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Bill Machrone
Does OS X have the substance to match its top-notch style?

Bill Machrone
Contributing Editor PC Magazine
Wednesday, March 28, 2001
TalkBack!Add your opinion
There are few more dangerous undertakings for a PC advocate than to criticize a Macintosh product. So I've donned my flak jacket, helmet, and stainless steel underwear as I venture forth. Here goes....

OS X is beautiful. Most other operating system users will turn green with envy at the Aqua interface, which uses color, drop shadows, transparency, and a rich color pallete artfully and intelligently. But even if you've been using Macs since 1984, you'll still have to learn it from scratch. This raises the question: Is it better or just different? And if it's just different, is it worth the change?

IT'S TOO EARLY to answer that question, because the majority of mainstream apps have not yet been rewritten for OS X. Those that have look impressive and share the many visual capabilities of the Aqua interface. In toto, however, OS X is enough to make Intel executives weep for joy.

Intel?

That's right. Apple continues to set the benchmark for graphical user interfaces that PCs are measured against. Millions of users who would never for a second consider buying a Mac will demand the same qualities of look and feel on their PCs. And that's great news to Intel, since they're in the business of selling ever-faster chips, and there's nothing like a complicated graphical interface to bog down the processor and make you trade up. OS X is the best marketing tool for Windows XP that anyone could hope for, and we all know through (sometimes bitter) experience that new operating systems tend to work best on hardware platforms that were designed for them. Upgrading older platforms can cause unsuspected problems.

Still, Mac users have many reasons to rejoice. As PC Magazine Editor-in-Chief Michael Miller says, this is the first real upgrade to Mac OS, because it's the first that can truly multitask. Welcome to the 20th century (now that it's the 21st), Mac users.

PC Magazine has a detailed review of OS X, and it's just a click away. Check it out.

Is OS X everything it's cracked up to be? Will it find a useful niche, or is it just OS eye candy? TalkBack to me.

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