Apple’s Mac OS X 10.0 Shipped 5 Years Ago Today

As reported by John Siracusa on behalf of Arstechnica today:

Five Years of Mac OS X

A side-by-side test-drive of Mac OS X 10.0 and 10.4 is shocking. The eternal debate is whether this gap exists because 10.4 is so good, or because 10.0 was so, so bad. That said, Apple’s ability to plan and execute its OS strategy is not open for debate. In five short years, Apple has essentially created an entirely new platform. Oh, I know, it’s really just the foundation of NeXT combined with the wreckage of classic Mac OS, but I think that makes it even more impressive. Two failing, marginalized platforms have combined to become the platform for the alpha geeks in the new century.

In that time, we’ve seen four major revisions (10.1 – 10.4) and countless mini-revisions as Apple’s modern operation system came from obscurity to be force to be reconned with. Speaking for myself, it was Apple’s sexy Titanium Powerbook that first caught my eye back in the year 2000 but is was OSX that really got me interested in Apple’s offerings. Time sure does fly as five short years ago I was considering the strange possibility of actually buying a Macintosh computer and trying to actually use it for my day to day work. Flash forward to the year 2006 – You’d be hard pressed to find a single PC in my home or office with the token PC (running Linux of course) quietly sitting in the corner doing its thing but Windows has been banished from my life and I couldn’t be happier because of it. In those same 5 years, Microsoft has shipped, wait, is about to ship…umm, oh yea that got delayed earlier this week to March 2007? Well, in the time Apple has shipped 4 major versions of its operating system – Microsoft hasn’t shipped a single thing in the operating systems area, with the exception of a single service pack a year or two ago.

Vista continues to be delayed (it’s not even enjoyable to poke fun at it anymore as the whole thing is such a big joke) as more and more features continue to be removed from Vista – the future looks brighter than ever for Mca OSX. I honestly feel back for my Windows only acquaintances who must feel just completely left out to dry by Microsoft when it comes to advancing their operating system. I can honestly say that each new version of Mac OSX has brought a fairly substantial number of features that really do change how you work with your computer, making it more enjoyable and letting me get things done faster than ever before. Like I’ve said many times, I’m thankful to Apple for a great many reasons but tops on that list is that they made technology fun for me again. After years and years of dealing with all of the daily bullshit that is life with Windows, getting to sit in front of a beautiful Macintosh everyday is a most pleasant experience that will spoil you. Did I mention how niceely World of Warcraft looks running fullscreen on an Apple 30″ Cinema display? Oh My!!