Firstly, I want to make it clear I’m a Mac user always have been and always will be: I will NEVER become a PC user.
I miss the Mac Classic OS: OS 9 and earlier. Apple’s move away from using the usual arabic numerals, for the naming of OS, with OS X, roman numeral, was deliberate. Each OS upgrade of the Classic OS incorporated the previous ones so, you could continue to use applications and programs etc. from an earlier OS. With OS X nothing from the Classic OS could be used. In my first Mac computer with OS X, iBook G4 OS X 10.4 Tiger, there was an option to use OS 9 applications by switching the default OS X to OS 9: no longer possible on newer Macs. I only discovered that when I recently replaced my iBook with a MacBook OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
Learning to use OS X, with the iBook, was a steep learning curve for me but, I got there and no complaints. I had the best of both worlds: improvements of OS X and the applications of OS 9. Just one little niggle, I thought then: the little personal touches of OS 9 (adding your own preferences of how nearly everything appeared: from changing system, clock and calendar etc. fonts; the colour of the fonts; font size; an analogue or digital clock; having click once buttons on the desktop to open applications; what goes in the apple menu: for quick access from the apple on the menu bar and other things etc.). It was those LITTLE touches that made your Mac unique to YOU! I also miss the, unique to Apple, system picture messages (smiling Macintosh, mean Macintosh, moving watch and, even the dreaded, bomb etc.). I miss the smiling Macintosh the most: it meant all is well.
I started off using Macs because I didn’t think I was very good at using computers. Macs were more user-friendly and intuitive to use. Also, not being good with computers, when things went wrong it always helped when those picture messages came up because they made me laugh. They were also more memorable and more meaningful than error messages when contacting Apple support staff. Of course, I’ve gotten better since then and I have continued to use Macs because I think they are still the most intuitive to use: I’m STILL not comfortable using a PC, when I HAVE to.
Not having the OS 9 option with the MacBook has made me realise how much those LITTLE things meant to me. I DO realise, of course, why Apple had to change Macs: keeping up with the explosion in the use of PCs since Microsoft Windows. Since the advent of the internet, Apple always welcomes opinions etc. when filling in the registration form with each new Mac and I told them my feelings on missing the Classic OS features. I’m a loyal Mac user and with Apple since nearly the beginning (a I984 model my older brother bought second-hand off a local college in 1989 when I was 17).
With a new generation of computer users, Mac or PC, there’s no chance of influencing Apple to incorporate those things again. This generation, mostly, haven’t used them or even know what they were. The only chance I have being with people my age, or older, that have used those features. Does anybody else feel as I do or am I wasting my time?