The other new features of Mac OS 9
The most touted feature of Mac OS 9 was the new Sherlock 2 but there were lots of other new features, mostly related to the development and coming of the NeXT generation operating system, Mac OS X.
Mac OS 9 had multiple users, Voiceprint password, Keychain, automatic updating, encryption, Internet File Sharing, Internet AppleScript, and Network Browser. Many of these were direct equivalents of Mac OS X features which were concurrently developed or even backported.
The reason was of course to make the Mac OS more powerful and more modern but also to ease the transition to OS X, which at the time was believed to start in less than an year
Image taken from Toastytech.com
Ten years ago: here comes Mac OS 9
On October 22, 1999 Apple launched Mac OS 9, its major new release of the Macintosh operating system.
The last boxed edition of the “classic” Mac OS line carried a retail price of 99 USD (with a 20USD rebate for customers who owned Mac OS 8.5 or 8.6) and featured new Internet tools such as Sherlock 2, which was lauded by CEO Steve Jobs in the press release.
The updated version of Apple’s search tool was explicitly modified with a plugin system so that the new Sherlock could access search engines, websites, services and even follow auctions, helping the users with information retrieval but also shopping and online commerce.
To launch the operating system Apple Authorized Resellers (among which were chains such as CompUsa, Sears and Fry’s) held throughout the following weekend special Mac OS 9 “Midnight Madness” events, Apple Demo Days and in-store promotions.
From 25 to 75 millions users
At the WWDC 2009 Phil Schiller, Apple’s SVP of Product Marketing, announced thatthe Macintosh has experienced an explosive growth and even more did the number of OS X users.
While in 2007 the number of active users of Apple’s operating system was at 25 millions in 2009 it had suddenly risen to 75 million. How could this be?
The secret to Apple’s tripling its active user base in the past two years is the runaway success of the iPhone platform. During the keynote presentation Schiller produced a chart showing the number of actual active OS X users, not just of Mac OS X users. It’s very important to strike the difference between those two terms: OS X and Mac OS X.
The growth isn’t just about Macs but it ows a lot to the many iPhones and iPod touchs sold so far, to be exact around 40 millions of the devices. Both have a version of the former Mac OS X and of its technologies and have thus incremented the market share of Apple’s operating system and key programs such as the web browser Safari.