After 15 years of providing Ars readers with deep insight into the internals of Apple's desktop operating system, John Siracusa has announced that his OS X Yosemite review will be his last OS X review for Ars or for any other publication.
John has published a review for every major OS X revision stretching back to before the operating system's formal release, and his explorations into the Unix-y underpinnings of OS X are the main reason why I am writing this retrospective on a Mac today. His retirement post on Hypercritical states that in 1999 he was 'at the forefront of long-form nerd-centric tech writing,' and that's absolutely spot-on. I still remember being absolutely mesmerized by his 6,000-word OS X Developer Preview 2 review in 1999, and I was in awe of how clearly it laid bare the still-developing internals of Mac OS X.
And started to feel inspired by the idea of using and open source operating system. (Windows and MacOS are closed source operating systems, Linux is the most well known open source operating system.) So, I decided to use Virtual Box on my mac to run a Linux distribution called 'Elementary OS', and the experience sucked. My company is definitely moving away from Apple, only 35% of the company workforce is still on iMac and cMP 2010/2012. I think it is time for me to move on, and invest into getting a nice HP machine with W10. I have been using W10 for 6 months now on my MBA, it is not that bad after a few tweaking here and there, better than the Emoji-ful OS:/.
John's reviews quickly became an unofficial but integral part of Apple's OS X release cycle. To me and to countless others—millions, judging by each review's statistics—Apple hadn't really released a new version of OS X until Siracusa weighed in on it. A Siracusa OS X review was the ultimate 'one more thing,' a new OS X release started with Steve Jobs and ended with John Siracusa.
As a long-time Ars reader, it's hard to articulate exactly how big an impact Siracusa's OS X reviews had on me over the years. Not only can the man write, but he also has a strong and unique voice and style—one that he uses to wrap complex concepts up into easily understandable pieces, sprinkling humor in among the hard tech and helping the reader over the bumps. It's a style I've purposefully tried to emulate, especially with product reviews at Ars. Siracusa's style works.
https://coolpfiles264.weebly.com/how-do-i-get-to-artaeum.html. And the actual content was amazing. 'Long form' doesn't even begin to cover it—a Siracusa review could stretch to a CMS-breaking 30,000 words and beyond (we've even added a special section into the Ars CMS containing some Siracusa-specific feature requests). To put that length in some context, Stephen King's The Gunslinger runs about 55,000 words—not that much longer than a solid Siracusa review. Each one is a deep well of insight, providing not just raw information and impressions but also context. Siracusa's informed musings on the OS X Finder even made waves among developers and managers at Cupertino (just search for 'Siracusa' on that linked page).
AdvertisementBut those insights were the product of many months of hard research and testing and writing. So after dedicating a not-insignificant chunk of almost every year between 1999 and 2014 to nearly novel-length OS X reviews, John has decided it's time to rest.
Of course, he's not dying or anything—he's just not doing any more ginormous OS X reviews. Fans of John can continue to follow his work at his site, Hypercritical; he also co-hosts the Accidental Tech Podcast, and if Twitter is your thing, you can tweet at him at @siracusa. And, of course, John will always have an open guest spot on the Ars front page.
Cached
As to what's next for Ars and our review of OS X 10.11, or whatever it ends up being called, fear not. Even though John has moved on, we're going to carry on in the tradition he started and continue keeping the microscope trained on new OS X releases. Apple's 2015 WWDC is coming up in June, and Ars Apple expert Andrew Cunningham will be there for the desktop and mobile OS details. When the next version of OS X appears, we plan on the Ars review continuing to be the review of record.
IPadOS Is Here. Goodbye MacBook Pro. - YouTube
Pet the pup at the party mac os. John wouldn't want it any other way.
