Apple 2002: The Software


Following our recap of Apple's hardware for 2002, let's take a look at software development throughout the year.

The beacon on the hill, of course, is OS X, which got a big rev with OS X 10.2 (Jaguar). Big news was Quartz Extreme, but the OS is also gaining maturity and refinement, with greater stability, and welcome feature returns, such as spring-loaded folders. More recent machines benefited most from 10.2 with speed boosts, although the OS runs somewhat disappointingly on older G3 hardware.

Regular dot-point upgrades to Jaguar late in the year kept the features coming - important additions such as file journaling were included. Ease of networking with Windows was also improved, along with LCD anti-aliasing, netboot, vastly increased security and FireWire audio.

Developer support hasn't languished either, with much improved Project Builder tools, AppleScript 1.9.1 and Unix scripting for languages such as Perl.

Networking in Jaguar includes support for Rendezvous, BlueTooth, PC card modems for PowerBooks and, in preview currently, TCP/IP over FireWire.

BlueTooth finally made the Mac, but we suspect you'll see real fireworks in January when Apple makes it as standard as Airport across the model range. Airport is still 11Mbps, but there have been gradual improvements to base station software. Not a lot of action there though.

Bigger news came with the iApps at MacWorld New York in Julu. These included iChat, iSync, Address Book, Backup (for .mac), iCal and Rendezvous. Some are linked with .mac, but all make the Mac a compelling package who need to info-share and spend a lot of time using the internet. iChat is kind of cool with its animations and for those who need to IM, there's surely none better.

Rendezvous is really big news, as it's got support from major players in the printer industry, such as HP and Epson. Instant networking to printers or via iChat will very much change the way PCs and peripherals interact with one another - seamlessly. (If it puts a few more MCSEs out of work, so much the better).

QuickTime wasn't lying down either, with MPEG-4 licensing the only thing delaying the release of QuickTime 6.0. Quietly, at the same time, Apple and Microsoft declared cold war over digital media standards, with MS asserting that WMP represented superior technology, while Jobs argued in favour of open standards, such as MPEG.

Sherlock received significant attention this year, with many new features, including new channels (mostly US-centric, such as movie times), while at times Sherlock 3 looked embarrassingly like Karelia Software's Watson, it provided a significant feature upgrade for Jaguar users.

Mail also featured some compelling updates, including Junk Mail filtering. But Mail is still fairly basic as a client, and will probably not shift a lot of users out of Entourage and Eudora. But you can't complain about the price.

iTunes 3 has some very nice featurws now, with its integration with iPod, equalizer, effects and '25 most played' lists. Along with Disc Burner, there are regular updates for new burners, and third-party plugins can make them both better: CD Session Burner and an Ogg Vorbis encoder makesiTunes/Disc Burner solid alternatives for those who don't want to - or need to - invest in Roxio's Toast.

Early in the year, Jobs released iPhoto alongside the iMac, which made light of connecting to digital cameras and downloading 'rolls' direct to your desktop. Free but - ominously - only available for X, iPhoto was a hint to OS 9 users to make the swtich to X. iTunes 3's release confirmed that 9 was almost finished as a development platform. Naturally, all the new iApps were X-only.

AppleWorks received no major upgrade, although Apple's return to translaters for multi-file compatibility was a welcome one.

DV is one area that Apple is making all its own in the Pro-Am space. While Final Cut Pro 3 was released in December 2001, it received minor bug fixes during the year. Final Cut Pro 4 is reportedly close to finalized. The real DV news from Apple came in the firm of DVD Studio Pro 1.5 and the all-new Cinema Tools. A $999 Pro appllication designed to extend and integrate with FCP and DVD Studio Pro, it has helped cement Apple's dominance of this market. Recognizing the number of G3s in use for DV, Apple made Cinema Tools compatible with the G3 [although DVD Studio Pro demands a G4], while Final Cut Pro also got an OS 9 version. It may well be the last, however.

While Jaguar delivered some significant (relatively quiet) audio enhancements, the most important Mac audio news came in the form of Apple's acquisition of eMagic. Cupertino promptly axed the Windows version of Logic. So while 2002 won't go down as an audio milestone for OS X, we can expect some major announcements in 2004, particularly as there's now vast scope for hardware developers to incorporate FireWire support in their audio products. We're also seeing more plugins - like VST's - go X native which, again, makes the case for migrating from 9 more persuasive.

Not a piece of Apple software, but equally important, is MS's Office suite. Office v.X sales tanked in 2002, with admissions by the MacBU that only a miserable 300,000 copies sold, on forecasts of 800,000. Moreover, the BU's (now former GM) Kevin Browne revealed that Office 2001 outsold v.X. Price was a key factor, and both MS and Apple grudgingly admitted this by instigating fairly deep price cuts on upgrades and new licenses. But MS's relationship with Apple has cooled and the two companies did not renew their historic 5-year agreement, forged in 1997 between Jobs and Gates. MS has lagged on IE development, with no v.6.0 in sight for OS X, while 5.2 remains bug-ridden. By contrast, Chimera grows better in leaps and bounds.

Finally, we can cite 2002 as the year OS 9's music died. The classic OS continues to boot millions of Macs each day but, with the exception of 'Quark users and education', the 'pute won't boot in 9 after December 31. It lives on in the form of OS X's Classic environment but, for many, it still remains a yardstick for elegance, intuitiveness and ease-of-use that OS X, despite its advanced features, has yet to match. There may yet be a market for 'dual boot' 2002 Macs for quite some time for these very reasons, as well as the plethora of legacy hardware support it provides.