The new operating system's developers "haven't given Apple any ammunition to improve its market share." The long road "It's another face-lift," said Jef Raskin, who was part of the original Mac development team but left Apple in 1982 amid a well-documented dispute with Jobs. Yet reviews of the new OS have been mixed, and some question whether the final product was worth the prolonged wait. 10 of the operating system-was supposed to right the course for Apple. At the same time, Apple was desperately trying to regain market share that had been lost to the Microsoft Windows juggernaut. In the second half of the 1990s, Apple was facing the most jarring changes since its founding in 1976, remaking itself for the Internet age while undergoing major management changes under no fewer than three chief executives in as many years-Michael Spindler, Gil Amelio and then Jobs.
Moreover, this Sisyphean pattern persisted at a time when the company could scarcely afford to miss a step. What resulted was a vicious cycle: As the addition of features pushed back deadlines, Apple was compelled to promise still more functions to justify the costly delays. "There were little groups all over Apple doing fun things that had no earthly application to Apple's product line." "Anytime they saw something sexy it had to go into the OS," said Jeffrey Tarter, publisher of the software industry newsletter Softletter. Now-after several false starts, abandoned product plans, numerous code names and the return of prodigal CEO Steve Jobs-Apple is finally releasing its next-generation operating system.Īlthough Mac OS X will likely be embraced by the legions of Apple faithful when it is launched Saturday, its history can serve as a cautionary tale about the dangers of an engineering malady known as "feature creep"-a seemingly compulsive need to add functions at the expense of deadlines and other larger goals.
On the eve of unveiling its latest generation of Macintoshes, Apple Computer told reporters of something even greater on the horizon: a new version of the Mac operating system that would add a bevy of groundbreaking features.
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