Apple’s Corps

After much drawn-out fanfare, Apple’s next-generation operating system, Mac OS X, is finally out of the gate. Now the real waiting begins.

That would be the wait for developers to revise existing Mac programs to take advantage of OS X’s benefits. This will be a major effort for both the developers and Apple itself. The company says 10,000 developers are grinding away at applications for the new system, with about 20,000 programs in development--compared with about 18,500 products available for the previous operating system, OS 9.1.

The easiest path for developers to jump onto the bandwagon is to do nothing--users running OS X can employ their old software in a “Classic” compatibility mode that emulates the behavior of earlier Mac operating systems. Most Mac OS 9 software should work fine on OS X, with some notable exceptions--including Apple’s own CD and DVD recording programs.