Apple is to switch to Mac OS X-only booting for new Mac PCs, starting January.

It says the new machines can run "most" Mac OS 9 apps, through bundled Classic software. Also, it points to "nearly 4,000 native applications now available for Mac OS X".

Apple reckons that 20 per cent of its entire user base will be using Mac OS X by the end of the year, "making it the fastest operating system transition in recent history". Mac OS X has been the default factory-setting OS on all Macs since January 2002, according to Apple, which estimates that 75 per cent of buyers have elected to retain it as their OS.

So that means 25 per cent have actually been bothered to switch. Which sounds fairly substantial to us.

So why is Apple doing this? Over to Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, who says it's now "time for Apple and our third-party developers to focus all of our resources exclusively on Mac OS X, rather than dividing them between two different operating systems".

This makes sense. With three per cent or so of the PC market, Apple needs to husband developer resources -its move to OS X-only booting has earned plaudits from Microsoft and Adobe.

Apple has also got Jaguar, the new iteration of OS X, which has garnered mostly favourable reviews. Here's our verdict, courtesy of notorious Dock-hater Andrew Orlowski.

Aloha Apple

Incidentally, Jagwire supports the complete Hawaiian alphabet, all 12 Roman letters and sundry stress marks and accents, the first major operating system to do so, according to the Honululu Advertiser.

Right now, this is of limited practical use, as most schools on Hawaii don't have computers capable of running OS X and therefore switching on the Hawaiian keyboard option. ®

Apple press release