Interesting article

[Craig R. Arko]

Derrick Story has published an article over at O'Reilly called <The Changing Mac Community> (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/mac/2002/03/05/mac_community.html).

I'm curious about how many people here underwent the type of experience he describes, of having been forced to leave the Mac but being able to now return because of OS X, and the new applications it enables.

Comments?

[Phil St. Romain]

From the author: During late November and through early December 2001, I received 523 email comments on the subject of Mac OS X versus Mac OS 9, how the new operating system might impact the Mac community, and the overall possible effect on market share.

Most of the letters were positive about Mac OS X, even if the writer had no immediate plans to switch. We'll get to some of those reasons why later in the article. In a handful of letters writers stated that they felt betrayed by Apple and they will be switching to Windows. But about twice as many former Windows users said good riddance to XP and they are moving happily to OS X. So Apple appears to be gaining some ground in that arena.

I think Apple will indeed lose some of the folks who feel betrayed because OS X seems to have moved too far away from the Mac they came to know and love. Even if they can doctor things up with themes and 3rd party apps to make X look more like Classic Mac OS, some of these folks are just so ticked at Steve Jobs for cutting those features out of Mac OS X that they've had it. Only, where will they now go? It's a real quandary for some. And I think Apple knows they'll lose some of these veteran Mac users, only there are these new markets which might not be so attracted to Mac OS X if Apple had offered the same interface and carefully hidden the Unix underpinnings. Only time will tell if the newcomers replace those who will leave. My hunch is that they will, and more.

[oldtech]

I don't feel betrayed or even upset with Steve Jobs for bringing an end to the Macintosh as we knew it. My computers are my tools, all I ask of the OS is to run the hardware, launch and manage my applications, preferably with a well designed and intuitive interface. There doesn't seem to be much attention paid to the fact that OSX would not run well enough on any of four Macintosh systems we have to be considered a "production machine" in our print/prepress area.

I have not been alienated from Apple, they simply no longer make a system that works well in the print/publishing industry. Its all well-and-good for the Unix and "digital-hub" people, and more power to them. I just think its important for people to know that there are some of us that used the Mac because it was the best tool and not just for feel good reasons.

Apple has changed its tools to specialize in a different area, they can, inevitably no longer accomplish the old tasks as well.

[edlake]

I don't feel betrayed. In fact, I feel excited about the new direction the Mac is taking. By necessity, Macs have been in their own little world. But I came to computing when there were numerous worlds: C-64, Apple II, CP/M, MSDOS, Unix, minicomputers, etc. Long ago I decided that the Windows world was not for me. My first experience with it was Windows 386 which was the predecessor to Windows 3.0. It was downright horrible! At the time I was using Macs at work and Amigas at home. I felt comfortable with both of them, and I could even do some MSDOS. Amigas have command line interfaces similar to Unix so not having one in System 6 felt like a step back. Not to mention that the Amiga had preemptive multitasking and the Mac didn't (until X).

I have no problems with moving on. I expect that Apple will address the needs of the printing industry (where I work) in due time. I'm not impatient and neither are most of the people at my job. When the applications and interfaces to printers are ready, we'll use them. Professional users don't upgrade just because the upgrade is available. There have to be compelling professional reasons to do so. I expect the printing industry to be using 9.x for a few more years.

[Andrew LaGow]

I'm not in the least bit bothered by the OS X transition. Speaking as a graphic designer I can tell those of you in the industry that most of the tools to accomplish the usual print tasks are here right now. Suitcase, FreeHand, Illustrator, InDesign and soon Photoshop. Quark's obviosly missing from that list, but I personally have given up on those guys since I began using InDesign 2.0. And using PDF as a workflow solution makes Quark irrelevant anyway, especially if you're like me and have never had to rely on any high-priced, custom Xtensions.

This may not be enough for larger-scale operations, but in my little shop with a lone G4 running OS X networked with a IIci running FreeBSD as a router and two other Macs running 8.6, interfaced to an Epson Stylus Color 3000 via Ethernet and Epson StylusRIP, everything is running very smoothly. I haven't been in OS 9 on that G4 in some time.

Whew! I guess after all that technobabble, what I'm really trying to say is that if you're a designer and you want to make it happen in OS X, you can. Groovy!

Andy

[Phil St. Romain]

Well, a good discussion! :)

Oldtech, I remember some of what you wrote on MFI Talk, but I don't remember what your set-ups are nor what programs you're trying to run. It definitely has seemed to me that OS X begs to be run on newer hardware. In the meantime, is it not possible to just keep going along with OS 9 until you replace your hardware?

I hope the printing/design industry is as happy with Photoshop as I've been with Golive.

[Andrew LaGow]

Phil, I don't know where I read it, but some guy somewhere is beta testing Photoshop 7 and is just going insane over it--loves it.

Okay, not exactly a good statistical sample, but since I pre-ordered it last week anyway I don't care--his raving is good enough for me.

Having Photoshop just about buries the need for Classic for me. I've even got my accounting system on X with MYOB AccountEdge--they were one of the first to bring their app over. What an excellent piece of software, by the way.

Andy

[edlake]

At my place of employment, we'll need new printer drivers for some of the more unusual printers. We have digital presses (Indigo, Nexpress, Heidelberg), Durst Lambdas, Kodak Inkjets, Vutek, Canon laser printers and a few more. All of them require special PPDs and in some cases, special RIPS. I generally only print readers to the Canons, but I set up files for almost all of them.:cool: