Interesting Observation... - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Interesting Observation...

Even with the recent OS X v10.0.1 upgrade, we're at a rather early point in the life of OS X. We can expect a bit of additional speed with each minor upgrade Apple releases, I'd wager. But I was surprised to note that, in working with my NeXTSTATION Turbo Color workstation (68040 @ 33Mz, 32MB RAM, running NeXTSTEP v3.3) this weekend, NeXT applications and the OS in general do indeed feel significantly snappier on this machine than OS X and its apps do on my b&w G3 400 (256MB RAM, UltraWide SCSI). This is especially interesting to me given that I've recently been working with a PowerMac 6100 (PowerPC 601 @ 66MHz, 32MB RAM, 1MB L2 cache, running MacOS 8.6) which just feels super-sluggish. And it's CPU is much faster than a 33Mz 68040, and OS 8.6 is far less complex than NeXTSTEP--one would think individual apps would feel faster, but they do not.


OS X has its sluggish Aqua, NeXTSTEP has it's sluggish Display PostScript. They both run a Mach-based BSD implementation. Lots of interesting angles here. Perhaps in relative terms, the NeXT hardware was more on-target.


What do you think about that?

Popular Stories

Four iPhone 18 Pro Colors Mock Feature

iPhone 18 Pro: Pre-Orders and Release Date

Thursday August 20, 2026 8:00 am PDT by
Apple has yet to reveal when the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra will be announced and released, but the dates usually follow a familiar pattern. As usual, the iPhone event is expected to take place in the first half of September. Labor Day falls on September 7 this year. The last time the holiday was on that day was in 2020, but the iPhone event that year was delayed until October due to...
Four iPhone 18 Pro Colors Mock Feature

iPhone 18 Pro: Pre-Orders and Release Date

Sunday August 16, 2026 8:24 pm PDT by
Apple has yet to reveal when the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra will be announced and released, but the dates usually follow a familiar pattern. As usual, the event is expected to take place in the first half of September. Labor Day falls on September 7 this year. The last time the holiday was on that day was in 2020, but the iPhone event that year was delayed until October due to the...
Apple Event Logo

Apple Accidentally Leaked More Than 10 New Products in macOS Update

Wednesday August 19, 2026 8:02 am PDT by
Apple on Monday seeded the macOS 26.7 Release Candidate, and the upcoming software update has seemingly leaked more than 10 new Apple products. macOS 26.7's code contains references to AirPods with infrared cameras for Visual Intelligence, the long-rumored foldable iPhone, an all-new Apple smart home hub, the first-ever MacBook and iPad mini models with OLED displays, an updated Siri Remote...