Mac OS update to add Windows 95-like touches; more Apple news

Back when Copland was to be the next-generation Mac OS, Windows 95 usersfound some irony in the fact that the OS' feature-set seemed to be derived directly from Windows 95. Well, Copland was cancelled last yearand the NeXTStep OS was bought to provide Apple with a new solution. Inthe meantime, however, Apple is planning on releasing incremental updatesto the aging System 7.x line. System 7.7, code-named "Tempo," will addsome of the user-interface elements that were promised for Copland, andI think any Windows 95/NT 4.0 user would recognize them:

There's a nice screenshot of Windows 9...er, ah...Tempo at http://www.macweek.com/mw_1109/Tempo.gif. I think it's great that Macusers will finally get a fairly radical user interface update, by theway; it's just unfortunate that it's so late in coming.

In other Apple news, CEO Gil Amelio implored developers at the SoftwarePublishers Association today to continue supporting the Macintosh despitethe fact that "many of [them] have invested in [the Mac] and have yet to see a return." Amelio mentioned that the next release of the Mac OS, code-named Tempo, would integrate both Java and a multithreaded Finder.

If you're interested in Apple, you should also check out a compelling article in UPSIDE called "Apple's Big OS Mistake." You can find it at:

http://www.upside.com/companies/ted.html

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