Product Reviews

Mac OS 9 is a major upgrade to the Macintosh operating system - at least as big a jump as the one from System 6 to System 7 more than eight years ago. We took an in-depth look at an unfinished version of Mac OS 9 a few issues ago (Reviews, Vol 15 No 20, p36). Now it's here, we can see how it shapes up.

The UK got the new Mac OS on the same day as the US, Japan, France and Germany. But the version shipped in the UK isn't the 'B1' British version, it's the 'Z1' international version. This has caused some fuss (mainly over the Wastebasket being renamed 'Trash', and the US spelling of 'colour') and a few technical problems. These are generally restricted to applications that perform different functions on different localised versions of the Mac OS. Word 98 installs the spelling dictionaries for the OS it thinks it's on, so the manual installer is required to add UK items. There are reported problems with the QuarkXPress updater (although not the full installer) when updating a UK version on an apparently non-UK Mac OS, and Microsoft's Internet Connection Wizard complains erroneously about missing Open Transport files. The other issues aren't serious.

Most current software works well with Mac OS 9, but some key tools, such as Adobe Type Manager, need to be updated before they will work. Fortunately, Apple has been proactive about this, helping developers correct problems as soon as possible. Adobe now has a fixed version of ATM on its Web site, and the latest versions of StuffIt Expander and DropStuff are already installed in Mac OS 9.

Apple is particularly proud of Sherlock 2, the update to the revolutionary local and Internet search tool which appeared in Mac OS 8.5. This now provides searches tailored for shopping sites (where results are shown with price and availability) and people (listed with name, phone number and email

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address), as well as news and other custom search types. You can make your own channels to group search engines together, but you can't yet create your own ways of displaying results.

You won't have to worry about keeping all the associated Apple bits of your OS up to date; that's now the job of the Software Update control panel. This interrogates an Apple server to find out if your setup needs updating. Any new software can be listed for you to choose, or downloaded for you automatically. It can even be scheduled to do this unattended.

One of the new features of Mac OS 9 is the support for multiple users. Enabling it is just a matter of a click in the Multiple Users control panel. This provides a new Log Out option in the Finder's Special menu, along with a command-q keyboard shortcut. When the Mac is started or a user logs out, the Multiple Users dialog box appears. Select your name, type your password, and you're in your own Mac OS. Customise this any way you like, change the desktop, configure your views and so on. When someone else logs in with their own name and password, they see their own Mac OS setup. And software which is Multiple User-aware, such as the latest Eudora and Outlook Express (Reviews, Vol 15 No 23, p28), will launch with the right user's settings.

Mac OS 9 allows file sharing over the Internet by clicking a checkbox in the File Sharing control panel. Logging on to a remote Mac is as simple as typing its IP address in the Chooser and supplying a correct name and password. Doing this over a modem isn't exactly fast, but it's simple. A new twist to this concept has appeared: the Remote Access control panel now provides a complete PPP server. You can use this to turn on the ability to dial into your Mac, both directly and via a TCP/IP (Internet) connection. This will be an issue for systems administrators, but it provides Mac users with a host of new ways to get connected without complex technical software.

Mac OS 9 has a host of new and updated features: Sherlock 2, AppleScript and File Sharing over the Internet, support for Multiple Users, ColorSync 3, the improved Network Browser, OS level data encryption, the Keychain for password management, automatic software updating, and more. There's something for everyone, from the lone AppleWorks user to serious network managers. This is a quantum leap forward for Mac users. Update your applications and utilities, then don't look back.