sorry, L.M., but it’s not all subjective (although you are right that is how most people react to it). you may not feel monopoly business practices and invasive DRM – both at the very core of Vista conceptually and technically – are significant long term issues for the future of consumer computing and even society as a whole, and so just brush it off as personal dislikes, but i beg to differ. and “Ford vs. Chevy” is the wrong analogy. it’s more like the bloated US auto industry vs. quality-oriented Japanese auto makers in the ’80′s. and we know how that turned out …

People, people, calm down, and stop all the geek pissing contests, and giving each other grief for personal preference! The both great and horrible thing about all of Apple’s OSs, is that they are designed specifically to be used a certain way, and if that way happens to fit how you tend to work, then the OS provides you with very near computer nirvana. Of course, if it doesn’t happen to fit your particular way of approaching the computer, then trying to use it is a living hell.

Anyone trying to hype any modern OS as being objectively better, and clearly superior, is feeding you a line of BS. All the big OSs out these days are actually pretty damned good, and pretty similar as well, from a technical standpoint. The issue isn’t by any stretch which one is perfect, and which one is garbage, it is which one works best for what you do, and how you do it. It is entirely an issue of personal preference, and anything beyond that is some stupid Ford vs. Chevy pissing contest.

Of course there are people who have had a flawless experience with OSX, and so feel it is superior to anything else out there, because it perfectly fits their needs, and their expectations of how the computer should work. The thing people need to understand, is that the same is true of Vista, and XP, and any random flavor of Linux. It all comes down to your own personal style of computing, and what you expect from it. Personally, the only OS I have ever actually “loved” was SGI IRIX, but I have friends who have loved OSX, Vista, XP, Win2K, Ubuntu, Red Hat, SUSE and other OSs going back to BeOS, AmigOS and OS2.

The point is, if you love the OS you are using, then enjoy it, and don’t worry about what some jackass has to say about how his OS is better than yours. If it fits what you need to do, and does it in the way you think it should, then it is the best OS for you, no matter what BS someone tries to feed you about how objectively superior they delusionaly believe their favorite pet OS might be. No one has added anything significant to the core functionality an OS in almost a decade that really put it head and shoulders above its competitors in objective technical terms, so you are talking completely subjective measures of what is important to the individual user, and that will change on a user by user basis.

TimRubin said “i have never in my entire life, and i mean ever, met 1 serious tech professional say OSX was their favorite platform, it has always been either Linux or Windows.”

Nice to meet you. OSX is my favorite platform. I have been programming mainframes for 20 years in Assembler language (mostly for Wall Street)–batch VSE and Z/OS, CICS (including Web support), MQ Series under CICS and batch, VTAM programming, written SVCs, monitors, many systems-level utilities, plain old applications, many user exits, screen painters. I programmed for a major independent software house. I’ve also written in C, Basic, COBOL, Perl (lots of Perl), REXX, and am learning Objective-C.

Oh, and I’m seeing my whole area converting to Mac in their homes. They’ve all become Mac zealots: Z/OS, CICS, and MQ Series system programmers, DB2 DBA’s, UNIX and VAX admins, security professionals.

Yes, no one who knows anything uses OSX.

@TimRubin, in my experience, the IT “professionals” most negative about (or threatened by) Mac OS X are the ones who are the least willing to break the status quo of Windows… It makes perfect sense – Windows requires more time and energy to support than Mac OS X and thus provides more job security!

However any technically knowledgeable person with any common sense would never put linux on the same level as Windows. Linux is far superior technically – ditto for Mac OS X (being Unix based). There are some areas where Mac OS X could be improved (the Mach kernel and file system come to mind), but overall it’s leagues ahead of Windows.

You can read my previous comments here if you question my background :)

Why is it that all of you that have so many problems with vista cant really descrbe them? it is just vista problems?

Now i dont know how tecnical skilled you James but i do wunder why you fx. wrote a article a couple of days ago about how your vista machines had alot of disc activerty when you did not use them… ehhh erver heard about indexing, disable it if you dont like it.

start chosing you tablets not only from how the hardware specs are but also how they deliver quality drivers.

I’ve never seen the windows taskbar held up as a shining example of perfection before. It’s fascinating to me because I’ve always had quite the opposite opinion. Having every open window of every open program try to jam itself into the taskbar until the text is unreadable and there are six identical icons (or having them all grouped in one button that you have to click to expand) just never worked for me. Expanding the thing to be 2 or three rows high allows for more useful info but drove me crazy as I always hated wasting screen real estate. (I hate extra ‘toolbars’ in my browser window too)

I must be more icon oriented as well because I’ve never had trouble knowing exactly what apps are running at any time by glancing at the dock. Adding text would just be a nuisance and add to the visual clutter. I also find that many apps take advantage of the ability to have the dock icon live update. Transmission is a very nice bittorrent client that shows current upload and download speed info in the dock icon. The app is hidden but I’m watching the icon change second by second as I type this. (of course I ONLY use it to download the latest Linux ISO – NEVER tv shows or movies, ahem)

My personal frustration was trying to find an application launcher like Quicksilver for windows. You can only jam so many icons in the quicklaunch section of the taskbar before it becomes easier to just navigate through the start menu. Huge numbers of icons on the desktop bother me as well so that method is out too.

I hasten to add that this is just my opinion and reflects the way I personally prefer to work. I have a very good friend who is a taskbar lover (4 rows high – four!), desktop jammed with icons kind of person. You know what? Who cares. Let the guy enjoy working the way it suits him.

Anyway, no one should listen to me because I don’t make seven figures AND I have the audacity to use a girl’s toy of a computer to do work. :)

I’ve been reading your blog since you got the MBP, and remember both the good and bad experiences you had with it at the beginning. You seemed quite fair about it overall, so not sure what readers are giving you grief about being biased.

I just chuckle when I read these declarations that people have ZERO, NONE NADA problems with Vista. I seriously wonder what they use their computers for. We have had 2 computers running Vista, 6 running XP since Vista launched. Last week we reformatted the Vista machines and installed XP on them. What a relief :p

GearsofPeace (XP at work, OSX at home)

james

as someone who uses only lower-case letters, i can state that you have no clue what you’re talking about
but, wat the heck, with all the money i’m earning now, i don’t need caps !!!

bisquil, or was it kinjox, or was it timrubin

BTW, my comment above was written on a Windows Mobile device, a great product of MS.

i have never in my entire life, and i mean ever, met 1 serious tech professional say OSX was their favorite platform, it has always been either Linux or Windows. these are guys that make 4x-5x the average US salary, run corporate infrastructures, and have direct relationships with the manufactures. now you enthusiasts posters, bloggers, etc may think your opinion counts, and it does “to you”. but i will take the word of people that actually understand the underlying technology inside each of them… i dont get medical opinions from the guy who sales me hotdogs.

for people clamoring on about how OSX is UNIX based & pretending they understand thats a good thing, please stop preaching what youve read on other sites as if you understand, because clearly you dont. being based on isnt the samething as being powerful as, when what your given access to is virtually completely different & closed source.