Chapter 2An Overview of Mac OS X
We saw in Chapter 1 that Mac OS X is a mix of several technologies that differ not only in what they do but also in where they came from, which philosophies they represent, and how they are implemented. Nevertheless, Mac OS X presents a cohesive and consistent picture to the end user. The fact that Apple computers have a well-defined, limited hardware base is conducive to Apple’s success in maintaining a mostly positive user experience despite the underlying software eclecticism seen in Mac OS X.
From a high-level standpoint, Mac OS X may be seen as consisting of three classes of technologies: those that originated at Apple, those that originated at NeXT, and “everything else.” The latter consists mostly of third-party ...
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