10 on 10

According to Apple, there were, by Oct. 2002, nearly
4,000 native Mac OS X applications available. At the Macworld Expo held in NYC in July 2001, Apple CEO Steve Jobs highlighted a few of the best apps for OS X with a presentation he called "10 on 10." For each of the apps, a product manager took the stage to highlight a few features.

• Microsoft demonstrated Office for OS X. Promising the most graphically rich version of Office ever, the Microsoft rep showed new transparency support in Word and PowerPoint and other graphical enhancements, including photorealistic tabs on Excel spreadsheets soft shadows to highlight cells.
• Adobe provided a look at its vision of "network publishing" with OS X native versions of three of its major applications: Illustrator, (which now launches twice as fast as it did on OS 9), GoLive and InDesign. An Adobe product rep showed inter-application communication between the apps, allowing native Illustrator files to be imported directly into GoLive, where gradients, transparency and so on can be added and the file "sliced" into optimized pieces for the Web or print.
• Quark took the stage with the first public showing of QuarkXPress for OS X. The forthcoming release, currently expected to ship in mid-2003, features layers, tables, and new "one button" Web export options.
• FileMaker demonstrated FileMaker Pro 5.5. The company showed examples from the video and fashion industries, highlighting the powerful integration of Apple technologies such as QuickTime video and 3-D scenes in QuickTime VR.
• Connectix announcing a "technology preview" of Virtual PC for OS X, available as a freely downloadable test drive for registered users of VPC4. Connectix showed that any version of Windows (including the forthcoming Windows XP) can be run under OS X, and highlighted the ability to easily move data back and forth between the two environments. The company showed AutoCAD for Windows running -- and spectacularly rendering -- to highlight the product's ability to open up new apps not normally available to Mac users.
•  IBM announced ViaVoice for OS X. Sporting customizable control of the desktop, dictation into any application, and an engine optimized for multi-processor environments. As usual with voice recognition, the demo suffered from a minor glitch or two, but the voice dictation features worked flawlessly. It will be available "later this year."
• WorldBook Inc. showed the OS X edition of WorldBook 2002, featuring links to an online "WorldBook Media Center," where more information on over 25,000 multimedia-rich articles can be researched or perused. There's also a timeline feature, an "animation canister" allowing easy access to all animations related to to a particular topic and of course, advanced search functionality. These features, says the company are available only on Mac OS X. It's available now, for US$59.95.
• Blizzard Entertainment showed the upcoming Warcraft III, due this winter. The real-time strategy game features real-time 3-D graphics and features role-playing elements and, he assured the audience, "plenty of carnage." The game also supports the BattleNet netgaming environment, allowing massively multiplayer battle-fests.
• "Every game I've seen just looks and plays better on ten," proclaimed a product manager from Aspyr (Tomb Raider, Tony Hawk, etc.), who claimed that OS X's advanced virtual memory and smooth multitasking makes it a superior gaming environment. He showed off the Tony Hawk skateboarding sim, which he says is available now and includes both OS 9 and OS X versions in the box.
• "Last but not least," Jobs introduced  Former Maya for Mac product manager Richard Kerris and Alias | Wavefront's Maya for OS X. Kerris showed the benefits of "3-D at the core of the operating system." The company showed a QuickTime movie rendered by the software, then showed how the motion can be quickly set up using Maya's advanced dynamics engine. July 18 was the official launch of the product, said Kerris, saying orders are now being taken, with the release expected by Sept. 25.

For Further Reading

• Converting to Mac OS X - Learn the best ways to make the change over from Mac OS
• Graeme Bennett can be reached at Graeme@MacBuyersGuide.com