Mac Scope

Leaving the Past Behind

Stephen Van Esch - 2002.09.12

According to Apple, OS 9 will not be a boot option in 2003 Macs. While this is a reason to rejoice, when you move forward, you always leave something behind.

There are many people who just don't like OS X and plan to stick with OS 9 until the bitter end. In my humble opinion, this is completely understandable. The same thing happened when Apple moved to the PowerPC. The same thing happened when Apple went Platinum.

Things change, and people don't necessarily like it.

What will we lose when OS 9 is no longer a startup option? Well, that brushed platinum look will be gone forever. We'll be stuck with candy-colored widgets and buttons for the foreseeable future. While I'm certain that some will manage to recreate the old OS through various add-ons (witness the return of the Happy Mac in Jaguar), for the most part people will move on as technology herds us ever forward.

That's just the way things go. I use Classic rarely, if at all, these days. The only app that sees regular use that is not yet ready for OS X is Adobe FrameMaker. With any luck, the FrameMaker for OS X timetable has been shortened to accommodate the switch to X only.

This same hope goes for other software laggards. Notably Quark XPress, which only managed to include a platinum interface when OS 10.1 was introduced. Will this change in direction encourage the software sloth (Quark) to finally get with the program?

Ultimately, OS X only will produce a number of benefits for Mac users. Developers might feel more comfortable developing OS X native apps if they have a strong guarantee that people won't be using OS 9 as their main OS. Because of this, programs will become a little more stable, a little quicker, and take advantage of the full range of OS X features (which not all Carbonized applications can do).

For those of us who've been around the "OS upgrade" block a few times, moving to OS X will be much like the jump from 680x0 chips to PowerPC. In the beginning, things were a bit rough. Programs written for both architectures weren't the most stable, and some people complained. Eventually, though, the new PowerPC apps just became part of the landscape. People enjoyed the new OS more than they thought they would, and eventually all that 680x0 stuff was forgotten.

The same will happen with this "forced migration." Many people will complain, but eventually the need to be productive will outweigh the need to keep the flame burning. Some diehards will refuse to part with the old OS, but the vast majority will remember the good times and move on.

And then, when things move far enough along, a new crop of people won't have a clue what you're talking about when you say something about a Type 11 error. And that's good.

Stephen Van Esch is the founder and president of the E-learning Foundry, an online training resource for Mac users. Steve loves the Mac and is doubly bilingual, since he's also fluent in Windows and French.

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