The most spectacular part of the whole multiple-user setup is voiceprint passwords. PowerTalk is long gone, but the personal keychain is back. One of the good ideas in PowerTalk was the personal keychain, an encrypted database to store all those pesky user ID's and passwords collected while cruising the 'Net. Called PowerTalk, it never really caught on, and was abandoned with Mac OS 7.6. To go along with the multiple-user feature are some more interesting ideas.Ībout five years ago, with Mac OS 7.1, Apple had a grand vision for building unified networking and messaging into the operating system. It's not a very strong security feature, but it's a step in the right direction. This allows individual users to store their own password-protected preferences and custom setups on a machine. Apple has borrowed a feature from Windows 95 and 98 by allowing multiple user configurations on a Mac. My experience with a late beta copy is that it's likely the fastest, most feature-rich and stablest Mac OS ever.įollowing are some observations about a few of the more spectacular new features. It's probably the most ambitious upgrade to Mac OS since version 8. Mac OS 9: The Good, the Bad, and the Uglyīy the time you read this, Mac OS 9, the latest version of Mac OS should be available. This article first appeared in the November 1999issue of the LouisvilleComputer News. Mac OS 9: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly