Will Apple nail the coffin with OS 9.5 ?
Apple/Jobs has declared OS 9 to be dead for developers, but not for consumers. Could this mean that they have planned a "final" version 9.5 to come out with Jaguar?
Considering all the new features and improvents it seems logical they will name Jaguar "10.5" or perhaps something like "MacOS X Titanium" so they can charge a significant upgrade fee for it. It would be an extra selling point if macos9 was EOL'ed with a 9.5 version bundled with jaguar.
It would also be a nice thing to do for owners of "legacy" machines..
Disclaimer:This is pure speculation. It would admittedly be a bad signal to developers to ship a new version of macos 9 with (probably) more work in bugfixing, etc. if it is a "dead" OS for developers. But what are your opinions. Do you think this is just my silly imagination playing tricks with me in a late hour?
Which features would justify a .5 designation in macos 9/classic?
Considering all the new features and improvents it seems logical they will name Jaguar "10.5" or perhaps something like "MacOS X Titanium" so they can charge a significant upgrade fee for it. It would be an extra selling point if macos9 was EOL'ed with a 9.5 version bundled with jaguar.
It would also be a nice thing to do for owners of "legacy" machines..
Disclaimer:This is pure speculation. It would admittedly be a bad signal to developers to ship a new version of macos 9 with (probably) more work in bugfixing, etc. if it is a "dead" OS for developers. But what are your opinions. Do you think this is just my silly imagination playing tricks with me in a late hour?
Which features would justify a .5 designation in macos 9/classic?
Comments
I think 9.2 is the last of the line, though. 9.5 would imply a paid upgrade, and I don't think even Steve Jobs could induce a round of paying upgrades to an OS that he's pronounced dead.
Well, I have been surprised by Apple before
But I buy your argument to some degree.. It would be most sensible if further improvements/ additions was made in the parts of the OS that had to do with classic/X integration and hardware/peripheral drivers.
The problem as I see it myself is that Apple is selling hardware and wants to sell new machines that run Jaguar. But it would be a selling point for Apple if a hypothetical macos9.5 was bundled only with Jaguar. Then they could sell it to users with both older AND new machines (if the 9.5 part had enough improvements for legacy users)..
--PB
Side question: How long till classic is no longer installed on new Macs?
<strong>Side question: How long till classic is no longer installed on new Macs?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Two years generally, three or more in the education market.
Just a hunch.
THAT is highly unlikely .. imagine some 13 year old kid hacking the code to give it protected, dynamic memory, symmetric multitasking, etc..
too embarrasing for Apple it would be... <img src="graemlins/embarrassed.gif" border="0" alt="[Embarrassed]" />
It makes much more sense for Apples bizznes to integrate it completety in X.
What will NOT happen anymore is new features. Just maintenence updates and the such. There tens of millions of people out there that will be using OS 9 for a loooong time.
When I was at the Wall Street Journal here in Brussels, you should have seen the publishing floor. They had macs with OS 7, 8, 9... all together. Its just a tool for them, and with exception of the graphic artists, everyone had archaic machines. But all the had to do was use Quark 3 (they refused to use 4 since it sucked so much)... and Word for text processing. Thats it.
Annyway. Bottom line, Im sure updates will happen for a while longer.
<strong>Side question: How long till classic is no longer installed on new Macs?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't see it going away anytime soon at all (maybe 5+ years or more). Why? Well we can still run Pre PPC apps in OS 9 (and by extension in OS X). They didn't remove this legacy ability & I see no reason why they'd remove OS 9 either. Do I think that 3 years from now G6's (or whatever) will boot OS 9? No of course not (I think they'll stop booting in OS 9 probably when the G5 comes around). But why remove the Classic functionality? Makes no sense. Some old apps & many old games will be used for many years to come. Why remove this ability?
If Apple wants to make people migrate then all they have to do is stop it from booting in 9, not remove classic support. Therefore I see no reason why they'll intentionally cut classics life span short
<strong>"I'd like to see Apple sell the rights and code to another company or opensource OS9.x so that somebody else can keep it going."
THAT is highly unlikely .. imagine some 13 year old kid hacking the code to give it protected, dynamic memory, symmetric multitasking, etc..
too embarrasing for Apple it would be... <img src="graemlins/embarrassed.gif" border="0" alt="[Embarrassed]" />
</strong><hr></blockquote>
If anyone could do that without breaking a lot of applications (such as all the MS applications, which depend on memory not being protected for their implementation of OLE) it would be a 13 year old.
Woah.. that is a mind bending concept
The fusion of symmetric multiprocessing and preemptive multitasking, to take computing to a whole new level! Insanely great!
-robo
I would be thrilled to see a 9.2.3, or 9.3.x.
How is everyone else getting along with 9.2.2?
The bring side? Noone's used such a long version number before - on the desktop, that is. Woohoo! Go, Apple Go!
Hey! I'm 13 (well only for 1 more day )! If anyone could give me the money to get the rights to OS 9 I'd love you like a father!!!!
Well, now back on subject .
Not being able to boot into 9, and having it run only as classic, would seem like the way to go. Maybe removing some code would speed it up. As others had said, it just doesnt seem right that Apple whould develope an OS it pronounced dead (but then again, CRTs were pronounced dead, but then we get the eMac) <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> .
I still think that having it run only in Classic would be the way to go. It would ween people off of 9 and still allow them to run their old apps. But not being able to boot into 9 means a major speed bump in classic. As i stated before, maybe removing some code would speed it up some (but i dont know much about OSs yet so dont take my judgement for fact).
My opinion.
<strong>But, even I had data loss, when I upgraded 9.1 to 9.2.2. Prefs were corrupting all over the place. ..... How is everyone else getting along with 9.2.2?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Within a couple weeks of installing 9.2 I lost my entire drive (while it was running it was *quite* flaky). I've heard 9.2.2 is better than 9.2 but I'm not giving it another whack at my data (I had some file backups but I lost all my email, my favorites, and contacts). For the remaining time 9 is on my Mac it will be 9.1 (unless Jag requires it and then I will prolly get a second hard drive for Jag and keep 9.2 locked in its own dungeon...I mean partition.