Summary
Switching between applications with keyboard commands, a Network Neighborhood, a movable Tasks palette, a built-in Internet Search feature, screen font smoothing, integral support for Internet Explorer, a Favorites folder in the Apple Menu, proportional scroll bars, wacky (and thankfully, optional) stereo sound effects for virtually all system functions... what is this, Windows? No, but Apple shows that it is, indeed, thinking differently.
According to Justin Siemens, of the MIS Department of Canada Computer Paper Inc. (who, we should note, definitely qualifies as a "Mac Forever" kind of guy by having an Apple logo tattooed on his arm), the most useful/nice 8.5 additions are:
For all the carping that Mac evangelists have done over the past few years about how much better the GUI of the Mac OS is than that of Windows, there sure are a lot of features in Apple's new OS release that have previously appeared in Microsoft (and, in some cases, other) operating systems. But Apple's not just playing catch up. There are some truly innovative features, too, such as the ability to attach an AppleScript to a folder, allowing (for example) all files placed in that folder to be printed, backed up, archived, etc.
Some of the features of Mac OS 8.5 are only available to newly written applications that support their new APIs. For example, there is a proportional scroll bar option, selectable via the "Appearances" control panel (of course, Atari owners had proportional scroll bars back in 1985). Unfortunately, this feature isn't available in Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, or even SimpleText -- The new 8.5 Finder, however, shows off what the future will undoubtedly bring to other applications written for this and future Apple operating systems.
Similarly, a new -- and vastly improved -- Open and Save dialog is present, but only in 8.5-savvy apps that allows sorting, previewing and other file-management functions, in a fashion very similar to that provided by the Standard File dialogs in Windows 98.
Interestingly, a few features changed between the late beta phase of the product cycle and the final release in ways that can be argued ended up worse. For example, there is a nifty double-headed scroll arrow option. However, these scroll arrows only appear at the bottom of a scroll bar; not the top. In beta versions, scroll arrows appeared at both the bottom and top, where we think most users would expect to find them.
(Fortunately, this is configurable via AppleScript and third-party freeware; http://members.aol.com/nbeadman/Prestissimo/Prestissimo.html has a good one.)
As well, an arrow at the top of Finder List Views and file dialogs looks distressingly like an "scroll up" arrow; we found ourselves clicking it out of habit. Interestingly, these dual-headed scroll arrows re-appeared at the bottom and top of each scroll bar when we installed Gizmo and Hi-Tech themes from a beta version of 8.5 -- these two themes were omitted from the final product.
Another change is in the screen font smoothing. Beta versions offered the option to smooth 10-point and larger fonts. The final release limits smoothing to 12 points and larger. Ironically, it is small text that benefits most from smoothing. Fortunately, the Larger<>Smaller Font icons on Internet Explorer 4.01 allow this font smoothing to be easily selected for web pages of 10 point or smaller text. Alternately, Greg Landweber's shareware Smoothtype can be used to anti-alias any size font. (Be sure to disable Apple's anti-aliasing via the Appearance control panel before using Smoothtype.)
Although Mac purists may hate the idea of a Windows feature migrating to Mac, we really like several of the "new" Mac functions introduced in recent OS releases by Apple, including the ability to command-tab between applications (command-shift-tab to reverse direction), or the context menu feature, brought up on a single-button Mac mouse by Control-clicking. Anti-aliased screen fonts, Apple's Network Browser and customizable menu-bar styles are also Windows workalikes. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer on the Mac has no equivalent to the Windows version feature that allows dragged Internet links to be set as active desktop items -- essentially, "live" HTML and/or graphical components on the desktop. (There are, however, a number of nifty hidden features that more than make up for it! For example, try command-clicking on a URL or an email address.) You can, however, drag a URL from Internet Explorer and drop it on the desktop to have an active html link. Just open the Favorites page (Organize Favorites in IE 4.5) and drag the URL directly onto the desktop and voilà.
We're still waiting for the Mac OS to allow CD-ROMs and Imation Superdisks (etc.) to be ejected when the Eject button is pushed, but that's a feature we don't expect Apple to offer anytime soon -- it's not The Macintosh Way. As it is, you have to drag them to the trash or use a "put away" command. What's so intuitive about that? (There's a review of the new Imation LS120 USB SuperDisk for iMac at www.pcbuyersguide.com/hardware/storage/.)
