Product Reviews

When a company releases a product and, a few months later, releases an incremental upgrade, it usually means it has included a slew of bug fixes and little else. In the case of Mac OS 8.1, however, Apple has introduced several major new features to the venerable operating system, all of which make it essential to most Mac users.

The upgrade is currently available for US systems only, although anyone can download it from Apple's Web site. If you use a UK version of Mac OS 8.0 (the bin icon is labelled 'Wastebasket' rather than 'Trash'), you're better off waiting for the official UK upgrade rather than trying to install over your current system software. Due in a few weeks, this will include extra bug fixes that haven't appeared in the US version, as well as the latest versions of some of the core extensions.

Installing is a painless process, involving the standard single button installer. If you're using a bootable Mac OS 8.1 CD-ROM, the upgrade first installs Mac OS 8.0, then upgrades the system, all of which adds up to a very time-consuming process. Even if you're doing a minimal install, expect to spend at least 30 minutes, and if you want the whole lot installed, you can kiss goodbye to the best part of an hour.

The standard install adds some extra applications to your hard drive, including Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.1 and Netscape Navigator 4.04. Internet Explorer is now set up as the default browser, although it's possible to change this if you're Microsoft-phobic. It's highly likely that the UK release will feature Internet Explorer 4.0 as well.

Once installed, the first thing users of Mac OS 8.0 will notice about the upgrade is the speed of starting up. One of the most annoying things about being a Mac user has been the length of time that the machine takes to start up - in my case, this is long enough to head off to the kitchen and make a cup of tea. Mac OS 8.1 is clearly quicker, although still not as fast as it should be.

Finder performance is also improved, particularly when copying files between your hard drive and a shared server volume. However, the interface still feels far too sluggish, particularly compared with Windows. As with Mac OS 8.0, the actual performance level of accessing the drive and opening a window is good, but it can take a while for the icons to appear in the window because of the way that the OS caches icons. This is annoying - it's time Apple learned that, no matter how fast the processor or the underlying code is, if a window appears to take an age to open then users will think that the machine is slow.

Mac OS 8's biggest feature is an entirely new drive format. Mac OS Extended Format (also known as HFS+) optimises the storage capacity of your drive by reducing the minimum space that any file may take up. Using the older Hierarchical File System (HFS), each drive is divided up into just over 32,000 discreet blocks, and each file has to take up at least one block of space. On a small drive, this is not a problem, but on drives larger than a gigabyte this means that the minimum size of any file is 32K or more, no matter how big the actual file is. When you have a large number of small files

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this will mean you save a lot of drive space, as files that had previously taken up 32K drop down to 4K.

However, upgrading to Mac OS Extended Format isn't as simple as running an installer. Instead, you need to reformat your hard drive, so you'll have to back up all your files and restore them after formatting the disk. And, in case of emergencies, you'll also have to make sure you have the Mac OS 8.1 CD-ROM to boot from, as previous versions of the Mac OS will not recognise an Extended Format disk. Although this might be a problem for some users, the benefits can be great. For example, my hard drive went from having 368Mb free (out of 1.2Gb) to over 500Mb available.

Mac OS 8.1 is also, according to Apple, the first operating system in the world to support Universal Disk Format (UDF), the standard disk format for DVD-ROM. Although the company has yet to produce a machine equipped with a DVD-ROM drive, there are third-party drives available - but without support from the operating system, they have had to rely on third-party drivers for support, as do the Windows PCs that already have drives included. Despite the fact that there are currently few DVD-ROM titles available, Apple is to be applauded for integrating support for DVD into the operating system early. Clearly, the company intends to maintain its position at the forefront of multimedia.

The upgrade also includes a new version of the LaserWriter driver, 8.5.1, which adds support for printing to printers using the Unix 'lpr' command format. This means that Macs connected to university networks can use the same printers as their Unix compatriots - even to the extent of creating desktop printer icons for lpr-format printers.

LaserWriter 8.5.1 also includes the first Apple implementation of support for PostScript 3. Although previous versions of the LaserWriter driver have been capable of printing on PostScript 3 devices, 8.5.1 maps some of the more advanced features of PostScript 3 onto QuickDraw. In particular, it allows developers to support some transparency features while preserving WYSIWYG functionality.

The extension also adds support for creating Adobe Acrobat (PDF) files directly from the LaserWriter dialog box, as long as you already have Acrobat Distiller installed. This means you can print PDFs using any standard applications' Print command, while embedding any EPS or font files in the resulting PDF.

Users who regularly receive and use Windows files will be pleased at the long-awaited upgrade to PC Exchange. Finally, PC Exchange supports both VFAT and FAT32 format Windows NT disks, and most importantly of all, adds support for Windows 95 long file names.

The implementation of Java on the Mac has also taken a step forward with the inclusion of Mac OS Runtime for Java 2.0 (MRJ 2.0). This finally makes the Mac implementation of Java compatible with Sun's Java Development Kit 1.1.3, and so should end the problem of Java applets that refuse to run on the Mac. It's worth noting that Netscape browsers do not currently take advantage of MRJ, instead relying on their own somewhat flaky implementation of Java. However, the company has announced that future versions will use MRJ, falling in line with Internet Explorer.

Overall, Mac OS 8.1 is a solid upgrade to an already fine product. Although the Mac OS is still playing catch-up with Windows in terms of performance, its usability and friendliness is considerably ahead. What is especially important is the pace of change: since last year, the Mac OS has had two significant upgrades, and if Apple can continue at this rate it will hopefully be able to introduce other features, such as real pre-emptive multitasking, before users are swayed by the attractions of Windows NT and other competitors.