I stumbled upon this post about NeXTSTEP (the OS that Steve Jobs created after leaving Apple way back when), which basically already had almost all the features of Mac OS X. Which makes sense. Mac OS (what is now known as Classic) was an evolutionary dead-end with regards to operating systems, about on par with Windows 3.11. And while Apple worked on the vaporware that was known as Copland and even while they flirted with BeOS (what could’ve been, huh?), NeXT was already there and was already a decently established development environment. Hell, it had already spawned an Open Source project (GNUstep) before Apple finally decided to get their shit together and bring Steve back.

I think back to how primitive the computer I used back then was. It was a 386/33 with 32 MB of RAM running MS-DOS 4.01 and Windows 3.0. Windows was crap. I used DOS mostly. It was closer to the good old days of playing around with my Commodore 64 except with no sound, although VGA graphics with 256 colors was pretty sweet. I managed to learn Pascal using Borland software. Long before the Internet had blossomed, I connected to BBSes with a 2400 bps modem (8 times faster than the 300 baud modem I had on my Commodore 64) I sent e-mail via UUCP and read news on FIDOnet using packet readers.

And so it shocks me that Mac OS X functionality was already extant. Granted, NeXT cubes cost nearly as much as a new car (and that 386/33 cost almost $2,000!) and the 80386 was just the first processor that Intel made that could actually run UNIX (although it would probably be excruciatingly painful to do so.) Clearly, NeXT was not making computers for the home.

But fast-forward back to the present. Where is the innovation from Apple with regards to OS design? Aqua is ultimately just a more polished, “lickable” version of the NeXTSTEP GUI, and, functionality wise, Mail.app hasn’t really changed much. WYSIWYG is taken for granted. Mac OS X basically inherited NeXTSTEP’s (and UNIX’s) capabilities of playing nice in a multi-protocol network environment. (Even to this day, I end up weeping in agony whenever I try to setup Shared folders on Windows.) XCode (neé Project Builder) already existed.

The thing is, Apple makes home computers. Sure, you can run Mac OS X on an XServe in an enterprise environement, but most people are probably using an iMac, or a Powerbook, or a Mac Mini at home. This is where Apple differs from NeXT significantly. You don’t have to mortgage your home or sacrifice your firstborn to own a Mac these days. They are pretty much similarly priced to their x86 brand name counterparts.

I think the seeds of some serious innovation are already in place, though. The new high concept is the hypervisor. Imagine running multiple OSes natively on one machine. Forget about dual booting. Consider running Vista the way you can run Mac OS Classic or XDarwin. Who needs a separate gaming machine, unless you want a console (which is probably the smarter move anyways. Who still plays games on their computer, for God’s sake?!) And thanks to Intel, Apple might have a slight head start in this race. Virtualization is built into the next generation of Intel chips. By the time these chips become ubiquitous and cheap, I bet you Apple will have a working hypervisor built in to their OS, just a click away from being able to run Windows while still having a UNIX-based, nearly uncrashable OS running the show at the same time.

This is all geekery, I understand. Virtualization probably doesn’t seem to be such a big deal to the non-geek. But I think it’s going to be big.

In any case, Apple has made some innovations when it comes to hardware. Think wi-fi (where would we be without AirPort?) Think real plug-and-play and Firewire. And while the following is something only a geek could love, Apple has finally modernized the x86 platform, freeing it from the shackles of the ‘80s era “real mode” that was in vogue when the 80286 came out, and from the ancient, decrepit tyranny of BIOS, a sad relic of the uncontested reign of IBM, still unbetrayed by Microsoft. GPT: no more having to care about the difference between primary and extended partitions. EFI: no more having to care if you have an IRQ free for that PCI card your adding, or of hardware conflicting with each other.

Apple may not be making big dramatic strides that the average non-geek can appreciate, but they are making steady progress. Better that than having to wait six years for the next marginal upgrade.