At least one NeXTstep/Openstep workalike feature is in the new OS, too. The application menu can be torn off, and when the "minimize" icon is clicked, it turns into a reasonable facsimile of NeXT's famed application dock. (And, once you've got a few applications open, try option-clicking an icon.)
Additional PowerPC native code pays dividends, too. Although Mac OS 8.5 doesn't benchmark significantly faster overall than version 8.1, the OS is significantly faster at file and network copying than its predecessors, and Apple boasts that AppleScript is up to five times faster than before. As might be expected, the OS takes up quite a bit of memory. Our clean install on a Mac with 96MB of RAM, using standard options (no QuickDraw GX or multilingual web browser support) required 17MB of RAM, according to the "About this Computer" memory indicator. Apple says OS 8.5 requires a PowerPC Mac with a minimum of 16MB of RAM, with virtual memory set to 24MB, to run.
There were a couple of features present in previous releases that are missing from OS 8.5, but we doubt many users will lament the passing of OpenDoc, the "Keychain" or the lack of support for 68K Macs. (Note, however, that Macs that have been upgraded with a PowerPC upgrade card are also unsupported.) Some might miss MacLink Plus, though -- aside from a rudimentary ASCII translation facility, it is not part of the system bundle anymore, making the system a little less adept at performing PC<>Mac file format file conversions than previous releases. Fortunately, File Exchange (formerly known as PC Exchange) has been beefed up a little, and now (finally!) supports long Windows 95/98 filenames and can mount SCSI devices. Although it doesn't do file translations, File Exchange handles file mapping, automatically adding the proper Mac creator and file type resources to fork-less files originating on PCs, much as the Mac's bundled web browser handles this task for downloaded files. We were disappointed to note, however, that the Easy Open utility, that helps the Mac know what to do with a file-type it doesn't have the "creator" application for, still doesn't allow you to edit the file-type associations on a case-by-case basis, as Windows does. On the Mac, if you accidentally set an incorrect association (say, telling it to use a picture viewer to open a text file), you must delete all your file-association preferences to recover. However, there is a mechanism provided to work around this issue. If you add an Internet helper application for, say ".MP3" files, and you insert a PC disk with an MP3 file, the file will use that application for its creator.
OS 8.5 adds the ability to fix broken aliases by relinking them to the appropriate resources. Indeed, Apple's use of the invisible resource fork continues to be a mixed blessing. While the Mac OS's Desktop database makes it possible to move files and even bootable system folders from one location or drive to another (in glorious contrast to the evil situation that occurs when applications are moved or a drive is added to a Windows PC), the desktop must occasionally be rebuilt to update icons (which are now in glorious 32-bit color, it should be noted). However, file mapping associations (which, for example, might make a double-clicked text file open in SimpleText instead of Word) are still not as easy to change as they are on a PC. Apple's developer notes suggest that icons are now able to be 48x48 pixels in size, although the Finder imposes a 32x32 limit, presumably for backward compatibility.
Improved Find Function
The "Sherlock" Internet Search function is a vast improvement over the Find function in previous Mac OS releases, but produced less useful search results than one might obtain with the similar function in Windows 98. Sherlock's propensity to attach advertisements to every search hit may be annoying to some, although we suspect most web users are not surprised to be deluged with advertising at this point. Strangely, Sherlock returned a large number of "untitled" and seemingly unrelated pages, while a Windows search returned almost all useful hits on the same terms. Mac OS 8.5 also includes the ability to summarize a retrieved document, automatically producing a one- or two-paragraph synopsis.
Installation
Installing OS 8.5 is fundamentally similar to (but much faster than) the process Mac OS 8.0 ands 8.1 users will already be familiar with: clicking through several pages of license agreements and setup options (you no longer need to know arcane commands like Command-Shift-K to perform a clean installation, by the way), and then locating a drive with the 237MB or so the OS needs to complete its installation successfully. We chose to do a clean install on our iMac and encountered no problems. Like OS 8.1, the Internet Setup Wizard is surprisingly useless for those with a DHCP server (DHCP, which automatically configures all aspects of Internet access, isn't even listed in the Wizard's option list). However, opening the TCP/IP control panel shows a subtle improvement over Mac OS 8.1: now, DHCP is the default, and needs only a click to Save and enable the setting. Fortunately, modem users will find the Internet Setup Wizard a handy tool.
