C|Net Article Hammers OS X, Suggests It Is Not Ready For Prime Time

As March 24th draws closer, talk surrounding OS X is gaining momentum. The last couple of days, however, have brought bad news for the forthcoming OS, and people are taking this opportunity to put a little tarnish on the long awaited OS upgrade. C|Net has posted an article stating that the lack of DVD support, combined with the lack of support for Appleis "killer apps" such as iTunes and iMovie, do not bode well for OS X. According to the article:

When Mac OS X is released later this month, sources say early users will find a list of glitches that range from annoying to frustrating that could result in slow sales of the upgrade.

Sources familiar with the first ground-up rewrite of Apple Computeris operating system since the Macis debut in 1984 said the initial version will not be able to play or write DVDs. Other gaps, such as sleep problems with Mac laptops, also will limit the new OSi usefulness to certain users--although none rise to the level of aggravation that the lack of DVD support is likely to cause.

Apple spent much of the last two years touting DVD technology instead of CD-RW technology, a move that Jobs has admitted was a mistake. However there are millions of DVD enabled Macs out there, and lack of support out of the gate could be inconvenient for those that have grown to rely on the technology.

The other argument is that computer based DVD technology never really took off, and Apple believes the lack of DVD support will be a problem for only a small number of users. It is also important to keep in mind that DVD support, as well as native versions if iTunes and iMovie, will be available by this summer (likely MACWORLD NY) at the latest.

The initial 1.0 release--code-named Cheetah--that will be sold to consumers on March 24 will include most major features, but sources said users are likely to encounter a range of glitches.

Appleis OS development team has deferred many of these nagging issues to the Puma release, scheduled to be installed on the summeris crop of new Mac hardware at Julyis Macworld Expo in New York.

Topping the list of missing features, Cheetah will lack any support for DVD playback or authoring. To play DVDs or take advantage of the DVD-authoring capabilities of some recently released Mac models, people would have to shut down the PC and reboot using the current OS, 9.1, according to sources.

It is clear that some of the excitement regarding OS Xis initial release has been dampened by the turn of events over the last couple of days. You can read the entire article at the C|Net Web site.