After 15 years of providing Ars readers with deep insight into the internals of Apple's desktop operating system, John Siracusa has announced that his OS X Yosemite review will be his last OS X review for Ars or for any other publication.
John has published a review for every major OS X revision stretching back to before the operating system's formal release, and his explorations into the Unix-y underpinnings of OS X are the main reason why I am writing this retrospective on a Mac today. His retirement post on Hypercritical states that in 1999 he was 'at the forefront of long-form nerd-centric tech writing,' and that's absolutely spot-on. I still remember being absolutely mesmerized by his 6,000-word OS X Developer Preview 2 review in 1999, and I was in awe of how clearly it laid bare the still-developing internals of Mac OS X.
John's reviews quickly became an unofficial but integral part of Apple's OS X release cycle. To me and to countless others—millions, judging by each review's statistics—Apple hadn't really released a new version of OS X until Siracusa weighed in on it. A Siracusa OS X review was the ultimate 'one more thing,' a new OS X release started with Steve Jobs and ended with John Siracusa.
As a long-time Ars reader, it's hard to articulate exactly how big an impact Siracusa's OS X reviews had on me over the years. Not only can the man write, but he also has a strong and unique voice and style—one that he uses to wrap complex concepts up into easily understandable pieces, sprinkling humor in among the hard tech and helping the reader over the bumps. It's a style I've purposefully tried to emulate, especially with product reviews at Ars. Siracusa's style works.
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And the actual content was amazing. 'Long form' doesn't even begin to cover it—a Siracusa review could stretch to a CMS-breaking 30,000 words and beyond (we've even added a special section into the Ars CMS containing some Siracusa-specific feature requests). Possession (itch) mac os. To put that length in some context, Stephen King's The Gunslinger runs about 55,000 words—not that much longer than a solid Siracusa review. Each one is a deep well of insight, providing not just raw information and impressions but also context. Siracusa's informed musings on the OS X Finder even made waves among developers and managers at Cupertino (just search for 'Siracusa' on that linked page).
AdvertisementUs spy: mission in russia mac os. But those insights were the product of many months of hard research and testing and writing. So after dedicating a not-insignificant chunk of almost every year between 1999 and 2014 to nearly novel-length OS X reviews, John has decided it's time to rest.
Mac Os Catalina
Of course, he's not dying or anything—he's just not doing any more ginormous OS X reviews. Fans of John can continue to follow his work at his site, Hypercritical; he also co-hosts the Accidental Tech Podcast, and if Twitter is your thing, you can tweet at him at @siracusa. And, of course, John will always have an open guest spot on the Ars front page.
As to what's next for Ars and our review of OS X 10.11, or whatever it ends up being called, fear not. Even though John has moved on, we're going to carry on in the tradition he started and continue keeping the microscope trained on new OS X releases. Apple's 2015 WWDC is coming up in June, and Ars Apple expert Andrew Cunningham will be there for the desktop and mobile OS details. When the next version of OS X appears, we plan on the Ars review continuing to be the review of record.
Goodbye Utopia Mac Os X
John wouldn't want it any other way.
For your reading enjoyment, here is the grand John Siracusa OS X Ars timeline:
- Mac OS X DP2, December 14, 1999
- Mac OS X Update: Quartz & Aqua, January 17, 2000
- Mac OS X DP3: Trial by Water, February 28, 2000
- Mac OS X DP4, May 24, 2000
- Mac OS X Q & A, June 20, 2000
- Mac OS X Public Beta, October 3, 2000
- Mac OS X 10.0 (Cheetah), April 2, 2001
- Mac OS X 10.1 (Puma), October 15, 2001
- Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar, September 5, 2002
- Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, November 9, 2003
- Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, April 28, 2005
- Five years of Mac OS X, March 24, 2006
- Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, October 28, 2007
- Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, August 31, 2009
- Here's to the crazy ones: a decade of Mac OS X reviews, May 12, 2011
- Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, July 20, 2011
- OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, July 25, 2012
- OS X 10.9 Mavericks, October 22, 2013
- OS X 10.10 Yosemite, October 16, 2014
Goodbye Utopia Mac Os X
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Goodbye Utopia Mac Os 11
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