Question: What makes OS X so damn great?
I want to keep this short and leave the floor to you mostly, as I’m not a software developer or smart enough for this topic, I’m just a consumer and user of the product. On the train to my parents for this Easter weekend, two young guys were eying me and my Macbook and, seeing that I was wearing earphones perhaps, discussing the mac. One guy said to the other: “those Macs look like they’re taking over the world. Did you see the new one, it looks slick, but it costs € 1500.” And the other guy responded: “How dare they?” Whereas the other guy said: “Well, they look pretty cool, but interface-wise, I could never get used to them.” And the conversation died after that.
So what makes Macs so cool. Rather than discuss the superficial, the hardware, I just want to briefly write about why I like the Mac OS “interface,” and then leave the floor to you, answering the question: “What makes OS X so damn great?”
My impression: I don’t know how to explain it exactly, maybe it’s because OS X is Unix based. But what I really dig about OS X (Tiger & Leopard) is that every menu-function, every possible action you’d want to undertake, can somehow be translated into a script or service, and thus entered in Quicksilver or another “launcher.” That means that my hands rarely have to leave the keyboard, which I think saves me a few seconds vs. going for the mouse/trackpad, point & clicking. It also means that my Dock [Apple's application launcher] and desktop are clean most of the time, as I don’t need a “visible” shortcut to get to the destination I want.
I could never get that same workflow going on Windows, and perhaps it’s because of the architecture, that it just isn’t written to be that open. Sure, things like SizeUp and Fresh, both of which I discussed last week, are not part of the Leopard interface, but the fact that they exist, the fact that Quicksilver exists, is actually what makes OS X 10 times as effective an OS to me. Once again, I don’t know why exactly this is the case, I attribute it to the open architecture of Unix.
So, now it’s your turn: why makes OS X so damn great (or not, if that’s where you want to take it)?
Have a nice Easter weekend!
Vincent
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Tags: Leopard, scripting, tiger, unix
Apple, Architecture, Consumer electronics, Education, Microsoft, OS X, Windows, innovation, marketing, open-source
OS X doesn’t require a heavy, clumsy antivrial software.
That’s great.
Second thing : I think Automator is great, and can prove really useful in work environments.
true about the anti-virus, but truth be told, as long as you don’t click on unknown links in your mail or your internet, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be virus free in both Windows and OS X.
I’ve heard a lot about Automator, and it entirely fits the idea that everything in OS X can be automated somehow. I’d love to know why this is possible and why such a software doesn’t come with Windows (or if it does, which one it is).
Actually, one thing I miss about *powerpc* Macs is that they were Game-FREE for me. Boot camp is exposing me to all kinds of time-consuming activities I don’t really want to spend time on.