https://coolofile436.weebly.com/all-elder-scrolls-games-in-order.html. For your reading enjoyment, here is the grand John Siracusa OS X Ars timeline:
- Mac OS X DP2, December 14, 1999
- Mac OS X Update: Quartz & Aqua, January 17, 2000
- Mac OS X DP3: Trial by Water, February 28, 2000
- Mac OS X DP4, May 24, 2000
- Mac OS X Q & A, June 20, 2000
- Mac OS X Public Beta, October 3, 2000
- Mac OS X 10.0 (Cheetah), April 2, 2001
- Mac OS X 10.1 (Puma), October 15, 2001
- Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar, September 5, 2002
- Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, November 9, 2003
- Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, April 28, 2005
- Five years of Mac OS X, March 24, 2006
- Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, October 28, 2007
- Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, August 31, 2009
- Here's to the crazy ones: a decade of Mac OS X reviews, May 12, 2011
- Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, July 20, 2011
- OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, July 25, 2012
- OS X 10.9 Mavericks, October 22, 2013
- OS X 10.10 Yosemite, October 16, 2014
My friends and family have long given me crap about jumping off the iOS ship a few years back. (Who doesn't hate the green texts?) But yesterday, I officially burned all bridges and booted a Linux distribution called Ubuntu on my daily driver Macbook Pro and completely overwrote the hard disk.
This is computer speak for burning the house down and starting from scratch.
Long story short, this means my Macbook Pro still looks like a Mac from the outside, but the inside is completely different now. Everything about operating it is different (aside from the process of powering it on).
Why did I do this?
The Scottsdale Public Library has one aisle dedicated to technology which is the only aisle that I frequent each week. A couple days ago, I noticed a book that I hadn't noticed before, 'Ubuntu Made Easy'. Tarzan casino games. Since Ubuntu is what powers my Virtual Private Servers, I decided why not give it a read.
This is one of the best parts about renting books from the library. I don't have to sit there and hem and haw anymore about whether it's worth the money then feel guilty when I hate the book 10 pages in. I can just rent it, read it, and return it if I don't like it. (And for anyone who laughs at the pointlessness of saving money on books, I address this very issue on my blog The Frugal Feline. Turns out, savings on a book a month for 38 years is more than the average American has in retirement savings.)
But back to my story.
I got the book, started reading it. LOVED the author and how he communicated. And started to feel inspired by the idea of using and open source operating system. (Windows and MacOS are closed source operating systems, Linux is the most well known open source operating system.)
So, I decided to use Virtual Box on my mac to run a Linux distribution called 'Elementary OS', and the experience sucked. Cult of the abyss mac os. I have used Virtual Box to go through a Udemy course on ethical hacking, but otherwise I think it's a terrible feel for what it is really like to run a different OS on your machine.
Next option? Dual boot.
Dual booting is where on startup you can choose between 2 or more operating systems to run on your device. Pick macOS? Your machine will run like nothing ever changed. Human pandemy mac os. Pick a different OS? Your machine will run an entirely different OS.
Again, long story short, I realized that Catalina had split my hard drive into two volumes taking up the entire 128GB of storage on my hard drive. This meant that I could not dual boot a different operating system to test it. The funny thing is, I only have about 2GB worth of personal data on my computer. Everything else was B.S. that macOS was using.
When I realized that I couldn't even partition (split my hard drive into 2 sections, one for macOS and one for Ubuntu) 20 extra GB of storage to dual boot a different operating system to give it a try, it was the straw that broke the camels back for me.
With a chip on my shoulder and the confidence that I never wanted to have to deal with the closed Apple ecosystem on my computer ever again, I booted Ubuntu from a USB stick and overwrote my hard disk which effectively removed all signs of macOS.
This feeling is pretty similar to quitting a job. Its thrilling. You know there's no going back. You fear the unknown, but are also energized by the unknowable possibilities now. There are a few times in my life I've felt this feeling, and they've all turned out to go pretty well.
There are many things about working with computers that are frustrating, but nothing and I do mean nothing bothers me more than bloatware. Apps you can't delete because they are ‘factory'. Etc, etc. Even android does this with Google stuff. I am just waiting for my chance to get out of the iOS and android ecosystem all together as well. No wonder we have to keep buying phones and computers with 2x the memory and storage each year. It's because our devices are filled with crap from the start!
A new kind of life
Things are different. Don't get me wrong. But I've got wind at my back feeling like I am no longer tied to the apple ecosystem. I no longer have to purchase a Macbook for fear that I won't know my way around a different OS. It is scary, but it's also freeing and exciting to know that I can just start over and it's not a big deal.
I wanted to share this story because I am sure that I am not the only one feeling a little bit left high and dry by the company that I grew up using. I spent my entire adult life using iOS and macOS until yesterday. And I don't intend to ever go back.
It's not as scary as it sounds. Do a little research. Back up your computer. Heck, most things are in the cloud nowadays anyway. What do you have to lose? Aside from that collection of cat photos, of course.
