Mac OS X 10.1 [OLD VERSION]
by Apple
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Software Reviews of Mac OS X 10.1 [OLD VERSION]
Customer Review: Great Potential for the Future!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Overall, OSX is really a frankenstein of sorts w/o the ugly appearance. This fusion of BSD Unix, Next, and traditional Mac concepts is a solid base for Apple to build upon. It is, however, a young OS w/ all the pitfalls that come with it. Things like drivers, native programs, and the "perfect" user interface take time so I am omitting the few minor gripes I've had in my experience wih OSX. It is disconcerting for long time Mac users in that it is a mildly radical departure from the Mac tradition though classic mode pretty much will do everything you need once you sit through the long boot up. Also, things like a command prompt and file extensions are alien to the Mac camp. To its credit, Apple has done an admirable job in insulating the not interested user from these details.In exchange for radical changes, Apple has created a truly remarkable OS. OSX is a solid network citizen. The ability to use open source components has turned MacOS into a powerful tool versus what it used to be. I've found OSX to be an asset on my home network. It is much more capable than classic MacOS could have ever dreamed about.
The main thing I've enjoyed about OSX is the beautiful crispness of the Quartz display technology. The first time you see it you will be amazed. WinXP cannot hold a candle to it and your Wintel friends will be jealous.
There are many things new about OSX. The memory management and program execution technology make total system crashes almost a thing of the past. In seven months, I've had as many system crashes as I'd typically get in three days of typical classic MacOS use for me. System stability is a major issue with me and OSX is as good as any NT or Linux machine I've ever used. This is the biggest improvement over classic.
If you are a long time Mac user, please approach OSX with an open mind as it has lots of future potential. You must realize that by using the old "classic does it this way argument" to bash OSX you are cheating yourself out of using your Mac on a much higher level. OSX makes MacOS a welcome alternative to the orwellian path the WinXP family seems to be following. Just make sure you have plenty of memory in your machine, a willingness to learn some new things and a dose of patience as developers and hardware manufacturers begin to fully support this gem.
Customer Review: Ready for prime time.
Summary: 4 Stars
OS X.1.3, the latest version of Apple's new operating system, is ready for mainstream use. It is fast, elegant, and easy to use. Best of all, in six months of using it on six different Macs, it only crashed once--and that was when I intentionally tried to make it crash (launching twenty applications, pulling USB and firewire cables in and out, and then sending a massive print job to my Epson printer). Am I a glutton for punishment, or what? Turns out that the Epson driver was the problem. Not exactly four-star programming there.Anyway, all the applications you need are good to go and better than anything comparable on Windows: iPhoto for handling your digital pictures from camera to instant prints, linen-bound book, or an easy-as-pie website (at no charge); iMovie, for turning your digital camcorder footage into watchable stuff (you still probably won't watch it, but putting these movies together and going through you old tapes is half the fun!); iDVD to put your fancy movies easily onto wonderfully glitzy DVDs that can be read by most DVD players; and iTunes to manage your music (and the awesome iPod) and burn CDs. It's all free of charge. Plus, Office for Mac X is better than its Windows counterpart, although it is pricey. If you don't need Word or PowerPoint, stick with the included AppleWorks 6. A beautiful writing, drawing, painting, spreadsheet, etc., program that covers all of your bases.
Quick on the Internet, stable as all get out, and just what you need to experience the best home computer out there: the iMac G4.
A few more tweaks and it'll be a five.
Customer Review: Great Ideas, Apple... Keep Working On Them.
Summary: 3 Stars
Macintosh OS X is clearly designed for creative/design applications. Instead of placing icons on the desktop where they inevitably get covered up by various program windows, the icons are placed in a translucent "Dock" that is always visible and available. It is a great and uncluttered way to manage several applications at once. For example, people who are designing a web site and need an HTML editor, picture editor, etc. all open at once should find the dock to be a great help. It is similar to the way Microsoft Windows keeps minimized windows at the bottom of the screen, but Apple's way is much more organized.
