Introduction
Those words set up my review of Mac OS X 10.1 almost a year ago. Mac OS X began life as the last, best hope for Apple's decade-spanning quest for a modern operating system. At first, it was enough for it to simply exist as a stable, feasible product strategy. But while developer releases revealed some very interesting technology, they also raised some red flags. The public beta was a warning shot across the bow of an anxious community of early adopters. The initial release reinforced the old Apple saying: "real artists ship." Mac OS X 10.0 had arrived, but there were problems.
By the time version 10.1 was released, I was ready for some salvation. Version 10.1 held the promise of being the "mainstream release"--something good enough for everyone to use, not just the brave early adopters that sweated out the public beta and the 10.0 release. Version 10.1 certainly was a vast improvement over 10.0. The previous statement can be read as praise for 10.1 or as a condemnation of 10.0, but it is undeniable.
In the end, I wanted more than something that was simply "better than 10.0." As I wrote in my 10.1 review:
I want to believe that [Mac OS X] will replace Mac OS 9 in a way that improves upon every aspect of the classic Mac OS user experience. Unfortunately, although this may still come to pass, Mac OS X 10.1 is not that version of Mac OS.
It seemed that even Apple itself didn't fully believe in its new OS, as it continued to ship hardware that booted into Mac OS 9 by default.
Fast forward to the summer of 2002. Apple has converted its entire product line to both ship with and boot into Mac OS X out of the box, and it's ready to release the next major revision of its flagship operating system: Mac OS X 10.2. Note: not its "future" operating system, or its "new" operating system, but its "flagship." On August 24th, strange animal-fur-themed boxes and discs arrived at retail stores everywhere. This time, perhaps things will be different...
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