You wouldn't know it, but Apple changed the world. No, really. It was a while ago, but it happened. It was 1977 when Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs created the world's first truly personal computer.
The crowd went wild. Women swooned. They wanted to change the world for the better. Before then, computers had been the preserve of academics, who operated insanely expensive mainframes with strange, arcane commands. Not any more. Woz and Jobs created the computer for the rest of us. To millions, they were heroes. The world was theirs for the taking.
But, as you're probably aware, it didn't happen. Since the introduction of the Apple II, followed by the Macintosh in 1984, Apple has failed to make much of a dent in the universe. Apple stopped being heroic, and greedily reaped short-term profit, went through years of corporate infighting and took its eye off the ball. Meanwhile, Microsoft gave us the wholly inferior Windows operating system but, importantly, concentrated on developing its platform as a standard, then laughed all the way to the bank - and world domination.
Faced with Microsoft's ubiquity, businesses rightly went for the safe option, investing in PCs based on Intel processors - nobody ever got fired for buying an IBM, as they say - ignoring the Macintosh. The only people misguided enough to persevere with these odd, expensive, unusual items were those odd, expensive, unusual creations known as creative professionals: writers, designers, musicians.
It was a simple split. The safer, cheaper, grand scheme of things runs Windows. The errant, irresponsible, slightly scatty creative world lives and dies by its Chooser desktop accessory, "dogcow" icon and beloved Apple menu.
But no matter how much it screwed up and tried to self-destruct, Apple has stuck around thanks to the ease and beauty of working in the Macintosh environment and the enduring loyalty of the Mac community. They haven't had much to cheer about over the years, but Apple's recent revival has cheered the faithful. Having returned from the corporate wilderness a few years ago, Jobs has made it his mission to turn Apple around. The "style and substance" triumph of the iMac gave Apple back some much-needed market share.
Apple conceded it was never going to compete with the Wintel monopoly, so asked us instead to Think Different, and to keep buying Apple. The computers became more powerful, prices fell into line with those of PCs and people started buying into the Macintosh vibe, embodied in the sleek elegance of the iMac.
One big hurdle remained. Seventeen years on, the operating system was creaking. Sections of the code hurriedly written back in 1984 still existed in its latest version, OS 9, and were holding development back. A complete rewrite was needed of the jewel in the Macintosh crown to take advantage of all that had occurred since, combining the Mac's ease of use with the advances made in technology. Something that would do Apple proud, that would help the company rebuild its reputation for creativity and innovation.
OS X - pronounced "ten" - has been delivered with a minimum of fuss and fanfare. A beta version of the software, released last October, was greeted with cautious approval by the Macintosh faithful. Now we have the real thing. And it's not bad.
Gratifyingly, Apple made a number of changes in the final build of OS X after getting betauser feedback. The beloved Apple menu has returned, giving the operating system the air of familiarity it needed. The overall feel is light, professional and powerful, its bright, stylish aqua interface admired by everybody except designers, who need the option of a more muted interface better to interpret colours.
The core of the operating system is based around Unix: rocksolid, tried-and-tested code that's been around for years. Apple's astonishing core technologies, such as OpenGL and QuickTime, are used to full effect, but OS X's big achievement has been to bring the funky, friendly Mac feel to a powerful Internet-centric system that gives you multiprocessing, high-erformance architecture and, best of all, truly pre-emptive multi-tasking.
This means that if your furtive inter-office Doom death match crashes, it won't bring the whole machine down: everything else still chugs along happily in the background. Linus Torsvalds, the guy behind the Linux operating system, recently rubbished the version of Unix that OS X is based on.
For most users, this is missing the point. It's not about being a code warrior, talking in TLAs or claiming to have the biggest mouse pad. The point of Macintosh is, and always has been, to make life easier.
What's wrong with OS X? There are a few cosmetic faults. The Dock concept, where your active applications and documents live, is a big change, and certainly one in the right direction, but the animations when you open or close documents are tacky. They're elegant and cute the first few times you see them, but after that they're tiresome. Also, brushed-metal interfaces are well intentioned but pointless.
OS X has one big problem, however. It's useless. You can surf the Web, pick up your email, write using a basic text editor, use Napster and play a pretty cool game called Oni. That's about it. And that's not enough. For those who depend on Macintosh software to build websites or design brochures, it's a waste of time for now. The software, which needs to be rewritten to take advantage of OS X, simply isn't there, and won't be until the end of the year. Apple is not insensitive to this, and includes an environment within OS X to let you run your old applications. It works fairly smoothly, but it's still awkward, and there's a big performance hit.
OS X is probably the most impressive consumer operating system ever written. I don't say this lightly. It incorporates all that's great about Macintosh - and that's a lot - with many of the cool things that have gone on elsewhere since the last operating system was written. Finally, Apple seems to have made an effort to learn from its mistakes and to learn from others. OS X won't be causing Bill Gates and the gang in Redmond, Washington, too many sleepless nights, but with luck it will give Macintosh a new lease of life and the Mac faithful - daft bunch though they may be - something, finally, to celebrate.