Tag Archives: macOS

Mac OS X Turns 20!

I missed this by a few weeks but wanted to mark the occasion anyway. When Apple released OS X twenty years ago (March 24, 2001) I was there on day one. I‘d actually been running the public beta on my lime green iMac. Exciting days! Like many I really loved the classic Mac OS which I‘d used from 7.x on my Color Classic all the way thru to OS 9. It was a beautiful, fun OS to use when it wasn‘t crashing! To be fair, it was mostly stable and I did a lot with my Macs before OS X. But my oh my, OS X was a thing of beauty! In hindsight we might look back on it as a bit overdone but in the moment I loved it. In the early days it was slow but even then it was fairly stable, especially in comparison to Mac OS 9.

Image courtesy of 512pixels.net Image Archive

Apple made no secret that OS X was the future of the Mac OS. There would be no turning back and really, it did feel like the future. It was similar enough to the classic Mac OS that one could use it without feeling lost. But, with the new Aqua interface it also felt very different. Add to that the new Finder, the Dock, Mail and a few others. Then there was the new ability to create pdfs from any application via print to pdf which felt a bit like a super power.

Fun fact, in contrast to today‘s free, downloadable os updates, back in those days the os was delivered via DVD and cost a bit, in the case of OS X 10.0 it was $129.

My current desktop on my MacMini running macOS Catalina

Looking at OS X then and now I am still somewhat astounded by the fact that we‘ve seen so many transitions over the past 20 years. That OS X is the core OS of the watch on my wrist, my phone, and my iPad as well as the Mac on my desk in an amazing iterative achievement. And while the pinstripes of Aqua were transformed into a variety of textures over the years and are now utterly absent, replaced by light grays, whites and subtle gradients, looking at my Mac running macOS Catalina or my iPad running iPadOS 14, I can‘t help but recognize the many persistent similarities. I see OS X on my screen. From the Dock to Mail to Files, traces of OS X in it‘s infancy continue today.

My current iPad Pro Homepage

Looking through the excellent 512pixels image archive I can‘t help notice that as much as has changed over the years so much of that first 10.0 version is still so visible today.

Here‘s Steve Jobs at the MacWorld 2000 Keynote presenting OS X. A really fun video!

From the web:

Stephen Hackett of 512pixels.net has a brief post which consists of some great links. A fantastic screenshot library. Start with OS X 10.0

Jason Snell has these three articles:
From Aqua to Catalina: The evolution of macOS X

Mac OS X: An act of desperation that formed the foundation for the modern Mac

Mac OS X turns 20

John Voorhees over at Mac Stories: 20 Years Ago, Mac OS X Set the Stage for Today‘s Apple

Settling into iOS

Over the past six months I've been writing a good bit more here and much of it has been about various aspects of using iOS. Back in May, after a seven month blogging hiatus, I wrote about my shifting computer usage. At the time I'd noticed that I'd almost accidentally shifted towards iOS. But then the accidental shift became purposeful as I also realized that not only was I getting more done with iOS but I was also enjoying it more than I had in previous years. This was in part because I had learned to use it better which meant using it with less mental friction. Along with that were features such as extensions and split screen that made it more powerful. In short I could do more and that doing more was happening without me having to think about how to do it. iOS had begun to click for me in the same way that the Mac had so many years ago.

One of many arrangements possible with my iPad!

One of many arrangements possible with my iPad!

The Mac. I've been using a Mac for 24 years. Since 1998 I've rarely gone a day without using one. Most days I've logged several hours at a Mac keyboard. With each operating system I happily learned all the new features. After so many years the Mac seemed so natural to use. It was an extension of me. I knew the operating system and my usual apps so well that I never had to pause to consider how to accomplish any task unless I was learning a new app or skill. The toolset provided by the OS and apps were there to help me get my work done with less effort.

When iOS entered the scene not only did it present a radical departure in form factor but the OS itself seemed far too limited. And it was. If it was an extension of me it was an extension bound in an awkward and uncomfortable cast. I wanted to love it and I did use it on several versions of iPad. Sometimes I even enjoyed it. But it never quite clicked. I always felt I was working harder jumping through hoops and taking extra steps. All of general use apps for reading the web or books, email, calendaring, and to-dos worked well enough. But any sort of specialty app ended up being a disappointment. I think some of that was, no doubt, the limitation of the OS. But it was also just my lack of comfort. (Update: Just as I was nearing completion of this I came across a twitter conversation between Matt Gemmell and Ben Brooks and I think it fits perfectly in this post).

I don' think it's about being scared so much as it is the comfort of long practice as well as very real constraints of apps and OS. In May I turned a corner and I suddenly found iOS was just as easy to use as the Mac1. Not only that, but many tasks were actually quite a bit easier or seemed so. Some of this was iOS. Some of it the improved quality of apps. Some of it was just me having settled in to this new home. Even better, as the mental friction slipped away I came to more fully appreciate and enjoy the iPad form factor. This may seem silly but at some point in the spring I decided to start using the iPad without the smart cover except for the times I needed to prop it up for typing with an external keyboard or going out with the iPad. I've always used a case or cover but there's something very nice about using an iPad bare. With just the metal and glass in my hands the iPad is at it's lightest and thinnest, it just feels better.

