As a developer I am pleased with MacOS X. I am impressed with what Apple has provided in terms of a great Unix environment as well as a great desktop. A couple years ago a system like this was just a fantasy that others I knew had. We worked on our PowerMac clones with MacOS 8 and worked on websites served up on the Solaris and BSD systems and wished they could somehow combine them to make the ultimate system. A couple years later we have it. And Apple is not done yet.

Recently the leader of the FreeBDSD project, Jordan Hubbard, took a job with Apple. FreeBSD 3.2 is largely credited as the primary source for the Darwin base to MacOS X. This is good news for the Unix aspect of this system. Hubbard will still be actively involved with FreeBSD development and he will focus on maintaining a bridge between FreeBSD and MacOS X. This means new developments and enhancements to BSD technologies will find their way into Darwin and work done by Apple will find a welcome audience with FreeBSD. And once Apple developed technologies are adapted to FreeBSD, they can also be ported to NetBSD and OpenBSD.

And Apple has it's dedicated team of developers hard at work preparing MacOS X 10.1. The changes they have announced promise to dramatically increase performance. The poster child Apple used as an example was Internet Explorer. Right now it can take over 5 seconds for IE to start, but with the new enhancements it will take under a second. Steve Jobs also started up 4 applications at a time in under a couple seconds. There are also several key bug fixes that will help Adobe, Macromedia and other major developers bring their applications to the Mac. These updates come in September along with several application releases from top software companies. By the end of the summer, the application issue for MacOS X will no longer be a reason not to go with MacOS X. And for a BSD or Linux user, going to MacOS X already gives you access to more applications that are available to that world, like a very easy to use CD burner and two fully featured web browsers.

MacOS X boils down to a great tool that allows me to do work more efficient and I can do it with a smile. It is something you have to experience for yourself. I strongly recommend taking it for a test spin and deciding for yourself. If you can, spend a few days with it before making a decision. Once you get past the initial shock of being immersed into a new system you will start getting traction and you will realize why the Mac community is so faithful.

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