The OS that made me switch.

Say what you may about Mac hardware (I’m in the ‘overpriced, poorly heat managed, form-over-function-even-if-gorgeous-to-contemplate’ camp) the compelling reason for switching to the Mac today is the same as it was ten years ago when OS X was launched, replacing OS 9. I had long thought about switching from Windows by that time, but was aware that OS 9 was every bit as buggy and unstable as Windows ’98, so when OS 10.0 (Cheetah) came out, I decided to wait a while for the bugs to be worked out. But early trials set the heart racing – clean, quick, logical, uncluttered and with readable fonts.

So when OS 10.3 ‘Panther’ arrived and with it the first LCD iMac came out, so did my credit card and the new iMac was soon at work. (I skipped OS 10.1 ‘Puma’ and 10.2 ‘Jaguar’, as the original iMac hardware with its luridly colored translucent shell was ghastly to look at and had very modest specifications for the price). The excellent Epson 1270 ink printer plugged in and ‘just worked’, all sorts of other peripherals did likewise, and as a photographer I have never looked back. The first task was to start scanning all my negatives and slides using a Nikon Coolscan 2000 scanner. After connectivity agonies with Windows it was an unforgettable experience to plug the Coolscan in and find it was ready to go. Thereafter I simply had high quality scans made of all my negatives when they were processed and dumped them on the iMac’s hard drive.

My first Mac – $2,632.79!

At today’s prices, using the US CPI, that comes to $3,149.39, almost twice the cost of my quad core, three screen, SSD equipped Hackintosh! But it was worth every penny and more.

I bought the iMac for the OS, not the OS for the iMac though, strangely, that G4 iMac ‘screen on a stick’ continues to be the only one that has not failed and works to this day. It’s called proper heat management.

There’s an argument to be made that OS X saved Apple from oblivion and for the whole fascinating story of its development, chronicled by estimable British journalist Leander Kahney at Cult of Mac, click the picture below. Leica used to design a camera like this – prototype after prototype – until it worked right.

Click for the story.

The latest changes to OS X are at the margin and mostly icing on the cake, as the primary effort must go where the money is, meaning iOS. But while desktops and laptops are in inexorable decline, I expect that future versions of OS X will build on the iOS experience and only make things better. And as my quick check of the latest version of Snow Leopard the other day confirms, Apple is not letting code bloat slow things down. Indeed, Snow Leopard appears to be the fastest version of OS X yet.

Here’s to the next ten years. Well done Mr. Jobs and the whole team at Apple.