I'm not iPad only and won't be anytime soon. The Mac still has some uses for me that I cannot duplicate on an iPad. The biggest of these is layout on InDesign. It's something I need to do for clients once or twice a month. Much of my graphic design is also on the Mac but I can see this moving over to the iPad and I'm actively working on that. But I'm still surprised at how little I'm using the Mac these days. I suspect I'll keep one around for a long time. No doubt it's still a great operating system and I'd never want to use any other desktop OS but it just doesn't feel like home anymore.

  1. I can imagine a scenario in which a young person of today, having grown up using an iPad, eventually finds themselves at the keyboard of a Mac. They'd likely endure a period of adjustment and discomfort. ↩

WWDC 2016


It’s that time of the year when Apple nerds gather in a big herd in San Francisco for Apple’s WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference.) There is, of course, the other big event in the fall when Apple announces/releases the new iPhone and the new operating systems. But June is centered on app development and it’s where the coverings come off of the details of the new operating systems: watchOS, tvOS, iOS and now, the newly renamed macOS.

I’m not going to deep dive the various platform changes as plenty of others have done that, here’s the MacStories Overview and Walt Mossberg’s Unpacking. Rene Ritchie has a great overview of the whole week: WWDC 2016: Beyond the Keynote.

As usual, there were a great many expectations (and hopes) in the Apple and larger tech community. Some of them realistic, some of them not so much. This year there was much rending of clothing and gnashing of teeth about Siri and how far Apple has supposedly fallen behind Google and Amazon. The expectation being that Apple would bring forth major improvements to Siri, putting itself back on level ground with it’s competitors.

Of course Apple did announce improvements but as it often goes, the improvements are iterative. Siri will be opened up to the developers of apps in a few categories only. The intelligence of Siri will be improved but within the privacy goals previously set by Apple. They will rely on in-device processing as well as something called “Differential Privacy” which is very selective processing by Apple of your data but only in aggregate (with other users) and with injected random noise. The idea here is that they learn about the collective base of users but each individual user’s data remain’s private. Whether the results will be up to the expectations of users remains to be seen. Google collects far more data. Amazon is a bit more open and aggressive.

Along the lines of a more powerful Siri many hoped for the announcement of a new Siri-powered Apple device that would compete with Amazon’s Echo and the devices announced by Google. No such announcements were forthcoming. The closest Apple came was in announcing a new app called Home as well as the Siri improvements. For now the current lineup of Siri enabled devices will be Apple’s offering with the AppleTV and iPad (plugged in) serving as Home-kit hubs.

I’ve been a bit disappointed with the 4th gen AppleTV. I’d been looking forward to Siri searching my content but alas Siri doesn’t search Homesharing content nor has it been announced for the next version of tvOS. But the new remote app will be a welcome addition and no doubt the other improvements will be welcomed by many. I’ve found that the Plex app is far more useful than Apple’s Homesharing interface which seems clumsy by comparison.

I was a bit disappointed that there were not more iPad related improvements to iOS. It’s possible that there will be some improvements that were not highlighted in the opening presentation or in the week afterward. In time more of the hoped for changes will come. Of course Federico Viticci had some thoughts on this.

AppleMusic and News are both going to look a lot nicer. Photos is getting some great improvements and Messages was obviously a focus and is benefiting more than any other app. I use Messages a lot and am looking forward to enjoying the new features. Notes is getting collaboration which will come in handy for folks that need that feature. Split screen Safari might be handy.

macOS Sierra is getting some nice improvements. Most notably, Siri which will be able to handle local file searches, image searches on the web and much more. Some of those searches will be pinnable or saved for later use. Other notables: tabbed interface for many apps, ApplePay, Picture in Picture, iCloud Drive sync for your Documents and Desktop folders, Universal Clipboard, and Auto Unlock.

Katie Notopoulos writing for BuzzFeed
The End of the Apple Man

But the effervescent demo of Apple Music by the charismatic Bozoma Saint John — a black woman who looked and acted nothing like the typical Apple Men onstage before her and who in her opening remarks mentioned being a mother — felt like a breath of fresh air signaling that perhaps the winds are changing. There were other signals too. In the video segment cheering on developers using Apple’s Swift programming language, the video ended with a black woman joyfully expounding how awesome coding was — certainly not the stereotype of a coder, and not totally reflective of the crowd there watching the video. At another Apple event in March, another black female Apple executive, Lisa Jackson, took the stage to talk about Apple’s environmental efforts.

Breaking the Apple Man stereotype in the people who appear on stage as the Apple’s evangelists is symbolic. Having a black woman present on stage might just mean the company is more aware of the optics of its events.

I’ll end with one of the highlights of the keynote and that was Apple’s announcement of Swift Playground which is a part of their efforts to encourage coding:Everyone Can Code. Many were hoping for full-on app development on the iPad, this is not it but it is a great start. I expect many kids will get their start coding via Swift Playground and many adults too. Very exciting.