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Final Thoughts

The biggest question that anyone can have about an Operating System upgrade is whether it's worth it or not. While we poke fun at Windows users who had to wait three years for a $100 pile of bug fixes and Internet-OS integration, Mac users fork over that amount of money almost every year. System 7.5 represented a large upgrade to the Mac OS, while MacOS 7.6 was more of a Windows 98 upgrade. Mac OS 8 was great, but does 8.5 follow suit? It goes without saying that Mac OS 8.5 is better, or else it wouldn't be an upgrade, but I have my doubts that Mac users will be as impressed with it as they were with Mac OS 8.

Every user who upgrades to Mac OS 8.5 will automatically fall in love with it and deem it a worthy upgrade. The impressive graphical enhancements to the OS alone will be enough to satisfy most. Beyond the interface, though, there's also the issue of performance. Although current benchmarks show Mac OS 8.5 to be around 10% faster than Mac OS 8.1, it certainly feels like its working at more than just 10%, and that's all that counts.

For users who make it a habit of transferring large files on a network, Mac OS 8.5 is for you. On both 10 and 100 Base-T networks the file copy speed has been greatly increased. If your system relies heavily on AppleScript, then the new PPC native AppleScript found in Mac OS 8.5 is sure to blow you away, especially if you're on a G3.

For the rest of the Mac users, though, I'm at ends as to strongly recommend upgrading to 8.5 or simply waiting it out for the next upgrade. If the user experience is enough to justify spending $100 to better it, then you have a nice treat coming. Some of the other features, such as Find File 2.0 will also be appreciated. Either way, I hope that this visual tour has given you a good enough idea of what to expect from Mac OS 8.5 and whether it's right for you.

Until next time, take care of yourself, and your OS. :-)

- The MacNN Review