Should you switch to OS X?
Apple wants you to do it. Macworld and Mac Addict want you to do it. But are you ready to do it? Is it time to switch to OS X?
OS X is a stellar leap from classic Mac OS and can be quite intimidating to old hat Mac users. This has many of you scratching your head saying, "My Mac works great now. Why switch and buy new software?"
First off, let me say I bought OS X the day it was released. Which means I preordered it and it was Fed Exed to me on the day of its release. So I have been using it since 10.0 (and the public beta for whatever that's worth) and I really like it. It is my system of choice out of all the operating systems out there. (Click here for details on using other OSs)
You would think that makes the choice clear. But it isn't. First off, when I got 10.0 I had a 333Mhz iMac with only 96MB of RAM. It ran OS X... but very slowly. The iMac ran OS 9 very fast so that was still my main OS. OS X may be great -- but at that time virtually no software ran native and the speed issue made OS 9 the clear choice.
It did get my appetite wet for a OS X ready G4 and come Macworld I bit the bullet and ordered a dual 800Mhz G4 PowerMac. I loved OS X and I wanted to have the machine to really run it.
The dual processor Mac runs OS X just as fast as it runs OS 9. I never boot into OS 9 on it. Never. I use Classic quite a bit to run older software and so far everything has worked without a hitch -- maybe even better than it would running in OS 9 itself -- as Classic never crashes and OS 9 does.
Sometime down the road I came across a great deal on a new 500 Mhz PowerBook G4. This is the high-end first generation Titanium PowerBook that sold for $3500. It was released pre-OS X. For a quick review of it -- I'd give it 5 stars and tell anyone and everyone that this is the best laptop computer you can buy. Period. Order a Ti PowerBook today.
However, the 8MB video card and 256MB of RAM are not ideal for running OS X. It runs OS X fairly well, much better than the iMac did, but when you boot into OS 9 you realize what a speed demon this machine is. Something is lost in the translation to OS X.
I'll throw out there the RAM difference between my Macs -- my PowerMac has 1280MB of RAM in it. It's a beast with high speed 7200 RPM drives and 2MB of Level 3 cache on each processor, too. My PowerBook G4 has 256MB of RAM. That is more than enough to run OS 9 and lots of applications -- but not enough to run OS X and OS 9 as Classic and a bunch of applications. I figure adding more RAM would make this machine much faster in X, but after a great deal of thought -- I decided to stick with OS 9. Most of the applications I need to run on it are for OS 9 and I like OS 9 too.
One thing I will say, lack of software is not an option for not switching to OS X. There are lots of native applications out there and they work great. And as I said above, Classic runs all of my old software just as if I were booted into OS 9. So software isn't a concern.
OS X is also the future. No doubt about it, Apple has killed OS 9 and made good on delivering the best UNIX and Macintosh experience ever. OS X is great and getting better with every release. Once you get over the initial learning curve there is no looking back. Nothing else can compare.
So if you have a fast G4, lots of RAM and a fast hard drive -- install OS X today. Don't wait, do it now -- it really is time to switch.
If that's not you -- hang tight and enjoy OS 9 and your Mac. OS 9 is a great operating system and with a very large installed user base will be supported with software for a long time. Plan on getting OS X with your next Mac -- the one with a fast G4, lots of RAM and a fast hard drive. Then it really will be time to switch.
-Sean Rose (srose at cycline3 d o t com) has degrees in computer programming and media arts and has been a computer user since 1981 and currently writes commercial software for Macintosh and Windows computers.
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