For example, the bottom-level block is now labeled "Darwin." Darwin is Apple's name for the open source distribution of the Mac OS X kernel. Nothing has really changed since Mac OS X was first announced over a year ago, but the naming, emphasis, and ordering of the blocks has been altered to suit Apple's marketing goals. The culmination of this review was yet another high-level block diagram of the OS: Before we start, let's briefly review Apple's latest marketing angle on the Mac OS X core.īefore demonstrating the GUI, Jobs reviewed the Mac OS X architecture.
This article will review Jobs's Mac OS X GUI demonstration and explain the underlying technology that makes it possible, emphasizing what is so new and different about it, and what it means for Mac users and PC users alike. The actual Mac OS X GUI was briefly demonstrated during the keynote, and it is a radical departure from traditional Mac OS. At the recent MacWorld Expo in San Francisco (MWSF), Steve Jobs revealed in his keynote address that the Mac OS X DP2 GUI is not so much "unfinished" as it is wholly unrelated to the GUI that will ship with the OS-a place-holder, if you will.
The core technologies and APIs were all present, but the GUI remained troublingly unfinished.
When we last left Mac OS X, it had reached the second developer preview release.