Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain) - Gizmodo Comments

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Pender — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:13:39 EDT

Hahaha, I love what an asshole Steve Jobs is. The man totally marches to his own beat, and is consistently proved right.

I think the real driver of Apple's success is that it gave absolute corporate control to someone who sees beauty and simplicity as the end, and engineering as merely the means.

Pender

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Bruce_A — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:19:29 EDT

What's wrong with MacOS 8/9's UI? A beautiful, elegant and mature UI tossed aside for that garish nightmare called "Aqua". In case you hadn't noticed, Apple has been making MacOS X's UI look more and more like MacOS 9. It's a lot darker and there's a hell of a lot less blinding, unused white space in the UI.

Bruce_A

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

me_name_BOB — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:36:34 EDT

A bunch of idiots? Sure, it was a terrible idea, but is there really a need to be a jerk about it?

I don't know, maybe there's a boot-camp effect to it, pushes the guys to realize their full potential.

he's still a jerk.

me_name_BOB

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

astrosmash — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:39:11 EDT

Remember that Apple started work on "OS X" in 1991. System 7 was supposed to be the last version of "Classic" Mac OS, except that it took them much longer than they expected, and after 5 years turned to NEXTSTEP. Mac OS 8 was originally called System 7.7, another stop-gap like System 7.5. (Likewise, OS 8.7 was renamed OS 9, just so OS X could be 10)

And after NEXTSTEP took over, it still took another 6 years for OS X to be ready for the masses.

That makes OS X an 11 year project to deliver to consumers (longer if you go all the way back to the start of NEXTSTEP) and it's only with Tiger and Leopard that we're starting to see some really exciting breakthroughs.

It just goes to show much effort it really takes to ship a consumer quality product.

astrosmash

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

ChaoticLimbs — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:24:58 EDT

I love CEOs who not only criticize the work of their subordinates, but also feel the need to denigrate the ability of their subordinates as well. This is extremely convenient, and allows me to more easily loathe the bad ones, as well as to separate them from the good ones quickly.

ChaoticLimbs

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

nutbastard — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:15:36 EDT

All i remember is 7.5.3 almost NEVER crashed. Like maybe twice. And i hated OS X when it came out.

It's pretty polished now, but i missed the bandwagon and am unaware of the ins and outs. Nothing i couldn't get the hang of given a couple days to play with it, nut as of now im not entitled to a real opinion of OS X

nutbastard

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

badfad — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:43:03 EDT

OS8? Never heard of it.

badfad

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Rain-man — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:42:19 EDT

Buy my book. Buy my book. Buy my...
Seriously, I designed it. Buy it.

Rain-man

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

SuperMacGuy — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:13:51 EDT

OS 8/9 had good usability. In visual terms it was at least consistent, OS X has never had that. Nor has X had some of the thoughtful functional touches 9 had. Windowshade, customizable Apple menu, the sorting triangle was persistent in all windows, and now they took away Find File in 10.4. Give me some of these 9 features back.

SuperMacGuy

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy! — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:02:55 EDT

@Mayor McRib: I looked through the manuscript. Nightmares have never been more vivid.

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Mayor McRib — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:31:18 EDT

I will be anxiously awaiting the second installment of this project.
"Inside Chens Pants"

Mayor McRib

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Joseph — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:03:59 EDT

@yogibimbi: No transparency, no drop shadow, no linear transformations, no gradients, and pretty much no marketing eye candy. Pretty much the differences between an application that doesn't sell and one that does. Shoot just wait until the gawker programmers figure out how to use gradients across the site, it will instantly garner them more visitors because the site "looks good" even though it wont functionally be better.

Joseph

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

scotts13 — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:57:30 EDT

Argh! To think we could have had the finely crafted OS 8/9 interface instead of...this. I've long been of the opinion that gratuitous UI changes are to make the upgrade saleable, not usable. I'm still trying to recover from the OSX transition; in fact it took Apple some time to do so, adding back things we had in the previous UI. Sadly, this seems to have stopped.

BTW, the OS X Server 1.0 interface was not as OS 8/9 - like as was intimated. I recall being trained on it at Apple's Austin offices; it might have looked somewhat familiar, but actually using it was pure NextStep.

scotts13

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

yogibimbi — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:36:39 EDT

what was wrong with the UI on Classic? I quite liked it...

yogibimbi

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

wonkydonky — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:22:43 EDT

@LagunaSol: Definitely! -A light, southern french pastiche of horse laxatives, elephant psychedelics and the moral/ethical quotient of the demons from "Little Nicky". -Should be a hoot!

wonkydonky

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

nachobel — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:44:59 EDT

@mmeister: well, do you remember what it looked like? Horsie go poo poo, basically.

[en.wikipedia.org]

nachobel

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

nachobel — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:38:47 EDT

@someToast: AHMIGAD, os x on an intel processor in 1998. why wasn't I in on this shit?

nachobel

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

smackswell — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:08:24 EDT

@Murilee Martin: Ugh. Don't remind me of extension conflicts. That was a painful era.

smackswell

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

FritzLaurel — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 01:19:45 EDT

Oh, come on now, that's not fair. OS X doesn't even have UI to speak of! I'd take OS9's consistent UI any day.

