Opinion: Windows 8 vs. OS X Mountain Lion — why Apple Suddenly Sucks

Digital Trends ^ | March 3, 2012 | Rob Enderle

[SmokingJoe]

With Apple and Microsoft both recently displaying their respective operating systems: Mac OS X Mountain Lion and Windows 8. Digital Trend's Rob Enderle explores why Apple's lion may no longer be king of the mountain.

This last week has been fascinating. Both Apple and Microsoft introduced their new operating system for PCs. Interestingly, folks are raving about Windows 8 and ranting at OS X Mountain Lion. Both products are far from final and, of the two, Mountain Lion has far fewer changes. Given that we don’t like change, you’d think folks would like that. But it seems they are comparing Mountain Lion to iOS and the last version of the MacOS, and finding it either doesn’t change enough or changes too much. In short, Apple may have inadvertently announced a tweener product. I also think we are seeing the first indication that Apple can’t function as well without Steve Jobs. Let me explain.

Early Products Are All About Perceptions I was looking at the PlayStation Vita the other day, and remembering that, had this product come out two years ago, it would have easily eclipsed the hottest product of that time — the iPad — which cost more and did far less. Over time, however, perceptions changed, and even though it is the best hand held game system ever released, people look at it in the shadow of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, and seem to find it wanting.

[spetznaz]

Interesting article. Thanks.

[cuban leaf]

—Then he brought out the iPad. And even though it was really just a netbook without a keyboard, folks saw the result as magical and different—

I see it as a netbook without a keyboard. A friend, who is ALL APPLE bought one and he said it’s pretty much useless to him. It’s no more portable than his apple laptop and is not as user friendly (no keyboard), though one of our friends love his - mostly because he uses it for his young son to play games while dad’s trying to work.

[Tzfat]

Metro on a PC is going to be as popular as Vista.

[rarestia]

Win8 is going to be another rushed-to-market bit of trash that the public won’t glom on to. Have you seen the requirements for the OS? They’re not really even marketing it to your standard desktop user. It’s completely a tablet/touchscreen OS, which I think is going to come back to haunt them much like Windows CE did.

Your average everyday user is comfortable with a MaK setup. Touchscreen monitors are too expensive for universal adoption.

[cuban leaf]

A lot of what this guy says makes sense, and I confess I’ve never been an apple fan, but it looks like he hasn’t either. It is as though he’s using Jobs’ absence to pile onto what he already believed. Essensially, the article could be summarized in one sentenc:

“Apple products were always crap, supported solely by Jobs’ marketing genius, but now that he is gone, the curtain is removed and the company is doomed.”

[Izzy Dunne]

Enderle has long been an Apple basher. No surprise here.

Then came the return of Steve Jobs who, after five years, convinced people to look at Apple and its products differently.

Jobs didn't "convince people to look at Apple and its products differently", he revised and simplified the whole product line. Then he focused Apple on far fewer products.

[Izzy Dunne]

Just listen to this crap:

From the first iPod (which kind of sucked) to the first iPhone (which really sucked as a phone), ...... the products they competed with were far worse.

He's telling me that Apple stuff sucks, it's just that everybody else sucks worse.

[Jonty30]

Although the tile system doesn’t appeal to me, I think the system will work well as it is being designed to do. As I understand it, I will be able to continue doing whatever it is I am doing, from computer to cellphone to tablet, as smooth as possible.

No save, cut, paste, downloading or anything like that, or a simplified process of doing that.

I think, for most people, it will be a positive experience.

[cuban leaf]

—Touchscreen monitors are too expensive for universal adoption.—

They’re also a pain in the butt. One of the reasons I got my Panasonic GF1 camera when the GF2 was about to be released was because the GF2 went to touch screen. The knob on the top of my camera that I use constantly is gone in the GF2. You have to work touch screen settings to get it to do the same things. and there is always the accidental touch of the wrong place - something I do so often with my Samsung Galaxy S phone that I’ve come to slamming the phone on the ground several times.

The one and only thing that gets me actually “break stuff” angry is failing computer tech.

