Mac OS X.1

Improvements across the board within the operating system and support from numerous companies have made OS X a viable upgrade. Internal improvements have brought the performance and reliability up to professional levels, while software from such companies as Canon, Epson and Hewlett-Packard make a wide variety of printers and scanners compatible. As soon as 10.1 was released, we upgraded our Dual G4-450 with nothing but positive results. With multiple hard drives on our system, we're able to dedicate drives for booting into either OS 9 or OS X, thus ensuring backward compatibility.

However, since upgrading over a month ago, the only times we've needed to boot into OS 9 was for using a Firewire card reader (for reading compact flash cards from a digital camera) and only because the drivers aren't yet available. But you don't need a high speed G4 to use it. It's now become the default OS on our Powerbook G3-400 (Firewire model), responding quickly and running reliably. Airport networking works flawlessly, and Internet and intranet access is rock solid.

In addition to performance improvements, Apple has added DVD-video playback. Since OS X is a true multi-tasking operating system, you haven't really watched a DVD until you've made it a half-size window in the background while checking e-mail, shopping on Amazon.co.uk and copying files at the same time--without skipping a frame. iTunes for OS X will play and encode music, as well as burn audio CDs using an internal or external CD-R/RW drive. If you need to burn data CDs, simply insert a blank disc. OS X will detect it and ask how you'd like to format it: Mac/PC data or audio CD?

Additional improvements in AppleScripting, a customisable Dock, videocard and printer drivers, and networking add to the appeal. One important missing feature is the ability to print to a remote USB printer. Using OS 9, Apple included the USB Printer Sharing control panel, which allowed remote Macs to print to any USB-connected printer on a local Mac. This worked flawlessly for us when printing from our Powerbook to an Epson 1280 connected to our G4. However, there seems to be no such facility for printing to remote USB printers under OS X. Aside from that, OS X on a contemporary Mac is a solid performer and a glimpse of how things ought to work. --Mike Caputo

The heart of Mac OS X is Darwin, the Linux-like core operating system of OS X. It's an industrial-strength modern operating system engineered for rock-solid stability. Darwin offers greatly improved performance through such advanced features as protected memory, preemptive multitasking, advanced virtual memory, symmetric multiprocessing, modern networking, and Unix application support.

Mac OS X combines three state-of-the-art graphics technologies to give you sharp, clear, dynamic graphics: Apple's new Quartz 2-D graphics engine (based on the Internet-standard Portable Document Format), OpenGL for sizzling 3-D graphics and intense gaming, and QuickTime to play streaming movies, sound, pictures, and other media in over 30 different formats.

Mac OS X takes full advantage of the Internet, so getting online is faster and easier than ever. Mac OS X is ready to plug into any Internet standards-based network. It simplifies Web surfing and Internet communications with several Internet-based applications, including Mail, Microsoft Internet Explorer for Mac OS X, Sherlock, Keychain, Address Book, and PPP Connect.

To ease your transition to this new platform and to protect your investment in existing Mac programs, Mac OS X includes several technologies that enable you to run the Mac OS 9 applications you use today. Also included, of course, is the next generation of modern applications optimized to benefit from the advanced features of Mac OS X.