When I write, I tend to do it on an old Mac running OS 8.6, for the simple reason that I don't waste nearly as much time doing things like I'm doing now. There's no browser that runs on this Mac that can post to Blogger easily, espn.com barely loads, and doing anything particularly multimedia-esque runs a fair chance of blowing up the Mac, forcing a reboot in this old-timer's OS.

It is very good for word processing (Word 98, fwiw), and, thanks to SoundJam, listening to mp3s while I work. So when I minimized SoundJam today, the grandfather of iTunes (literally) reminded me so much of what iTunes looks like today I had to blog. Why? Because the current Finder's appearance, iTunes, and a number of other apps took their styling cues directly from this app. Don't believe me? Check this out.



Face it, that mini-player looks nearly exactly the same, especially that resize button. Nor do I recall another app with the brushed metal look on OS 8.x. I included the error message because I believe the same text, give or take, still comes up in iTunes if you try to edit several tracks' info at once. For archaeological purposes only, of course.

In any event, brushed metal was and remains a very good look for OS X, I believe (its being dropped, I think, from Leopard nonwithstanding). I wonder what going with Audion (same link as earlier one) would have meant for this very popular look and feel in Aqua. Would brushed metal have made a splash in X? Or would there have been Audion's cartoonish look instead? Or would we simply have been saddled with Pinstripe Aqua? Ick.

Did the choice of SoundJam over Audion help position Mac's resurgence with OS X, iTunes, and the ambiance of iPod? Far-fetched sounding, but I bet there's something there. Ah, the butterfly beating its wings in Africa...