We had the opportunity to attend the Seybold Publisher's
Conference in San Francisco recently. While the big announcement
was definitely the G4 Power Macs, in my mind the feature list
and demos of Mac OS 9 were equally exciting. Mac OS 9 sports
over 50 new features, of which Jobs cited 9 and demo'd 3.
Below we give you a rundown on the featured improvements and
the impact they will have on your daily Mac experience. While
Jobs quoted October as the availability date, as of 9-12-99
the Apple Store is showing a 50 day wait. Either way, many
online vendors are taking pre-orders so we did a little comparison
shopping to find the best deals for you....
| Mac
OS 9 Features |
Courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc. |
Multiple User Support - Demo'd at
Seybold in conjunctions with the feature below, voiceprint
passwords. Essentially, it give your Mac multiple personalities.
File access and preference information will be stored
for each user. I can see applications for this in a variety
of settings, but it will definitely be a boon for the
home and education markets. Teacher's and school administrators
can share their computers with students without worrying
about students accessing sensitive data (or changing their
grades!) At home, parents can set up a simple desktop
with easy access to their kids' favorite educational (or
not so educational) titles. Multiple user support should
replace, or at least nicely compliment, programs like
At Ease and FoolProof. |
Courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc |
Voiceprint Password Protection -
In this demo, Phil Schiller tried to log in to a Power
Mac as Steve Jobs. Speaking the words "My voice is
my password," returned an error message, even when
spoken in an imitation (albeit a poor one) of Jobs' voice.
Jobs speaking the same words did the trick of course.
I'm not sure this is an essential addition to the OS,
but it certainly is cool. One has to wonder what happens
when you have a cold or sore throat.... |
Courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc |
Sherlock II - This update
to Apple's hard drive and internet search program was
primarily in response to numerous complaints about the
lack of search sets to manage the hundreds of Sherlock
plug-ins that now available. Although alternatives (like
Sigerson)
exist to add this function, it will be nice to have it
built in to Sherlock. In a questionable move, Apple is
borrowing from QuickTime 4.0's interface giving Sherlock
the same "brushed aluminum" look and square
icons for search sets. Sherlock will come with sets for
news, looking up people and comparison shopping. The results
window will have contextual columns. News results will
have a column with the date, shopping results will have
a price column. The shopping set was to include a plug-in
for eBay queries but eBay recently made a move to block
external searches. |
Courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc |
Keychain - If you are like
me, you have several accounts scattered around the net
that require passwords to access. While having the same
password for them all would simplify things, it is not
the most secure approach. As a result, I have several
passwords to remember. With keychain, a spoken "voiceprint"
phrase or typed password unlocks all your passwords in
one fell swoop. |
Courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc |
Network Browser - I am a big fan
of Apple's current network browser incarnation. It provides
convenient access to resources available on our local
area network and saves a trip to the aging chooser. With
OS 9, Apple has extended the network browser's reach to
cover resources available on the Internet |
Courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc |
File Sharing Over the Internet
- Another feature that has been unleashed from the confines
of the local area network. Migrating file sharing to
TCP/IP allows you to mount a remote hard drive (or specified
folder(s) on that drive) over the internet. The closest
we come to this now is Apple's "Web Sharing"
setup which allows visitors (with the proper permissions)
to download and upload files on your Mac. "File
Sharing Over the Internet" allows you or visitors
to work directly with files on the host drive. This
is a much more elegant approach and will be welcomed
by those who work in collaborative environments. |
Courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc |
Encryption - For privacy freaks and
the security conscious, Apple is including the ability
to encrypt files. While they are billing their encryption
as "industrial strength," details in this area
are still lacking... |
Courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc |
AppleScript Over TCP/IP - Another
Schiller/Jobs demo that went over big with the publishing
crowd at Seybold. In this demo, Schiller had two machines
connected only via an Internet connection. One machine
represented a client in San Francisco and one a service
bureau in New York. Using AppleScript, the SF machine
assembled a brochure from a database of graphics on the
NY machine. Images were manipulated in Photoshop before
being sent over a secure connection to the SF machine.
|
Courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc |
Auto Updating - Borrowing yet another
feature from QuickTime 4.0, Mac OS 9 will have the ability
to periodically check for, download and install updates.
Presumably, this will be on a schedule set by the user.
This is a nice plus for those who don't want to sit glued
to the news sites looking for major and minor updates
to the Mac OS and its various components. Hopefully this
will be implemented in a way that provides information
on each update and allows you to pick and choose items
for download a la Update
Agent. |
