Awakening from the OS X vs. Windows War
It’s a strange sensation to be in PowerPC land. To those that don’t know, that was the (IBM) technology which Macs were previously built on, before moving to the much more flexible and powerful Intel platform. My first Mac, bought in 2004, was a G4 iBook. I loved it and remember even writing an ode to it on this weblog. It is currently still alive in the, hopefully, responsible hands of a family-member.
What made the G4 special was that there was no going back to Windows. You could emulate it, v e r y s l o w l y , but you really had to make due with what Mac OS X offered you and I loved that idea of being stranded on an island and having to make the best of it. As a result, I learned a lot about my Mac and it also spawned plenty of blog posts on better Mac productivity here.
But now that I am on a Macbook and have been logging on to Windows via Bootcamp regularly, my reality has somewhat changed.
H A R D W A R E !!!
Macs vs. PCs… I was always aware of the hardware differences, particularly quality-wise. If you do the simple math, my 2004 iBook, now 5 years old and expected to last at least 2 years longer. I don’t know what it’s like in PC-world (not the mag), but I imagine you won’t get this kind of return on investment (ROI) under EUR 1000 ($1500). And by ROI, I mean, on the road ROI, as my laptop was constantly with me travelling. If you have a dusty EUR 200 ($300) PC server lying around somewhere, I expect that will probably last you half a decade as well.
I’m pretty certain that today, if I were to choose either Windows or OS X, I would still buy Apple, simply because they build their machines so damn well. Dvorak, when the Macbook Pros were just launched, called them the Bentleys of computers, and I whole-heartedly agree.
S O F T W A R E !!!
My post today is really about the software-war, which is what most Apple (and Windows) fanboys seem to focus on. And I’m here to tell you that there is no more software-war! Apart from a few (somewhat important) design-flaws in Windows (unfortunately I haven’t tested Vista or 7 yet), the migration between both platforms is fairly flawless.
All the major applications exist on both platforms: Office, programming, designing, picture- and video-manipulation. I don’t want to step on anyone’s territory, I know that, for some of those, Macs are better and for others, PCs are. But for the everyday-consumer like me, you can use both platforms as a tool.
Where I was mostly worried, ironically, was not anything that was inherent to the Mac platform, though I did argue partially that it was some time ago. It’s a free software called Quicksilver, which allows you to launch apps, find and manipulate files more quickly than using shortcuts and the mouse, or even Spotlight. It has taken over my day-to-day so much, that I no longer have files lying around on my desktop, the Dock, and rarely use the Finder either. The reason is that, for launching stuff, using the keyboard together with search, is much much faster than going somewhere “manually.” Imagine doing the same on the internet and browsing to every address individually, instead of having Google and predictive text…
But even that has no longer become a problem on Windows due to a number of alternatives that exist and of which I chose SlickRun as my number 1 replacement.
I will not go into the Design aspects of the Mac OS, which are without a doubt superior to Windows (XP at least). But where software as a tool is concerned, the war is over! I can survive just as well on Windows as I have on OS X.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps marks an end to my pro-Mac posts (though, let’s wait for Snow Leopard to be sure). Who knows, I may eventually even (gasp!) post a review of a Windows software here soon.
Vincent
Tags: Productivity
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Hey,
interesting and not so interesting post
interesting that you are actually admitting that windows has its own perks and aint that bad
but not so interesting, because i still think its like comparing apples and oranges…
those two operating systems are so entirely different that it is hard to just compare them.. on the front end they are getting more and more to the same layout.. but the architechture behind each OS is still fairly different
but what my point is, that you cant and shouldnt really compare them.. one will say.. nahhh.. mac sucks, cause its not windows, and the next guy will tell you windows sucks cause its not mac.. well.. there we go.. the always-lasting war;)
so i hope there will be no more hating on here
i get that more than enough in college.. where im the guy with the mac and get hated on!? just cause i like apples 
For a while we had a guy here that worked for Microsoft. That’s how the whole “hatred” (I wouldn’t really call it that) started.
Of course the underlying ways that these two OSs function differs drastically, just like Linux has an intriguing architecture. But to the average user, the only thing that matters is the functionality as it relates to their needs, which is both individually and environmentally determined.
And, as of the Intel there literarily is nothing you can do with Windows that you can’t do with a Mac. And to an extent it goes vice versa as well, except I wish I could access Mac apps through cross-over or similar, legally at least. On that level.. you can compare them and you should compare them.
…you should compare them indeed !
With prices going down and your family risking pilling-up your passé equipement more frequently, it is always worth training your opinion on what are you putting your money in.
I have lived in both worlds (lately have been working for Microsoft)and the impression I have is that both Apple and Microsoft are not in a war of features but in a war of standards, a layer above HW and SW. So I’d love to read your perspective on this.
If you focus on the OS, Microsoft has worked a lot against its weaknesses and reputation.
For the end user, features and performance are impeccable in latest Windows 7.
But Microsoft R&D wise, is really focused on the administrator or his job in the unmanaged space.
To offer a great user experience Apple has chosen to manage the full chain starting from the Hardware while Microsoft has worked to manage the full chain starting from the Service.
While we are heading to de-corellation and mobility on the cloud, this will be more and more visible. I got this message reading your post, although the analysis is completely different.
Yeah, on a standards-level, I think that virtualisation adds a very interesting dimension, one that both Apple (hardware division) and Microsoft (Software division) are able to profit from, without having to wage a war really.
Sure, OS X is installed by default on the Mac and as such will be the dominant system. But, Office for Mac is still the clear market leader there, and it really is incredibly easy to switch over or live in a hybrid Windows/OS X world.
I thus stand with my stance that the “War” is now over. And, most of all, I thank Intel for that.