Back from holiday? Back to school? Shake off that creeping autumn depression with a dose of Mac goodness from Europe!
Looking back at five years of Steve Jobs
SVM Mac has published an analysis of the first five years of Steve Jobs’ reign at Apple. The article gives a good overview of the "Steve Years," from his boardroom coup where he replaced many old Apple hands with NeXT trustees, to the present, more troubled days. The article describes how Jobs, after putting Apple back in the spotlight with the now-legendary "Think Different" campaign, brought Apple back to health. Cutting costs by adopting open standards (USB, OpenGL, WiFi) instead of spending money on developing proprietary standards (ADC is the notable exception here), and outsourcing production to Taiwan are two of his decisions. Likewise, Jobs’ attempts to strengthen the Mac brand by simplifying the hardware line-up with the famed "Apple Grid" and offering more home-made software products gets mentioned. Of course, failures like the Cube and the secrecy of Jobs get a look too. You can read the full article (in French) at the SVM Mac site.
Unix guru calls Mac OS X "a dream come true"
Apple is attending the UK Linux Expo this year, showing off Mac OS X to the GNU crowd, and it’s coming out with all guns blazing. First off is an interview with Unix guru Simon Cozens on Apple’s UK Web site.
In the interview, which was published first in the September issue of the UK Unix User Group Newsletter, Mr. Cozens picks Mac OS X as his choice for "OS of the future." According to Cozens, OS X finally realizes the long-standing dream of Unix on the desktop. "It’s flashy and easy to use, but it’s powerful and gives you a full Unix underneath. What more could you ask for?" is his hearty recommendation of Apple’s UNIX baby.
Cozens first saw Mac OS X at last year’s FreeBSD conference and was swept away by how smooth it all looked, while still being a pure-breed Unix system. After saving up for a Titanium PowerBook, he immersed himself into OS X. He mentions iTunes as one of the nicest things about Mac OS X, and while there are still some inconsistencies compared to other Unix versions on the market, he’s quite pleased with the available "serious" tools on offer. Last but not least, Mr. Cozens doesn’t have any problem with having only one mouse button.
Apple Europe teams up with ISPs
The partnership between Apple and Earthlink in the US must be working quite well, since Apple Europe has announced similar deals with ISPs across Europe. Wanadoo, the Internet daughter of French giant France Telecom, was the choice for the Benelux countries and for France. T-Online got the contract for Germany. Just as with the Earthlink deal in the United States, Apple users get reductions and guaranteed expert support when they choose the recommended ISP. MacWelt already commented on the German deal. They say that, although T-Online offers better Mac services than AOL Germany or Compuserve, Mac users still get less for their money than PC users. Consequently, MacWelt thinks the deal is a bit of a missed opportunity.
TMO offers a regular round-up of Apple-related news from Europe, courtesy of the editor of our European Desk, Tom Terryn.