January 6th, 2000

[Expo Report] MACWORLD Expo - Highlights from Town Meeting - Apple says "Never" to Machines With More than 3 Slots! by John F. Braun Another yearly tradition at MACWORLD is the Town Meeting, where both Apple and industry representatives take questions from attendees about all things Mac. We find this a great way to judge the reaction of the Mac community to recent announcements as well as current issues. Here are some of the issues that are on people's minds this year: Q. Will my OS 8.6 stuff work under OS X? A. It should, though you won't be able to take advantage of new features [of OS X]. As with all OS installs, you should back up your System Folder beforehand in case you need to restore your old configuration. Q. Is Apple trying to become the USA Today of the Internet community with their new Internet offerings? Q. KidSafe is great, but why only for the Mac? Shouldn't they also offer it for the PC? A. The new offerings are an effort to make the platform more attractive by providing unique solutions that can only be taken advantage of on the Mac platform. Q. What is Apple's commitment to solutions for disabled users? A. Although Apple hasn't been focusing on this as of late, it has hired a new individual to readdress this important area. Q. Is Apple trying to be the Big Brother of the Mac user's world by controlling what sites you can visit? A. A survey of the audience demonstrated that about 80% thought that the introduction of the new Internet tools was a good idea. Only a handful thought that there were serious security or Big Brother concerns with the filtering and recommending of appropriate content. Q. When is a machine with more than 3 slots coming out? A. Probably never...there are 3rd party solutions if you need more slots. Q. Is the new Apple supported ISP agreement with Earthlink going to be another eWorld? A. Hopefully not, but if it does, AOL will probably acquire it too. Q. OS X seems to be moving away from the ease of use of the current Finder, by having to make you search for a drive icon rather than putting it on the desktop. A. You can always put a shortcut to the drive on the desktop to simulate the old environment. Apple Computer - MACWORLD Expo SF Special Report