Apple's Active Directory plug-in has steadily updated since it was introduced five OS X generations ago, with the most notable improvement in OS X Lion being support for DFS browsing. The x86 Mac might seem special to old-timers, but it's a tiny slice of Apple's overall revenue. Data from Apple 10-Q, quarter ending 31-Mar-2020.
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Since the release of System 1 in January 1984, Apple has played an integral role in designing and implementing the graphical user interface (GUI) as we know it.
With the announcement of OS X Mountain Lion this week, Apple is continuing the process it started with Lion by streamlining the connection between the Mac and iOS.
We wanted to take a look at some of the biggest changes in the history of the Mac Operating System over the last 28 years. Looking back, I can't help but be struck by how many elements of the original Macintosh OS are still there more than 30 years after the project started taking shape.
It's a testament to the work of Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, Bud Tribble and the other members of the original Macintosh team that so many aspects from System 1 have become integral to personal computing as we know it today.
There are a few phases in the evolution of the Mac OS that are of particular note. System 7 was the longest-running release for Apple (until OS X); it shipped with all Macintosh machines from 1991 to 1997. If you're in your mid-to-late 20s and used a Mac in elementary or middle school, chances are it was running some iteration of System 7.
One of the many challenges Apple faced in the 1990s was figuring out a new operating system strategy. As revolutionary as the original Mac OS work was, by 1994 it was starting to look stagnant and stale. This was especially true after the first release of Windows NT in 1993, which cemented Microsoft's place in the corporate and enterprise space.
After the Copland project was cancelled in 1996, Apple was left to search for an operating system it could acquire. That led to the purchase of NeXT and its NeXTSTEP operating system.
Not only would NeXT technology serve as the foundation for the future of Apple as it is known today (OS X and iOS are direct descendants of NeXTSTEP), it was responsible for bringing Steve Jobs back to Apple.
It would end up taking ten years from the beginning of the search for a next-generation Mac OS. But the hunt finally reached its quarry with the release of Mac OS X in 2001. But it would take until Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) before the system was really able to hold its own.
Over the last decade, OS X has evolved into a powerful desktop and server platform — while also serving as the core for iOS. With OS X Mountain Lion, Apple is bringing more of the elements and features of its mobile OS to the desktop.
Vintage computer fans who want to take a look at more screenshots of classic Mac OS versions should check out Marcin Wichary's GUIdebook Gallery and Nathan Lineback's collection of GUI history.
Gallery created by Chelsea Stark
If Mac OS X has seemed neglected lately, it probably has a lot to do with iOS hogging all of Apple’s attention. Since Leopard’s release, iOS has gone through four major revisions, each bringing important new features to iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches.
At last October’s “Back to the Mac” press event, Apple finally announced Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion), due to ship in summer 2011. Only a few new features were demonstrated, and then only briefly, so it’s hard to say whether Lion will be another bargain-priced release like the $29 Snow Leopard, or a feature-packed $129 blockbuster like Leopard. But the details we did get make some things very clear.
For the next iteration of Mac OS X, Apple has taken inspiration from the defining characteristic of iOS: simplicity. Just as the Mac was originally a friendlier alternative to command-line operating systems, iOS today stands in stark contrast to Mac OS X and other powerful, but still relatively complex, desktop operating systems. Apple plans to use what it has learned from iOS to make Mac OS X more approachable and even easier to use.
The trouble with apps
Let’s start with the most basic operating system task: installing and running applications. Experienced Mac users may take this process for granted, but try explaining it to a novice. The byzantine system of compressed files, disk images, and installer applications can be cumbersome even for expert Mac users.
You download an application. Where does it go? Once you find it, is that an installer or the app itself? Once it’s installed, do you drag it to the Dock or run it from where it is? And what do you do with the disk image after that?
Uninstalling an app is even worse. Mac OS X offers no uniform way to do it. Sometimes, dragging the application’s icon (assuming you can find it) to the trash is sufficient. But any application that uses a multistep installer probably also needs an uninstaller to really remove it.
