A 2002 Retrospective: The Year to Switch
By MacEdition Staff January 9, 2003
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The past year has been the year to switch. From switching to Mac OS X, to switching to InDesign, to just switching to a Mac, 2002 has been a year full of reasons to change.
Macworld 2002 started the year with a bang. The annual event didn’t disappoint (unless you were expecting Apple branded handhelds, phones, toasters or the like). New flat panel iMacs were unleashed upon the world, to trickle into the supply chain and slowly, slowly reach the hands of consumers. Software proved of equal importance with Mac OS X 10.1 becoming the default operating system for all new Macs. iPhoto ushered in a new era of home photo management.
Between the Macworld lulls, the eMac was introduced and PowerBooks were bumped. The education specific Macs soon made their way to the public (though oddly with the “e” still intact).
Apple then decided to aggressively market computers to Windows users. The switch ads began in June. The word “switch” took on a more specific meaning than ever before.
Of course, this was followed by Macworld New York. New 17-inch iMacs, iPods, a release date for Mac OS X 10.2 (with new cat moniker: Jaguar), and dot Mac. Reasons to switch to the new pay service, or a skip Apple and go with a new service all together.
The year ended with new PowerBooks (with DVD burning and ATI Radeon 9000 Mobility cards no less) and iBooks. Time to switch to a new portable.
2002 has been notable for things which have not changed as well. The year saw Adobe’s entire line become Mac OS X native (with the exception of life-supported PageMaker). However Quark has not yet ported their flagship product to the platform (and even causing Apple to extend the life of Mac OS 9 because of it). With most other applications Mac OS X native now (from Microsoft Office v. X for Mac to the new release of QuickBooks), many are looking to switch to X-native versions to accomplish their work.
Many changes (or switches) happened in 2002, and if some of the rumors are true, 2003 should continue the trend (switch processors? switch update payment policies? switch PPC chip vendors?). Already, MWSF 2003 has certainly been something to watch and the show just seems to be getting started.