Mac
OS X vs. Windows XP: Is this what it's come to?
It's either a battle
for the ages, or the ghost of ill will past
In the good old days, I could write up an article about
the Macintosh or its admittedly beautiful OS, and if it
contained even the smallest hint of criticism toward the
mother ship (Apple Computer in Mac-speak), I could be
sure that my inbox would be flooded with vitriolic hate
mail from every corner of the Mac community. That's just
the way it worked: Groups like the Mac Marines, (then)
Guy Kawasaki's EvangeList, and others would send out the
word that some poor journalist had had the gall to
disagree with all that was holy in their worlds. It was
an age where people felt very strongly about such things
as the Amiga, OS/2, and yes, the Mac OS.
Those days have largely
passed. That's not to say that people don't feel very
strongly about the Mac OS: Of course they do, just
attend a MacWorld convention (as I do, fairly regularly)
or Apple Store opening to see what I mean. But the Mac
community, for the most part, has grown up in the past
five or six years. I don't know for a fact that the
average age of this group has increased during this time
period, but I can detect a certain maturity in the lack
of hate mail I get when I dare to criticize Apple, the
Mac OS, or--gasp--Steve Jobs.
And I do criticize
these things, when they deserve it. Just as I criticize
Microsoft, Bill Gates, and Windows when they deserve it.
I call it being fair. But people
assume--understandably--that because I'm a "Windows
guy," I'm automatically an idiot, a Microsoft sycophant,
a clueless Windows lemming, or all of the above. The
truth is, I'm not any of these things (well, I may be in
idiot, but my wife's vote doesn't count). In fact, I've
been closely following with the Macintosh community
since the late 1980's, and I don't actually harbor any
misconceptions about Apple Computer, its products, or
its leadership. I even own a Macintosh--a 2001 iBook
with 384 MB of RAM and a DVD drive--specifically so I
can run Mac OS X, and I favorably reviewed a PowerBook G4
(surprised?) for Windows 2000 Magazine earlier this
year. I hope to get my hands on a DVD-burning G4 next.
You see, I'm actually a big fan.
Paul reviews Windows
XP
Anyway, on to the reason you're reading this page. I
just reviewed Windows XP, and I do love it. I'm the guy
who actually revealed the code-name of this Windows
version to the world, and I also was the first to
publish the fact that Microsoft was using the XP naming
convention a year later. Windows XP, to me, is that
perfect combination of gotta-have-it features, a
powerful upgrade that will benefit almost all current
Windows users. It really does raise the bar.
However, I had the
temerity to write the following in my review of this
product:
And for the copycat
Mac OS X and Linux platforms, where innovation equates
to copying the feature set of Windows, the bar has been
raised yet again, this time to stupefying heights.
I agree that this was a bit harsh. So a few days after
posting the review, I modified it--qualified it,
you might say--to the following:
And for competitors
such as Mac OS X and Linux, where innovation often has
lately equated to simply copying the feature set of
Windows, the bar has been raised yet again, this time to
stupefying heights.
And I got hate mail. Not lots of it like the old
days. But enough of it that I thought I should explain.
The Linux half of
|
