Goodbye to The Annual Review

John Siracusa hung up his cape today, announcing on his blog that he would no longer be reviewing OS X.

Nearly 15 years ago, I wrote my first review of Mac OS X for a nascent “PC enthusiast’s” website called Ars Technica. Nearly 15 years later, I wrote my last. Though Apple will presumably announce the next major version of OS X at WWDC this coming June, I won’t be reviewing it for Ars Technica or any other publication, including the website you’re reading now.

It’s a bittersweet moment for those of us who have been following John for over a decade, but it’s well deserved, and the volume of work that he’s left is a wonderful gift to the community.

John’s explanation of Spotlight in the OS X 10.4 review was fundamental in my understanding of OS X as not just another Unix system. OS X is something different, something more. I remember this part in particular blowing my mind:

Any file i/o that goes through the Tiger kernel will trigger the appropriate metadata importer. This kernel-level integration ensures that the Spotlight indexes are always up to date.

Read the whole thing, actually, start at the beginning and read every review from DP2to Yosemite. His unapologetically deep dives into the details of OS X were something I and a lot of other geeks on the Internet looked forward to with each release.

Siracusa’s reviews are required reading for anyone wanting a better understanding of how and why their Mac works the way that it does. I’m looking forward to the published, hardcover book, if it ever comes.