In addition, you no longer have to dedicate chunks of ram to specific applications. OS X automatically spreads ram where needed. You'll probably never see an "Error Type 2" message again!
The Finder works more like an internet browser, now. When you open a folder, the contents are revealed on a new page of the same window. This beats the old Finder that would leave a messy trail of windows behind every search.
Mac OS X is quite stable, too. Keep in mind, however, that just because the OS is said to be "Crash-Proof", that doesn't mean applications can't crash--Indeed they do. The advantage OS X gives you is that now you don't have to reboot the entire system when only one application has gone bad. Just force quit the bad app and everything else still works.
On the downside, this newer os doesn't feel as "slick" as the older OS9 did. Scroll bars lag behind the mouse, and windows resize in a choppy manner. And can somebody please tell me why I have to wait over 10 seconds between the time I choose to connect to the internet and the time the computer decides to start dialing?
Some of the included applications are buggy, too. Although the OS is stable, I've had to force quit applications that went astray more often than I'd like. The included Microsoft Internet Explorer is terrible--Redraw errors all over the place, and the first URL is never found (I believe this is because the program is directly translated from the Mac OS9 version where the computer held off all operations until the dial-up connection was completed).
Apple is on to something great with OS X. I would, however, like to see it run a little slicker. I trust that bugs will be worked out of third party applications as the designers become more aware of OS X's inner workings.
Customer Review: Remarkably stable
Summary: 5 Stars
I was hesitant to take the plunge from OS 9 to OS X, but a series of crashes in December forced my hand. I've been running OS X nearly two months now and it hasn't crashed yet. Even the programs running on it, whether natively or in the classic environment, are more stable.Yet this is not all. I have been able to free alternatives to most of the software I was running on OS 9. I found free updates for Appleworks, Scanwise, Netscape, AOL, BBeditLIte, and iCab on the web. And thanks to the Unix core of OS X, I was able to install an X11 GUI and run Opensource programs like Gimp, ImageMagick, & Dillo. There are several Unix experts working on making it easy for Mac users to install and use Opensource software on their computers. Some of these Unix programs (especially Gimp, the Unix alternative to Photoshop) are remarkable. And some of this Unix software is being "frontended" to run in the OS X Aqua GUI. This means the availability of a lot of free software for the Mac, including fax software (Cocoa eFax), language translation programs (WordLookup), and photo retouching software (PixelNhance). We can only imagine what things will be like a year from now, when many more programs have been written or compiled for OS X.
There are, to be sure, a few irritations that go along with upgrading to an operating system that is very much different to what had been run on the Mac before. You can't move files around as freely as they use to, and the OS tries to force users to conform to the Unix directory structure at the base of the computer. There's also no spring-loaded folders and it's a little slower than OS 9. The most serious flaw, however, has to do with support of 3rd party hardware. My printer, scanner, and even my floppy disk drive all worked fine, but OS X has not support (and may never have any support) for my Que USB CD-RW. I have to boot up in OS 9 if I want to use it. But, given all that I've gained from switching over to OS X, I can live with this particular shortcoming.
Customer Review: The best OS out there. Period.
Summary: 5 Stars
I used to hate Macs especially because of their OS. It was old, unstable and Mac users had to wait ages for updates which they had to pay to get. Well, MacOS X, is by far the most complete and beautifully engineered OS out there (at least on a commercial basis). It is based on NeXT (using the Mach ker.nel) and BSD -- a feature which offers a lot to someone coming from a UNIX platform -- and clearly the best GUI out there.
Some may argue that it is not as polished as it could, but, hey, what is? Windows or Linux? Besides, Apple is releasing free *until now* revisions for download every couple of months and it has improved a lot since 10.0. (the current version at the time of writing is 10.1.2). Release 10.2 is rumoured to have great new features old Mac users requested as well as more language packs and a speedier Quartz. (the graphics engine)
I recommend this to anyone open-minded enough to leave windows behind him/her.