Although we were generally impressed with the added functionality of the improved Apple System Profiler, we were disappointed that it doesn't tell you how much video RAM your Mac has. It goes into great detail about most other aspects of the system hardware, even telling you how many DIMMs are installed, and what brand of hard drives are being used. These features will help Mac managers keep the system under control and facilitate smoother upgrades.
Like MacOS 8.1, the new release offers support for HFS Plus, the improved disk format that uses space on large drives more efficiently. Be aware that this new format may cause problems with older third-party disk utilities. Fortunately, you do not have to convert your drive to use Mac OS 8.5.
Application Compatibility
We tested a variety of application under Mac OS 8.5, with good results. We ran Office 98, Unreal, Quake, Internet Explorer, Dropstuff, Virtual PC 2.0, Photoshop, and several other titles. We needed to copy "sprockets" libraries from our old OS's directory to the new System folder to get the games to work, but the only disappointment was the fact that QuickTime 3.0's support of some standard AVI files is still lacking. (Microsoft has released a beta of Windows Media Player for Mac OS that attempts to address this problem, however we found it occasionally troublesome.) When we attempted to use QuickTime 3.0 or 4.0 to read Indeo-encoded AVI files that Windows 98's Media Player handles with aplomb, the Mac OS 8.5 gave us just a blank white screen -- signifying that it is lacking the necessary codec. Unlike Microsoft's Media Player for Windows, which automatically goes out to the web to search for missing codecs, the QuickTime Player just displays a blank window. Fortunately, Apple makes the Indeo 5 codec available for download on its website, although it inexplicably does not include it in the default QuickTime installation.
Although OS 8.5 installs a seemingly crippled version of QuickTime 3.0, buyers of the retail pack can upgrade it to the "Pro" version by registering Mac OS 8.5 with Apple. QuickTime Pro, as we noted in our previous discussion of multimedia engines, adds the ability to save images, edit files and play full-screen movies.
In addition to QuickTime 3 Pro (a US$29.95 value, not included on systems with Mac OS8.5 pre-installed), the Mac OS 8.5 CD includes Aladdin Stuffit Expander, America Online 4.0, ColorSync 2.5.1 (including the ability to make your own profiles via a calibrator function in the Monitors & Sound control panel), Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01, Microsoft Outlook Express 4.01, Netscape Navigator 4.0.5, and, Apple says, "much more." (Check the "CD Extras" folder for lots of cool goodies, including an Apple DVD Player, QuickTime samples, desktop pictures and more.)
Conclusion
Although MacOS 8.5, as virtually all other OS revisions was subsequently updated with patches and further enhancements (most notably, the Mac OS 8.6 update) after its Oct. 1998 release, it was almost immediately hailed as even more reliable and easy to configure than the almost universally acclaimed 8.1 release. Indeed, we were very encouraged by our early tests and found that Mac OS 8.5 was the first OS to properly auto-configure our ADSL connection's DHCP setup -- a trend that has happily continued with OS 8.6 and 9.0.
We only encountered one repeatable bug (while attempting to read a 720K disk on an Imation USB SuperDisk drive), the usual number of non-fatal "Type 2" ("The application has quit unexpectedly") errors and one seemingly random crash, while configuring the game controls in Unreal). So far, we've only heard of a few apps (reportedly, Visioneer's PaperPort 5.1 is one, although the company says it expects to release a fix by the time you read this and suggests disabling the Control Strip Extension as a temporary workaround) and some older utilities that are fundamentally incompatible. There are, however, some situations that may not be resolvable. For example, according to Apple, PC Compatibility cards do not work under Mac OS 8.5, and the company has discontinued support for these products. There may also be problems with some PowerPC-based Mac clones, which are not officially supported. (However, we successfully installed it on a 603e-based model from Umax.)
Some apps have minor compatibility issues. For example, a free patch is available for Microsoft Office 98 to address some cosmetic issues. A few programs, such as Kensington's MouseWorks driver, have been found to have minor problems with some applications under Mac OS 8.5, as well. (A page at macfixit.com entitled Troubleshooting Mac OS 8.5 details these and a number of other issues.) However, in the absence of a significant number of crashing or freezing bugs, and improved performance in file copying, network access and Internet functionality, the prognosis is good enough that we recommend upgrading, especially if you are not yet using Mac OS 8.1. Version 8.5, coming on the heels of Apple's Oct. 14 announcement of its first profitable year since 1995, was another solid step forward, moving Apple further into its second golden age.
For Further Reading:
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