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The Path to OS X Command line. GUI. Classic. Dock. Aqua. Carbon. Are these words we should be scared of? Should we give pause before we write them in the dictionary next to our beloved Finder, Apple Menu, Font Suitcase and Trashcan? Do we just throw open the doors to our Mac-lexicon and march in the new troops? Do we have a choice? Well, first off let's see if we can inject some impartiality and fairness into the proceeding (I mean c'mon this isn't a presidential election). I have witnessed countless attacks in articles and forums on the GUI's limitations or dissimilarity to OS 9. Now before I shoot myself in the foot here (remember I did say it was good to have bad reviews) I do want to say that all this talk is very healthy. The vehemence gives me the willies for two reasons: 1) The OS is not out yet. You can scream all you want, berate Apple 'til the cows come home...but unless you are actually writing and sending these comments to Apple as constructive critique, you're just blowing air at a demo, a lab rat. 2) The venomous undertones and inability to accept any new interface designs (actual concerns aside, I'm just talking of the maniacal ranting here) are a little too loud for my tastes. I think there's a level of respect we need to hold without airing our dirty laundry for all the neighbors to see, unless of course you'd like to see news stories with a double headline: "Apple Posts Losses and New OS Rejected" which would, in a word, suck. But hello, to accept understandably that there are no printer drivers so you can't print, then bitch because you can't change your trashcan style from wire to plastic is ridiculous. Comment, suggest and let go. I'm sure there are lots of other things to fit in the list without blowing time on this one. And speaking of which. We look under the hood of the beast, turn on the light (i.e. bring up the command line) and look around. Scaaarrrryy.... What is all this stuff? Am I supposed to be familiar with all this text? Luckily I spent some time fooling with Basic on my old Atari 1200 XL (please, stop laughing) so the concept of command lines are not lost to me. But please think to our slightly younger users whose first encounters with computers may have been LC's, or Windows machines that they just got parents or friends to fix if they broke. All the random characters that scrolled up their screen when they turned it on was a foreign language they just didn't need to know, and nobody but specialists spoke it anyway (think: Latin). So, when they finally delved into computers at any length it was to customize the skins on their MP3 players and download the Christmas patch for Postal (a belated thank you to Running With Scissors for that ). So, if I invite them under this hood and talk of kernels and command lines, they'll ask if we're still talking about a Mac. Is this a bad thing? Nope. The level of involvement to enjoy using a Mac has been serenely low and I think it stays that way with OS X--just don't mess with what you don't understand (and to that end, that level of user had always hidden or trashed their copies of ResEdit and not looked at that folder of the MacAddict disc anyway, so they're fine with ignoring it). What I find so interesting about the interface is for all the good and developer ease it adds in functionality, it does seem limited in outright choices of appearance- and I honestly think it's a bit premature to start hobbling hacks to change that until we see the final version. Do betas of games always have every visual detail or level editor at full capacity? Hardly, because the tests are far more for functionality than bells and whistles. And for that reason I'm impressed by what OS X does visually at this beta stage. So I'm making a case here for a casual user. And honestly anyone with any sense wouldn't let a casual user buy much less load this beta on their actual machine. But a casual user will stroll by this, peek in, click about. How deep? Who knows. Read a Newsweek or Time article to get a grasp of the slightly more informed user and how they perceive it, as they probably represent the high-end casual user pretty well. For the low-end examine the interface of a Speak-and-Spell. Next time I'll take a look at Apple's current image in light
of recent downturns, future upturns and a window-looking-in view
of upcoming Macworld... NOTE TO READERS: |
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