So, too, is its profound gift for customization. Customization can give us the power to make our computers look and act the way we want. But we need look no further than Windows to see how it can be misused. For several years now, Macintosh users have had the ability to customize their Macs, but only at a superficial level. For example, Skins are special files that can change the Finder or an application's color scheme and general appearance.
Some skins are beautiful, some are hideous, but the most damage they can do is to aesthetics.
A few other programs, such as QuicKeys and AppleScript, let us go further to automate particular sequences of events, but we still can't radically change what applications or the OS can do. OS X provides the hooks that allow third-party developers to affect the user experience profoundly. Instead of getting a new skin that makes your system look like the latest and greatest Linux interface, for example, you'll probably actually get the latest and greatest Linux interface. The first addenda to the interface to appear will likely erase any perceived strayings from the path of the True Mac in the new OS X interface. Some improvements will be cute but inconsequential.