OS X update to ease everyday usage, Jobs tells Macworld crowd

07/26/2001

By DOUG BEDELL / The Dallas Morning News

NEW YORK ­ Macworld Conference & Expo, traditionally a showcase for new hardware innovations from Apple Computing, took a soft turn last week.

Apple founder Steve Jobs introduced a new generation of powerful Power Mac G4's and some beefed up iMac configurations, but the focus was primarily on software for the company's year-long roll-out of OS X.

Mr. Jobs previewed the September release of an update to the Unix-based operating system his company bills as the most advanced ever. That update -- OS 10.1 -- goes a long way to adding functions necessary for every-day use in businesses and homes. Yet users who attended the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center event expressed impatience with the speed at which other companies are bringing key applications to the new platform.

The reaction of Lewis Foster, a Williamsburg, Va., graphics artist, was typical.

As a Mac devotee, Mr. Foster has upgraded his hardware to run the new OS X. But most of his work is done in Adobe Photoshop, the graphics industry standard.

Adobe representatives trotted out a preview release of Illustrator but had no news on availability of Photoshop for OS X. As a result, Mr. Foster said, he will have to jump in and out of OS X to access Photoshop for critical daily work chores.

"I'm really disappointed with Adobe," said Mr. Foster, a designer for a T-shirt company. "They supposedly had a Photoshop beta ready months ago, but it's obviously not ready now. And Quark Express isn't there either.

"It's disturbing for people like me."

Randy Archer, who handles computers for Harcourt Inc.'s school publishing division, said the lack of OS X versions for Photoshop, Quark Express and other critical publishing software suites would keep his company from migrating to OS X for at least a year.

"It's a real problem for companies like ours," Mr. Archer said.

Other users who have already made the switch to OS X said they regularly run into trouble when trying to use Microsoft Office, another key package for daily work. Microsoft answered the call by demonstrating a promising, OS X-only version of its popular suite, which will be available this fall at an undisclosed price.

"The Microsoft products are a major distraction right now," said Joseph Ayer, a Northeastern University software developer from Nahant, Mass. "Ninety percent of my problems are with Microsoft Office 2000. It's the buggiest thing I've ever used in my life under OS X."

Mr. Jobs told his keynote audience to be patient. The creation of a whole new Macintosh operating system code base will be only halfway completed by September when OS 10.1 ships. More than 1,000 programs have already been developed to run on OS X "natively," meaning people don't have to launch older OS versions while using OS X in order to use them.

And Mr. Jobs presented a parade of 10 top software companies – "Ten for X" – that assured the audience that their OS X native packages, even those for high-end games, are nearing completion.

Mr. Ayer and others cruising the Expo floor said they have no choice but to be patient.

"I think the fundamentals are all there," Mr. Ayer said. "OS X doesn't crap out. It's stable. And I think when the Unix people start to really embrace this platform, even more and better programs will be available. It's just taking some time to get rolling."

Some highlights from Macworld Expo include:

OS 10.1: One of the key frustrations with OS X's first release in March has been its lack of native CD burning capabilities. Another has been the slow speed at which applications launch.

Apple apparently has solved those problems and more with Mac OS X version 10.1. With it, music CDs can be burned with the software iTunes, and a simple press of a button inside Finder enables immediate burning of data CDs. The update also adds support for playing DVDs and allows creation of writable DVDs with iDVD 2.

Beyond that, demonstrations of the upgrade illustrated a marked improvement in basic performance. When launching applications from OS X, icons bounce up and down while programs load. Mr. Jobs showed how icon bouncing is dramatically reduced as applications spring to life with vigor.

"Most applications will launch two to three times faster in Mac OS X version 10.1, meaning they'll be ready for you before you're ready for them," he said.

OS X's Dock, the graphical desktop rail holding program icons, will be moveable, much like Microsoft's task bar. The Dock was fixed to the bottom of the screen in the first version of the OS. Mr. Jobs showed how the Dock can now be put on either side or on top of the OS X interface.

Finder features are also being overhauled. Pop-up menus used under this utility can be sized to taste under 10.1 and adjusted to show files as icons, in a list or in columns.

Networking with Windows machines is easier, and printer and digital camera support has been radically expanded. OS 10.1 adds the ability to configure wireless connections in the office and home.

"Those are the features you really wanted us to add, and you'll see them all in September," Mr. Jobs said.

OS X 10.1 will be priced at $129, with an upgrade for current OS X users priced at $19.95.

Microsoft Office 10 for Mac OS X: Microsoft continues its heady foray into Macintosh software development with Office 10, a suite of its popular programs authored entirely for OS X.

Office 10 for Mac OS X, due out this fall, incorporates the look and feel of the OS's Aqua interface. Kevin Browne, head of Microsoft's Mac business unit, said that more than 800 dialogue boxes and tool bar icons have been carefully crafted to match the elegance of OS X.

In developing Office 10, Microsoft has also worked with Apple to incorporate the transparency of layered objects. This feature of OS X allows users to see what's beneath windows as they are opened on top of each other.

In Word, users can select several stretches of text in the document and apply customized formatting to all of them at once. In Excel, customizable short cuts and an auto recover features ease the recovery of work after a computer crash.

Quicksilver: Mr. Jobs introduced a robust new generation of Power Mac G4 machines encased in a shimmering metallic package called Quicksilver. Previously, the fastest G4 ran on a 733 MHz processor. New models bump up the high-end speed to 867 MHz.

The 733 MHz Power Mac G4, which used to be Apple's top-end processor, listed at a cool $3,499 a week ago. Now, a 733 MHz G4 processor represents Apple's entry-level Power Mac and costs $1,699, the price previously charged for a 466 MHz G4.

Three new Quicksilver models, the entry-level 733 MHz machine, a midrange 867 MHz version and a professional model that runs dual 800 MHz processors for heavy-duty video and graphics work, will begin shipping soon with OS X installed, Mr. Jobs said. The 867 MHz model is $2,499. The dual processor configuration is $3,499 and will be available in August through the Apple Store (www.ap ple.com) and Apple's chain of retail stores.

The two faster machines come with the Super Drive (DVD-R/CD-RW), which was introduced in January. The Super Drive writes DVD-R at 2X, reads DVD at 4X, writes CD-R at 8X, writes CD-RW at 4X and reads CD at 24X.

Mr. Jobs said he considers such capabilities vital to the company's goal of making its machines "digital hubs" that allow users to easily create and edit Hollywood-caliber video productions.

Along with OS X, the machines come bundled with Apple's iDVD 2 software to allow recording of DVD-Video discs for playback on most standard DVD players.

Souped-up iMacs: Three new iMac models made their debut. At prices ranging from $999 to $1,499, they feature 500, 600 and 700 MHz processors, 128 to 256 megabytes of memory and 20-, 40- and 60-gigabyte hard drives. All are equipped with CD-RW.

For Apple, these consumer models must sell well. Older Apple machines simply don't have enough power to run OS X effectively. The operating system requires a minimum of 128MB of memory and is designed to run on iMacs, iBooks, Power Macintosh G3, Power Mac G4, Power Mac G4 Cube and any PowerBook introduced after May 1998.

Mr. Jobs knows that the success of the new operating system depends on its adoption by a broad range of users, many of whom have been slow to upgrade their hardware. That's one reason the company plans to open 25 retail stores, including one in Plano next month.

Technology writer Doug Bedell can be reached by writing dbedell@dallasnews.com.