November 17, 1995: Apple releases the first beta version of its new Mac OS Copland operating system to approximately 50 developers. Not so much a Mac OS update as a totally new operating system, it offers next-gen features designed to help Apple take on the then-mighty Windows 95.
Sadly, Copland OS will never reach the public.
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Mac OS Copland and Apple’s existential crisis in the ’90s
Copland OS was basically an existential nightmare at Apple. In his great book Apple Confidential, author Owen Linzmayer titles his chapter on the project “The Copland Crisis” with good reason.
For years, Apple users and employees (rightly) claimed that Macs offered a far better user experience than the one “enjoyed” by PC owners. When word started to spread about Windows 95, Apple knew it needed to dramatically rethink its operating system to stay ahead of Microsoft’s advances.
The Mac operating system didn’t just need to stay slightly ahead, either. With Macs costing considerably more than PCs, and shrinking in terms of market share, Cupertino needed to really push things forward.
With Mac OS Copland, Apple tried to stay ahead of Windows 95
Apple announced Mac OS Copland in March 1994. Named after American composer Aaron Copland, it was to be a top-to-bottom rethink of Mac OS, years before Apple co-founder Steve Jobs did that with the UNIX-based OS X.
Copland OS included many features that will seem familiar to Mac users today. These included a Spotlight-esque “live search” in the toolbar and more comprehensive multitasking. It even allowed different users to log in, each with different desktops and permissions. While this is commonplace today, at the time it was unheard of.
In keeping with this customization, Copland was also “theme-able.” Users could choose the look they liked best. Options included a Dark Mode-style futuristic look and a brighter, more kid-friendly theme. Visual flourishes extended to an interface using 3D shading and color in a way entirely new to Macs.
Similar to the functionality of today’s Dock, or Windows’ taskbar, Mac OS Copland made it possible to minimize windows by dragging them to the bottom of the screen, where they became tabs. Another big change: Apple designed Copland to run natively on PowerPC processors, which the company began using in 1994. (Older programs would run on an emulator.)
So what went wrong with Mac OS Copland?
Apple never released Mac OS Copland. After the beta version in November 1995, the company continued rolling back the timeline for the full release. Initially slated for 1996, it slipped to 1997. All the time, the Copland OS budget kept growing as full-blown feature creep set in. The more Apple delayed it, the more the company felt the need to promise new features to justify the delay.
In 1996, 500 engineers worked on Mac OS Copland, with a massive budget of $250 million per year. You’ve heard the expression “too big to fail”? Copland was too big to succeed.
When Apple announced a staggering $740 million loss that year, CEO Gil Amelio took to the stage at the Worldwide Developers Conference and said Copland would ship as a series of upgrades, rather than a unified single release. A few months later, Apple effectively canceled the project.
Copland failure leads Apple to success
Today, Mac OS Copland’s biggest legacy is that it pushed Apple to rethink its operating system strategy. That led to Apple eventually buying NeXT — and that deal brought Steve Jobs back to the company he co-founded.
Like so much of what Apple did in the 1990s, Mac OS Copland was an extremely promising bit of tech that never lived up to its potential. However, while most such products were at least released, Copland only made it out the door at 1 Infinite Loop in a very limited, heavily stunted beta.
Do you remember news of Mac OS Copland? Were you an Apple user at this time? Leave your comments below.
Sources: Apple Confidential and Low End Mac
