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Apple Computer Inc. on Tuesday confirmed a recent eWEEK report when it announced that starting in January 2003, all new Mac models will boot into Mac OS X only.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the end of the line for booting out of Mac OS 9 at Apple Expo in Paris. As eWEEK first reported at the beginning of August, users of the new systems will still be able to run most Mac OS 9 applications within Mac OS X's Classic environment.
"We expect that 20 percent of our entire installed base will be using Mac OS X by the end of this year, making it the fastest operating system transition in recent history," Jobs said in a statement. "Now it's time for Apple and our third-party developers to focus all of our resources exclusively on Mac OS X, rather than dividing them between two different operating systems."
According to Apple, all new Macs sold since January 2002 have had Mac OS X factory-set as the default operating system and more than 75 percent of buyers have kept Mac OS X as their default OS.
The move turns the heat up higher on Quark Inc., developer of leading page-layout application QuarkXPress. The current version, XPress 5, is not Mac OS X-native, and sources said that Apple and Quark are working closely to ensure delivery of XPress 6 (which will be compatible with Mac OS X's Carbon APIs) in time for January's Macworld Expo/San Francisco.
Over the past year, Jobs has pressed third-party developers to focus on Mac OS X and forgo future plans for Mac OS 9.
At May's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif., Jobs theatrically eulogized Mac OS 9, displaying a boxed copy in a coffin while funereal music blared from speakers. Mac OS 9 "isn't dead for our customers yet," he told assembled software and hardware developers, "but it's dead to you."
In other Apple Expo news, Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple announced that it is shipping iCal, the new calendar utility it announced at July's Macworld Expo/New York. iCal is available for free download and requires Mac OS X 10.2 (a k a Jaguar).
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