I still don't understand why they took away the customizable Apple menu. And for what, the f'ing Dock?!? Give me a break.

FritzLaurel

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

macslut — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 01:09:47 EDT

I remember when OS X first came out. There were tons of people upset about the new UI. Many people wanted an OS 9 theme for OS X and to some degree I can kind of understand. OS X had a very high overhead for the pretty graphics. Many of us didn't have graphics cards at the time to really handle OS X and early versions of OS X didn't have some of the optimizations (Core tech) that sped things up. I remember booting into OS 9 on some faster G4s and being amazed at how fast windows snapped up. That being said, OS 9 was one ugly mofo and hard to look at after eating that OS X candy.

-- The History of El Cheapo Soy Sauce

macslut

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

LagunaSol — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:42:20 EDT

"Inside Steve's Brain?" Sounds like a great book and all, but I'm waiting for Kahney's inevitable Microsoft-Ballmer exposé, "Underneath Steve's Sweat-Drenched Pits."

LagunaSol

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

CGrant — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:34:10 EDT

Why couldn't Windows have a designer like this guy?! Windows is stuck in the past because of NT and its doomed unless Windows 7 changes the playing ground (it won't).

CGrant

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

LOLLYJOLLY — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:27:29 EDT

This is the first evidence of three-digit intelligence at Apple I've seen yet.

REFERRING TO HIMSELF, I PRESUME.

LOLLYJOLLY

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

someToast — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:27:11 EDT

@direktor: "Didn't the first DP of OS X look like this as well?"

And the second too.

[www.guidebookgallery.org]

someToast

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

sameoldoctor — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:13:32 EDT

@Falconfire:
you use os9 at work? wow

sameoldoctor

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

djdare — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:48:57 EDT

@Tim Faulkner: thanks man

djdare

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

djdare — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:47:37 EDT

@Falconfire: I don't know why either, but I'm not comfortable seeing my trash in column view... I just want to see icons sometimes... thank you a billion though I feel ridiculous not knowing where that was.

djdare

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

direktor — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:19:09 EDT

@jmckee:
I was going to say, I was pretty sure OS X with a OS 9 window scheme actually was released.

Didn't the first DP of OS X look like this as well?

direktor

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

direktor — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:17:29 EDT

@TheDoomer:

I'll be careful with my response, but I think that's insulting.

To assume that a broad swath of computer users is only interested in looks or whatever is just classic computer nerd.

direktor

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

mmeister — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:14:11 EDT

The Mac OS 8 interface wasn't considered ugly at the time. In fact, Apple actually did put it onto the NeXT code-base as Rhapsody.

Apple also got a lot of grief when they released the Aqua interface -- I mean a LOT of grief. Amazing what 5 years will do for you.

mmeister

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

schrosa — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:49:04 EDT

NeXT rocked. My school had (like) 12 labs full of them, and then they went away . . . sigh.

schrosa

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Totorototoro — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:33:36 EDT

That Leander dude just gives off a Steve Jobs stalker vibe in all his writings-kinda creepy to base your career obsessing on one guy.

Totorototoro

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

kylo4 — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:29:41 EDT

I'll have to check out this book then. I read his Cult of Mac blog every now and then and his writing style is interesting enough.

I really like the cover of this book, and wonder if Steve will give it a read (if he ever has the time).

kylo4

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Doctor_Memory — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:08:00 EDT

For the curious, you can read more about "OSX Server 1.0" over at wikipedia.

Doctor_Memory

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Doctor_Memory — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:58:18 EDT

Damnit, jmckee beat me to the mention of OSX Server 1.0 by a hair!

I actually got to play around with OSXS1 (AKA "Rhapsody") a few times back circa 2000. Having done so, I have to say that I'm in complete agreement with Jobs: the UI completely blew. It mostly looked like the Platinum OS8/OS9 themes, but the way it acted was an unholy mix of MacOS and NeXTSTEP UI behaviors, usually picking the most annoying of the two if ever there was a conflict. If Apple had tried to foist that abomination off on their userbase, they would have probably gone bankrupt by 2001.

Doctor_Memory

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

jmckee — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:45:07 EDT

Uh, but it did happen, it was called Mac OS X Server 1.0 and looked exactly like Mac OS Classic except it was based on NextStep...

[img215.imageshack.us]

jmckee

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

CutePuppyz — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:41:12 EDT

I will definitely read this. I started out on classic Mac OS way back in primary school. Then I went to Windows in JHS - HS. And now I'm a full time Mac nerd. Definitely have to read his Steve-ness's smexy book and figure out how he grows the balls to yell and Jonny when designs for Apple products don't meet the "more beautiful than God" rule. Yes.

On second thought, I think I'll just skim it at my local B&N, because Steve said that people don't read...

CutePuppyz

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

TheDoomer — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:37:42 EDT

@direktor: I understand exactly what you are saying. But, you gotta admit, I'd imagine that a large percent of Mac users are in it for the looks.

