The Apple Of Mac's Eye Is On The Way
The Age
Saturday March 24, 2001
All over Australia, thousands of fans of the Apple Macintosh computer are dashing to their local dealer to buy a first copy of Mac OS X - the new operating system that has been more than four years in development.
It went on sale in Australia at midnight last night, more than half a day before the US.
Some stores here stayed open past the witching hour to satisfy customers.
Australia is almost the first in the world to get its public hands on the system. Steve Jobs, Apple's founder and chief executive, decreed that a minute past midnight, March 24, would be the launch date and time, regardless of geography. So New Zealand beat Australia by an hour.
Apple has just about bet the farm on the system, which industry experts rate as the most innovative, modern and certainly beautiful operating system produced in the past 20 years.
It will not run on Windows machines, but some enthusiasts, pointing to OS X's foundation in Unix, the principal mainframe corporate operating system, say this is the beginning of a Mac attack on Microsoft's domination of the PC industry.
The new system is described by its engineers as ``virtually crash-proof", an attribute credited in large part to its Unix core.
Apple's software chief, Avie Tevanian, brought the basics of the new system to Apple when he joined Steve Jobs in the resurrection of the company about four years ago.
Mac OS X represents a sea change for Apple. Although its current operating system, Mac OS 9.1, the roots of which can be traced to 1984, will continue in use, further development is likely now to end.
The Australian price of OS X is $229, with a discount of $55 available to those who bought the public beta last year.
© 2001 The Age
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