Windows is Getting Better Too
I’ve only mentioned several of the features that make OS X a joy to use. I’ve used Vista as well on a laptop and it’s quite good. There’s a lot of prejudice against OS X in that it’s only a "pretty" operating system, but a good hard look under the hood reveals significantly more.
One of the most important things going for OS X is its usability. Apple does a great job of tying everything together. From one device to another, to online services, Apple builds its products to work with each other from the start. However, don’t be confused. Microsoft would have a far easier time to do this as well if its market share was lower and it only had to support a small user base. Because of the vast variety of Windows users out there, credit must be given to Microsoft for epic attempts at supporting the majority crowd.
But Apple does a great job at making things very easy for users. The essence of what Apple is doing by having a virtually closed platform, is to have control. Of course, there are two sides of a coin to everything, and the bad side of this is that hardware selection is severely limited. But the bright side is that most things are very simplistic and there’s a certain level of quality control. People who say they’ve jumped on a Mac and found it difficult to troubleshoot just haven’t spent the same amount of time on one as they have on a Windows PC. Experience lends itself to computers, as well as everything else in life — you get better at it with time.
And getting better is exactly what Microsoft is doing. Vista has some great features going for it. Microsoft is getting significantly better at making a user interface that’s fun and easy to use, as well as bringing in more powerful features. Given that some of the best features that was slated for Vista’s release was left out, I can only surmise that the next version of Windows will be superb.
