it drove 2 30" displays. While the MacBook is by no means a speed demon, nothing about the GUI seems to lag. It even plays 4K movies without a stutter and doesn't even get warm. I can't think of one thing about the latest macOS that would even tax a GPU. I do know in the past that screen effects like the ripple when dropping a widget on the desktop required a decent GPU, but that is ancient history. 15 years ago or more?
I remember the transition as it was epic!
MacOS 10 was unusable in the graphic design/publishing world, 10.1 was the starting point for the adventurous and 10.2 was when I started shifting clients across.
There was so much hesitation as the industry in Australia was 95% QuarkXpress which was Mac OS 9.
In fact, I did a deal with Apple Australia and they loaned me a specced-up G4 and CRT Studio display and for the next year I was loaning this setup to clients with versions of all the apps and showing the new workflows.
The only reason this came about is in a previously life I did tech support for QuarkXpress and other publishing/prepress tools and worked alongside some who ended up at Apple running marketing.
This was around the Quark4 and Indesign2 era when Quark royally shot themselves in the foot by actively promoting Windows instead of Apple and taking FOREVER to release a native version of QuarkXpress.
MacOS 10 was unusable in the graphic design/publishing world, 10.1 was the starting point for the adventurous and 10.2 was when I started shifting clients across.
There was so much hesitation as the industry in Australia was 95% QuarkXpress which was Mac OS 9.
In fact, I did a deal with Apple Australia and they loaned me a specced-up G4 and CRT Studio display and for the next year I was loaning this setup to clients with versions of all the apps and showing the new workflows.
The only reason this came about is in a previously life I did tech support for QuarkXpress and other publishing/prepress tools and worked alongside some who ended up at Apple running marketing.
This was around the Quark4 and Indesign2 era when Quark royally shot themselves in the foot by actively promoting Windows instead of Apple and taking FOREVER to release a native version of QuarkXpress.
The iPhone design got way better since Ive left... Maybe the next version of MacOS will follow.
I personally can’t attest to knowing much about Apple’s OS intimately until Leopard. But I was a part of a group project in college in the mid 2000s. This girl was using a Mac and we created a presentation using Keynote.
Having only used PowerPoint previously, I was blown away. I immediately fell in love with Apple. Bought the first iPhone and the rest is history.
Having only used PowerPoint previously, I was blown away. I immediately fell in love with Apple. Bought the first iPhone and the rest is history.