Apple Announces System 7.5

With Microsoft's Chicago Beta on the street (and in nearly every magazine, newspaper, and newsletter you can imagine, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, to include our two favorite computer publications), Apple decided it had better get the new revision of its operating system out the door. This is the one that Apple will want you to try if you want to compare a Macintosh with a PC running Chicago.

To do that you'll need a Mac (but not a PowerMac, although, of course, new users will likely be buying one) with 8Mb of memory, GX and PowerTalk.

The goals of the upgrade are to significantly increase the out-of-the-box value of the Macintosh, making it both more productive for the user and making him more efficient and to place new enabling technologies into the operating system. Also, Apple has used the 7.5 upgrade to converge previous versions of 7.x and the Pro version of the operating system.

Customer Need	Apple 7.5 Feature
Built-in support/self-sufficiency	Built-in guidance
Work more efficiently	Improved system management
Compatibility	File, document, application
	Networking (TCP/IP)
	Upgrade Applications
Customizability	Scripting Language
New Application Solutions	Graphics and Publishing
	Workflow
Performance/Reliability	Performance and Reliability

Apple Guide: Think of it as an electronic assistant that helps you use the computer and its functionality. It includes:

• A full narrative index help, with the full functionality of the computer available, so you can perform functions and see help at the same time. Help stays on the screen while you try things out and offers options

• The Assistant uses "coach marks" (red circles) to lead the user through the process in a smooth and unmistakable way.

PowerTalk: Puts EMail in the systems software together with other communications services such as a universal mailbox. Its mail enables all applications and offers directory addressing. Collaboration services are enablers for digital signaling, routing, encrypting, and other security. Catalogs are also supported.

PC Exchange 2.0: supports not only diskettes but also such media as Squest, Bernoulli and others.

Macintosh Drag and Drop: Permits a full drag and drop interaction model. This means, for instance, you could print by dropping a document onto a printer icon.

AppleScript: Cross applications programming language. Can be used by ISV's to enable applications, by in-house developers to combine shrink-wrapped applications and build custom functionality. The programming difficulty is at about the HyperStack level.

QuickDraw/GX: New Graphics Model with a wider range of primitives and transforms and a wider range of interaction. The printer becomes a desktop object (which can be accessed via Macintosh Drag and Drop as mentioned above). Objects in queues are Drag and Drop also.

The type and text engine has also been substantially enhanced so that type characteristics are present in a detailed way and international languages can be intermixed. This means amazing things can be done with fonts directly within the operating system, without the need for further software; of course, we'd expect Macintosh ISV's to exploit this new enabler and produce even more amazing effects.