VS.
PING!
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
0 - not natively supported, solutions may be purchasable
1 - not natively supported, but freeware/open source solutions are available
2 - exceptionally poor support
3 - poor support
4 - below average support
5 - average/acceptable support
6 - slightly above average support
7 - good support
8 - very good support
9 - exceptionally good support
10 - Perfection - improvement is not possible
This scoring method sucks!
You're right, it does suck. The scores aren't weighted (web server vulnerabilities have the same weight as icons), and the scores don't take into account the fact that different people with different computing objectives will care more about different topics (One ambitious reader has created a weighted scores calculator). So unweighted scores is by no means meant as a definitive conclusion, but rather as a starting point for thoughtful discussion. So on to the final scores...
Unweighted Totals:
(out of a possible 1140 points, with 1 topic w/unfinished scores)
OS X: 800
Windows XP Pro: 691
Window XP Home: 665
Well, here is one person's evaluation of the relative strengths and weaknesses of Apple Macintosh OSX and Windows XP Pro. I have some disagreements with some of his assessments (some of them, like the lack of a slide show display from Fnder in OSX are factually wrong) but he does explain his reasons for his determiniations quite well, comparing and contrasting over 100 features of both Operating Systems.
Note: This comparison ignores the relative speed, price, and quality of the hardware, focusing entirely on the Operating System and user Interface not involving hardware.
I am absolutly certain that everyone will agree with this assessment and award OSX the kudos it certainly deserves...
Barring that fantasy, let the competing sides enter the ring and have at it!
Is there any rational reason I should want to own an Apple computer?
Some of those are just weird - "handling the capslock key"? And some of them have virtually nothing to do with the OS, like the dialog box score - I can create a dialog box, even in OS X, that has sixty buttons, three paragraphs of text, and forty checkboxes, half of which are labeled in Chinese. Is that Apple's fault? Is the OS really to blame for that? Of course not - that's poor UI design on the part of some third-party developer, and no OS has a monopoly on crappy programmers.