So, the time for “beating the bushes” is over. It’s time to “let the cat out of the bag”. Time to welcome the “cat’s meow” of operating systems from the computer company that’s “roared” back and proven that it hasn’t used anywhere near the last of its “nine lives”. On April 29th at 6:00 PM, Macintosh users can grab the new “Tiger by the tail”. Many a MacHead will be up late that night, perhaps in their “cat’s pajamas”, installing the new-fangled feline.

Tiger is the nickname for the newest version of Apple Computer’s Mac OS X (pronounced oh-ess-ten) operating system, officially known as version 10.4. The fourth major release of Apple’s UNIX-based operating system since March of 2001, Tiger joins (in chronological order) Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, and Panther in “inhabiting the lair” of every new Macintosh computer. Yes, the “cat and mouse” game continues. Will the new system’s release spur Apple market share, or be a “catastrophe”? Will Mac users be drawn to Tiger like it is computer “catnip”? Will the pundits be caterwauling?

OK, OK, I think I have all the cat references out of my “system”. I’ll now quit “pussy-footin’” around and get to the meat of this week’s article. Now, where was I? Perhaps “the cat’s got my tongue”. All right, all right, I promised.

Tiger’s release comes on the heels of Apple’s latest quarterly sales figures, which reveal a “halo effect” from the success of Apple’s iPod personal digital music player. In other words, people buy an iPod (or know someone who has), see how easy it and the included iTunes jukebox software are to use, and decide to say goodbye to viruses, spyware, adware, and the like. Strong sales of iMacs and PowerBook laptops helped Apple grow its overall U.S. shipments by 45 percent – more than any other PC maker (Dell’s increase was around eight percent).

Not coincidentally, you may have noticed in magazines or on TV the first offerings of a new advertising campaign emphasizing the “creative” aspects of Microsoft’s Windows XP virus - sorry, I mean operating - system. It’s called the “Start Something” campaign, and will feature messages like “Start something curious”, “Start feeding your brain”, and “Start discovering lost cities”. Reports are Microsoft will spend about $100 million on the campaign, including more than 50 television commercials for 11 countries. Hmmm. Maybe they could’ve thrown some of that money at shoring up the holes in their operating system. Right now the campaign theme should be “Start finding more adware”. But, I digress.

By the way, careful inspection of the metadata in an image posted on Microsoft’s web site as an example of the first print ad revealed the image had been “created” with Adobe Photoshop on a (you guessed it) Macintosh. Some things never change.

Anyway, the “Start Something” campaign will last for 15 months (snooze), leading up to the release of the long-awaited next version of the Windows operating system, codenamed “Longhorn”. Catchy. Moo. Some have called it “Longwait” and “Shorthorn”, as technical issues and preoccupation with security have pushed the system’s release date back and several features had to be dropped in order to get the bovine out of the barn. Although a public beta is scheduled to be released this summer, “Longhorn” stampedes onto PC desktops (with the accompanying gazillion-dollar ad campaign) about 15 months from now.

What will Longhorn look like? You guessed it, again. A lot like Tiger. Actually, many of Longhorn’s graphics “advances” have been in Mac OS X since 2002.

Like I said, some things never change. Moo.

© 2005 Peter F. Zimowski