Upgraded Twice Over — And Grateful

Oct 10 2001

My complimentary copy of the Mac OS X 10.1 upgrade arrived this afternoon by special delivery, just as the Apple Store had promised customers via email. Thanks, Apple Singapore!

Aqua — click for screenshot view (177K)

But the truth is, I never expected the package, seeing as how so much confusion arose over the distribution of the upgrade in the US alone. Probably unbeknownst to Apple, and not wanting to risk being left out of the loop, I had already picked up my copy from AppleCare the very first day it was available and had been playing with it since. (And with far greater enthusiasm, I might add, than with the earlier 10.0.X versions.) So now I've got two copies of the precious upgrade, and my faith in Apple's much renewed after this very nice gesture to early adopters like myself.

Make no mistake about this update — with Mac OS X 10.1, Steve Jobs and Apple have finally delivered on their promise of a super-sleek and rock-solid OS that runs beautifully even on my original bondi blue iMac. (Something I couldn't say with a clear conscience about the earlier 10.0.X versions.) Except maybe for occasionally dropped frames in bigger QuickTime movies and in iTunes visuals, everything about 10.1 is visibly way, way faster.

Several, if not many, subtle cosmetic refinements are also evident in this update, from the new crystalline Apple Menu icon at the top-left of your screen to the softer dropshadows of the titles over Docked icons at the bottom. Or left, or right. You decide. Add to that the return of several more familiar features thus far missing (which I won't elaborate here), and I'd say Mac OS X's nothing if not mainstream, finally.

And to think, (from what I hear) it doesn't yet support the ATI Rage Pro graphics card in older models like my iMac! This means the modest 233MHz G3 chip is doing practically all the stuff I'm already seeing happen onscreen. So I simply can't imagine what 10.1 would feel like in a faster, newer Mac.

It took Apple 15 years to get from System 1 to Mac OS 9. Mac OS X, on the other hand, is like that child in A.I.— seemingly familiar on the outside, but a whole new being within. It's designed to appeal to users who value aesthetic refinement even in something geeky like an OS. Yet beyond Aqua — Mac OS X's graphical user interface, which by itself simply astounds you — lies a new foundation that's far superior to that of the old. Unlike the "Classic" Mac OS, the evolution of Mac OS X has been tremendously accelerated from concept to product stage. I'm not saying that despite its wealth of experience and expertise, Apple hasn't the capability to produce a totally brand-new and yet mature OS within a far shorter time-frame — on that count, it has acquitted itself admirably. But I do believe that if we truly want Mac OS X to become an OS without equal, we should give it time to reveal to us what it is capable of. Which brings us to…

The many secrets of Mac OS X, some of which the tinkerers among us already know exist — thanks to applications like TinkerTool and TransparentDock (both highly recommended) — but which Apple itself has yet to unveil. In Mac OS X 10.1, some of these concealed features, like the ability to reposition the Dock for instance, are now accessible (whereas pinning is still not — go figure). What more will be revealed by 10.2? (Hmm… what're Emerald and Sakura doing in accentColors.plist anyway?)

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