Mac OS 9
Volume Number: 15
Issue Number: 11
Column Tag: Systems
by Vicki Brown
Something Great Just Got Better
Looking Back
I worked for a little over a year in Apple's Copland Core OS team. At the time, I
remember seeing demos from the Finder team; demos of the new Appearance Manager,
the Keychain, the user logins... In short, I remember the cool stuff we were told to
expect in the User Interface portion of Mac OS 8. (I was working in the Core OS group
where we talked about memory management but there wasn't much to see).
Then the schedules and project plans changed. Many of us wondered what would happen
to all the wonderful UI technology we'd been hearing about and catching glimpses of.
Some of it hit the desktops in the "new" Mac OS 8.0. More of it came out in Mac OS 8.5.
Now, there's Mac OS 9. It won't disappoint you, especially if you spend a lot of time on
the Internet!
Looking Ahead
By Apple's count, there are over 4 million users of Mac OS 8.5 and 8.6; these have
been widely adopted releases among previous Mac owners as well as new Mac owners.
The high rate of adoption is also indicative of a significant base for developers.
Developers should plan for users to have access to the features in Mac OS 8.5 and, now,
Mac OS 9.
Many of those users who upgrade are recent purchasers who want to be sure to stay up
to date. Others are power-users who want the most advanced features. 60% of these
users share their computer with someone else; over half use more than one computer.
In addition, Apple's survey indicates that 90% of users who upgrade are connected to
the Internet and spend time on-line.
To meet the demands of these users, Apple has been introducing better Internet tools.
Mac OS 8.5 introduced the industry's fastest network copy capability, as well as
Sherlock, the latest word in Internet searching. In fact, 12% of those surveyed
indicated that they updated to Mac OS 8.5 specifically for Sherlock! Mac OS 9 continues
the trend, bringing new ease of use to working with the Internet.
Your Internet Co-pilot
Apple has termed Mac OS 9, "Your Internet Co-pilot". The release has (of course :-)
nine key features, the Internet Power Tools. These are:
• Sherlock 2
• Multi-user environment with logins and per-user preferences
• Voice Recognition Password
• Encryption Technology built in
• Keychain for password storage
• Automatic Software updating
• File Sharing over TCP/IP
• AppleScript over TCP/IP
• Network Browsing
Off-line Features Too
There's more, of course. Mac OS 9 comes complete with the latest helper apps,
including QuickTime 4, Netscape Communicator 4.6, and StuffIt Expander 5.1.4 (an
updated version of Outlook Express is expected to be available from Microsoft at about
the same time as the release of Mac OS 9). There's a whole new set of "Ensemble
Pictures" in the Appearance Desktop Pictures folder and just under a dozen new
system sounds (if you loved Wild Eep or Quack, be sure to salvage them from your old
System; they didn't make the cut). Unfortunately, there are no new Themes or Sound
Sets for the Appearances (drat).
For reasons that escape me, Apple has once again separated the Monitors and Sound
Control Panels (but then, I could never understand why these were merged in the first
place). Other new Control Panels include Software Update, Keychain Access, and
Multiple Users. Some, such as File Sharing, have new items, so be sure to check these
out. The Mouse control panel has a snazzy new iMac[TM] look.
PostScript printers are now set up using the Desktop Printers Utility, found in the
Apple Extras folder (non-PostScript printers are still set up using the Chooser).
Printing is scriptable in Mac OS 9, so you can automate more of your workflow. You
can even create desktop "printer" files that aren't associated with an actual printer,
for example, a translator that converts documents to PostScript format, or a spool file
that allows you to save documents to print later.
Games, Languages, Speech
Mac OS 9 provides great gaming capability, to match the resurgence in the Apple
gaming community. Game sprockets are built in (and the number of shared library
files has been reduced). OpenGL makes Mac gaming titles more "real", displaying
accelerated 3-D graphics.
Language kits are now included, to allow full input, editing, and display of any language
Apple supports. In Mac OS 8.5, users could install fonts for non-Roman languages, but
Mac OS 9 goes one step further, adding input methods for editing.
Speakable items have been overhauled with an "ear" toward emphasis of Internet
activity. In addition, more speakable items are context sensitive, listening for
commands appropriate to the current application. This improves accuracy by reducing
the database of "possible" words.
The Ultimate OS for Publishing
Mac OS 9 provides several new features for the desktop publishing market. ColorSync
3.0 has been completely re-architected around the typical publishing workflow,
allowing users to trust the color throughout the publishing process from start to
finish.
FontSync does for type what ColorSync does for color. Users can move predictably
through each phase in the process of document creation, knowing that the fonts they
use will match at every stage. For each font, FontSync creates a profile based on name,
type, kerning tables, glyph metrics. As developers adopt this technology, they can