TheDoomer

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Techguy1138 — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:37:32 EDT

That was great and all from a marketing standpoint but OSX was absolute CRAP for UI.

It's only getting up to snuff now. The old mac OS was designed from a user standpoint. If they could have put the elegant UI on top of Mach kernel mac users would have been better off.

Things that were bad in os 7-8-9 are abhorrent in osx. Did they ever make it easy to manage drivers and library installs?

Techguy1138

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Falconfire — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:23:54 EDT

@Murilee Martin: Yep one of the worst things Apple did (though Microsoft was just as bad and STILL hasnt learned the lesson) was how the underlying OS handled drivers and devices.

When I first started upkeep of the Macs in my district, my number one call was driver conflict, which is the WORST job imaginable in a education setting to track down the issue, especially in a situation where the previous people in charge just let the teachers load whatever the hell they wanted.

Divide your extensions, load half a set, load the other half etc. etc. etc....

Falconfire

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Tim Faulkner — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:23:33 EDT

@djdare: it may not solve all inconsistencies, but View > Show View Options, or Cmd-J is what you want. You'll have to first set the currently opened directory to the setting you want (Icons, List, Colums, CoverFlow, or Cmd-1,-2,-3,and -4 respectively), then select the "Always open in X view" checkbox. This is a per-directory setting, to make it the default for all directory browsing, click the "Use as Defaults" button at the bottom of the View Options window. That should solve most of your frustration.

Tim Faulkner

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Murilee Martin — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:12:04 EDT

It wasn't the appearance of the UI that made OS7/8/9 suck, it was the constant crashing and freezing. Extension conflict!

Murilee Martin

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Falconfire — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:10:49 EDT

@djdare: Finder > Preferences

There should be a check under open in column view. Uncheck that.

Why you would want to though is beyond me. I cringe every time I have to go back to 9 at work because I have become so reliant on column view and spotlight.

Falconfire

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

KarmaVS — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:09:54 EDT

@Topcat: The interface incongruity only started in 10.3 with brushed metal (and then got worse in 10.4 with unified windows)

KarmaVS

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

spjon — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:03:12 EDT

At one point it was! Does no one remember Mac OS X Server 1.0 (aka. Rhapsody) ? It was what we now know as OS X 10, but the interface was a cross between Mac OS 8/9 and NeXT OPENSTEP. See here:

[en.wikipedia.org]

spjon

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Creibold — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:01:01 EDT

"Let's drop the interface for Windows 2000 onto windows 7!"

Balmer - "YOU ****ING IDIOTS"

I could see it happening over at redmond too.

Creibold

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

nojo — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:00:51 EDT

What they really need to compare is OS 8's bewildering maze of installation screens...

nojo

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

djdare — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:57:56 EDT

I still don't understand some of the conventions within the UI, for example can someone explain to me how I get my applications window to always open in "Icon" form? Mine always opens in the column view... no matter what window I open... the trash opens in column view... I don't get it.

djdare

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Ryan H — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:54:56 EDT

@direktor:
Very true. In the same way that people who discount the GUI as unimportant will never understand why one OS grows while another withers.

Ryan H

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

direktor — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:50:26 EDT

@TheDoomer:

It's funny how everybody forgets the Mach/UNIX underpinnings of OS X when they lob UI spitballs.

Somebody who can only think about the GUI is being ignorant ina big way of all the things that comes with OS X and it's Mach history.

direktor

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Damage — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:47:03 EDT

Wasn't one of the secret features of OS 8 to actively seek out and eat either puppies and/or kittens? Or was that just poorly maintained hoards of Macs that I was forced to use?

Damage

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

RavingRabbid — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:45:32 EDT

OS 9 was probably to be 8.5 at one point - later, it became 8.7 - and then got bumped up to 9. (Taking Sherlock 2 to Mac OS 8.x says it requires Mac OS 8.5).

Most of the developer previews (one had an Ars Technica review, I think) didn't have Aqua, but Platinum.

RavingRabbid

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

DucatiGuy — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:40:55 EDT

Ahh yes, summers in Rangoon with my trusty OS8 MAC... Now those were the days... You can't put a price tag on that memory...

DucatiGuy

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy! — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:40:08 EDT

No love for OS 9? Jinkies.

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Ryan H — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:40:08 EDT

@TheDoomer:
Functional & beautiful will beat just functional every time. And why shouldn't it?

Ryan H

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

Topcat — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:37:58 EDT

@TheDoomer: True, and that extra layer of gloss has often come with some laughable usability boners in OSX, not to mention the consistent incongruity of interfaces (brushed aluminum? flat? pinstriped?) up to 10.5.

Things were so much simpler in 8-bit direct colour and 640x480.

Topcat

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

rdldr1 — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:21:17 EDT

OS8, that sure does take me back.

rdldr1

Close Call: Apple's OS X Almost Looked Exactly Like OS 8 (From the Book Inside Steve's Brain)

TheDoomer — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:19:06 EDT

The thing is, i bet if it had every single non-appearance related feature that osx has, but did look like os 8, the amount of people with it would be so much less. It's all about looking shiny and pretty.

TheDoomer