The Path to OS X
Part Seven: Good Karma!

New!The Path to OS X Finale: OS X Spreads Its Wings
(MacOS/hype)-D. Browell

Part12: This Might Hurt A Little...
Part 11: The App Game
Part 10: Novice Shoes
Part 9: It's the Hardware, Baby!
Part 8: X Equals Ten
Part 7: Good Karma
Part 6: A New Breed Of Apple
Part 5: Steve Jobs/Spurrier
Part 4: Sideshow Skirmishes
Part 3: Command Who?
Part 2: Glances...
Part 1: From the Ashes

Aah...now doesn't that feel good? Steve Jobs knocked the socks off a good chunk of the keynote watchers by not just mentioning that Apple heard complaints about OS X, but that they actually listened. MWSF, the event with no vowels, was handed an industry first... no, not the first time "sex" was mentioned so many times in a keynote (but that may be true as well)...but the first time an operating system publisher got close to saying "sorry" about something. Did they have anything to be sorry about? Not exactly. They were smart enough to make the first iteration a "public beta" and allow the floodgates to open for the critiques...but they were also smart enough to change crucial functional design because the users found it interrupted the learning curve.

Sure the rest was grand: new G4's, lots of very justified R&D on music and DVD apps, a new portable, and even the mild frustration as Steve couldn't get a CD to burn immediately. But there was a reason why the OS X news was packaged in the first half: this is the grail. The new computers, for the first time I can remember, actually looked like they were on the back burner to the software. Was that a mistake? I don't think so. Does a PC user get mad at the box if they get one of their frequent crashes? Nope. (Unless they like making excuses.) The OS has become both the body and the soul. If a normal at-home internet guru does little else than pull and push info via 56k modem, with an occasional Phoshop LE or Painter task, then the difference between the 533 and the 733mhz machines will be invisible. How they push and pull and click and clack will be their world.

The dust settles from such announcements and fanfare and the taste in my mouth for the every-man is one of excitement, but not without a reservation. That reservation lies in the open public talk and buzz about OS X pre-MWSF. I hope, for the normal novice's sake that they only witnessed OS X in small, "wow" doses and didn't seriously start thinking about it until now. Because some of the features and critiques have been very beta-specific and certainly do not seem to include the grain of foresight salt required to make them valid beyond the new changes. Honestly, the novice probably has seen the hype from a distance but not immersed themselves, and that's a good thing. But they question I pose to Jobs and Apple is: Why not mention the update to 9.1 and the OS X changes in the same speech? I found myself miffed that Apple wasn't releasing OS 9.1 (again) only to find out from MacFixIt.com that it was released and available for download. A strange move given that people of all experience levels tune in or read the MWSF speech info. This is important to the novices avoiding the OS X public beta because this is the bread and butter they understand...this is the system they have a For Dummies book on, and this is what they've been waiting for while their louder Mac friends gush and growl over OS X... But of course, 9.1 is out now...shouldn't they have told somebody?

No matter what level of involvement you are (or think you are) the keynote was a nice dash of emphasis in our corner. In some way it feels that no matter how much better we run the PC race, we never get ahead. This speech may not have been the sermon on the mount, but it was a nice kickoff to a year that may make or break us. It felt good, gives us something positive to talk about, and maybe more importantly, we can save our anger for the non-believers again...

We're Apple...we talk about "power and sex" and "burn" things.



by Dean Browell
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"The Path to OS X" is a series of articles examining the casual user's view of OS X. Take with a grain of salt and dash of incense for full effect.

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