Abuse II

All in all, the BeOS remains an impressively fast operating system as it progresses to a commercial product. There are now enough "real" software applications for the BeOS to do actual work in it for lengthy periods of time. Moving from the Mac OS to the BeOS is simple, just use the BeOS Launcher. Moving back still requires a restart. This is something that Be should fix in the next release if it wants Mac users to give the BeOS more of a workout. If the capability existed, I think I might switch to Be and back to surf the web. The other major area needing attention is downloading, decoding and installing software--it is possible that it is just me but I find downloading/installation to be extraordinarily arcane and difficult. Still, I strongly recommend that Mac users try the BeOS, if for no other reason than to experience how a PowerPC-native operating system performs--it is awesome.