Compare all of this to iOS, in which installing any app is as easy as tapping one button. Uninstalling an app is just as simple, and works the same for all apps. This ease of installation (along with low pricing) is why iOS users are so much more willing to purchase and install software. People who are daunted by the prospect of installing Mac applications will happily tap their way to screenfuls of apps on their iPhones and iPads.
![Mac Mac](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-2.26.29-PM.jpg)
Apple has listened to that feedback. The forthcoming Mac App Store will bring the iOS app experience to the Mac: one-click purchase-and-install, explicit visual feedback on download progress, and a clear indication of where the application will live once it’s downloaded. At the October event, Apple didn’t demonstrate a new process for uninstalling. But it’s a good bet that it, too, will be modeled on iOS.
Future Is Here (in Construction) Mac Os Catalina
Finding without the Finder
Mac OS X’s Dock went a long way toward simplifying the experience of launching applications on the Mac. Things take a turn for the worse once the user has to move beyond the Dock. The Finder is a big step up in complexity from the Dock’s simple row of icons. There’s also the shotgun approach offered by Spotlight, but once the user starts typing search queries, the battle for simplicity has already been lost.
iOS has taken the Dock’s approach a step further. Instead of just a single line of the most frequently used applications, iOS arrays all of its apps in a series of icon grids. Yes, there’s still a search function as a last resort, but there is nothing like the Finder in iOS.
Apple now appears to be questioning whether there should even be a Finder in Mac OS X. Lion’s Launchpad feature brings iOS’s app icon grid to the Mac, usurping the Finder’s role as the fallback tool for finding and launching applications that are not in the Dock. With Mac applications increasingly using a “library” metaphor, as pioneered by iTunes and iPhoto, the need to interact directly with files by accessing the file system is slowly disappearing.
Toward the iOS ideal
The OS also influences the design of the applications themselves, through the development tools and frameworks it offers and the example set by the OS’s bundled applications. Apple’s new directive for Mac OS X applications is that they should be more like iOS apps.
For example: iOS apps cover the entire screen. That makes sense, given the small screens of handheld devices. But it also provides a measure of focus that customers seem to like. Mac developers are now being encouraged to add full-screen modes to their applications; Apple has already done so itself in apps such as iPhoto. Future versions of Mac OS X will provide a way to switch easily between applications without leaving full-screen mode, retaining both the Mac’s multitasking advantages and iOS’s clarity of focus.
Due to the memory constraints of handheld devices, iOS only recently gained the ability to run multiple applications at once. Even so, iOS applications must still be ready to be evicted from memory at any time, and are expected to automatically restore themselves to their previous state when launched. This also means that there’s no explicit Save operation in iOS applications; work is saved automatically.
Though not subject to the same hardware limitations, Mac OS X applications should behave the same way, Apple has decided. Future versions of Mac OS X will likely include native support for automatically saving and restoring an application’s state. It’s possible that the Dock will no longer provide any visual indication that an application is running: If application state is never lost, the distinction between running and not running no longer really matters.
Eyes on the prize
Future Is Here (in Construction) Mac Os X
There are many more traditional areas where Mac OS X will continue to develop: the transition to 64-bit will be completed, support for flash storage will improve (perhaps with the help of a new, more modern file system), and 3D performance could get some much-needed attention.
But these efforts are dwarfed by the bold new course Apple has charted for Mac OS X. From its experience with iOS, Apple believes it has discovered—or perhaps rediscovered—the secret to selling consumer technology products: simplicity. This doesn’t mean that the Mac we know and love will disappear. Rather, by stealing the most successful ideas from iOS, the Mac OS of tomorrow could slowly shed its legacy constraints while still remaining true to the power, utility, and spirit that has always defined the Mac.
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[John Siracusa, a Mac user since 1984, is a Web developer and freelance writer. Illustration by Tavis Coburn.]