I think touch screens are great for some games. That’s about it. I need physical feedback. Imagine working the steering wheel, shifter, gas and brake pedals on your car via touch screen. Blech!

[magellan]

This article is not journalism. The author notes Mountain Lion only includes minimal changes, which is true, and Windows 8 includes major changes, which is also true. And from that, he concludes people love Windows 8 and people hate Mountain Lion. Where is the evidence?

The only article I read on Windows 8 took Microsoft to task for (once again) changing Windows’ user interface, and begging Microsoft to make the Metro interface an option, rather than the default, and begged Microsoft to adopt Apple’s model of $25 OS upgrades.

As for the iPad, I was a big skeptic. I waited until it had been out a year, and spoke with friends who had one. Only then did I buy one, and in short order, I was sold. My company has an annual CIO conference. The biggest change in the 2011 conference were the number of attendees who had iPads (in addition to laptops). All of the CIOs were using iPads as their primary business email device.

Where the PC encouraged complexity in application software, the iPad has forced simplicity back into software.

[Jonty30]

I hate onscreen keyboards. Because I don’t have the tactile sensation, I have to look at every key I press to make sure it’s the right key.

I’m waiting to see if any of the Window phones will have a keyboard.

[cuban leaf]

—I hate onscreen keyboards. Because I don’t have the tactile sensation, I have to look at every key I press to make sure it’s the right key.—

Same here. It is not something that will go away, either. It is a problem. Even the vibrating keyboards only tell you your touch took. It doesn’t tell you what you touoched.

I’m a bass player and play both fretted and fretless bass. Fretted gives you the feel of the frets. With fretless you have to do a lot more practicing to get the intonation right, to be sure you hit the note and are not sharp or flat. And you use your ears to make subtle corrections.

Using a touch screen is a bit like being a deaf man playing a fretless bass.

[VanDeKoik]

How dare this A-hole write something critical of Apple and give reasons for his opinion!

The rules of the internet is that Microsoft is bad and evil, Apple is good and perfect.

[rarestia]

I have a touchscreen Logitech Harmony universal remote for my entertainment system, and I have the same issues. Nothing worse than fast forwarding through the commercials on a DVR’d show and skipping right past a critical part in the show due to a missed button.

Tactile response rules the day and always will, IMO.

[rarestia]

I’m not saying it won’t work well for the segment for which it’s designed, but it will not be a universal player in the market.

I’m constantly chuckling at the dolts in the IT industry touting the next tablet or smartphone as a “PC killer.” The PC isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s as ubiquitous as a television or a car. It’s designed a certain way to do a certain thing, and until they can figure out how to cram multiple video GPUs, SSDs, and liquid cooling into a laptop for hardcore gamers, the PC will continue to rule for that particular market.

[Mr. Jeeves]

I was looking at the PlayStation Vita the other day, and remembering that, had this product come out two years ago, it would have easily eclipsed the hottest product of that time — the iPad — which cost more and did far less.

If the iPad had not come out, the PlayStation Vita would never have existed. Manufacturers were all gun-shy about tablets at the time. Apple proved the market really did exist. This whole article is nonsense.

[Jonty30]

I think you’re correct, for the time being, in regards to hardcore gamers. That’s no different than gearheads and cars.

The average person, who buys a standard car, is generally well served with any standard model. But the gearheads, who want to push the limits on their vehicles are the ones that need 700 hp.

That’s not who the computer ecological environment is being designed for.

[jdsteel]

First, let me say I am NO Apple fan boy. That said, the iPad is a very useful tool for many things. It is NOT good for everything, or a replacement for a computer. Check out the Presonus StudioLive series of digital mixers, and the iPad remote mixing app and the iPhone monitor apps (studiolive remote and qmix). My first hand experience is that it is an awesome system that does what other systems that cost tens of thousands of dollars more do. There are you tube videos that show how it works.

[cuban leaf]

Yes, you nail one of it’s useful features. I think it would also be a great tool for home use using Wi-fi. It would be a great cookbook in the kitchen, complete with internet access. In that way, it very much reminds me of the flat screens used on the Jupiter mission in 2001, A Space Odyssey.