I’m a Windows user, but I like the Mac. I like the Mac a lot; where the Windows experience is ‘Good Enough’, the Mac is a highly polished, very well thought out and easy to use answer. One is a short answer, just enough to get full credit; the other is an elegant novel, not only answering the question, but anticipating and answering the successive questions that follow.
This is yet another instance where Apple knows how to market itself, Apple knows how to define itself, and how to present itself to it’s target market.
Microsoft still hasn’t figured out what a target market is.
I decided to give it a try. When I ran XP, I used the 200 interface that I preferred. It was functional, and efficient. I don’t see that option with Windows 7. It looks too much like OS X in my opinion. (I thought Apple actually got it right wth System 7, interface-wise).
On the other hand, installation was MUCH smoother, and I only crashed it once, and was able to do a controlled shut down.
The system ranked 5.9, is that okay in other people’s experience?
For normal desktop applications and web applications, Linux has come of age (functionally). Butt...
Computers have reached commodity status. You buy the one that runs the programs you want to run, for the cheapest price. John Dvorak has a good article pointing out that for the last 10 years, software developers have simply been adding bells and whistles to existing applications, keeping us from enjoying the blazing speed of the new hardware.
Most people buy Windows machines because that’s what they know and they are cheaper. They don’t want to run Windows apps on Mac and they don’t want to pay the 50%-200% premium for the hardware.
I keep a K45 XP Shuttle box (about $150 invested) attached to my Internet line because it runs my Magic Jack. Otherwise, I run one Linux box and a laptop XP computer for work and surfing. I keep a gaming machine in the den. Oh yeah... The Linux netbook with a solid state hard drive survives nicely in motorcycle saddle bags.
Brands? Who cares anymore? OS? Not important most of the time.
My 24” iMac sits unused most of the time because it just doesn’t do anything that the other machines aren’t already doing. It’s a fine machine, but so are the others.
Personally, I’m looking forward to the Chrome OS. Most of the time, it will do what I want. Computers are becoming like televisions. We will have several, all different, for different purposes. Operating systems are becoming part of the commodity. They are no longer significant.