In a January 2008 survey by Changewave Research the obvious became even more obvious: Mac users are very happy with their Macs, while Windows users live in the doldrums of computing Hell.
Surprising? Nah. The percentage of new home computer buyers who reported being "Very Satisfied" with their chosen operating system was as follows:
- Mac OS X "Leopard" - 81 percent;
- Windows XP Home - 53 percent;
- Windows XP Pro - 51 percent;
- Vista Home Premium - 27 percent;
- Vista Home Basic - 15 percent
Perhaps this is just a reflection of choice. Meaning, those who actually get to choose their operating system are much happier than those who have it foisted upon them by Microsoft's overwhelming dominance of the personal computing industry.
I don't get it. Maybe because my experience with Apple's new "Leopard" release of OS X has been flawless (unlike Dave's). No bugs, no crashes, no problems (well, perhaps a little lack of flair and novelty, but I can manage that).
Yet in today's Guardian, Charles Arthur writes (in an article entitled "Leopard is nothing for Apple to purr about"):
...I'm considering [downgrading to Tiger]....[P]lenty of other people, having upgraded to Apple's latest version of OS X, codenamed Leopard, are doing the same.
... Read more
If what The Register writes is even remotely true, the writing is on the wall for Microsoft's desktop dominance. What does it say? "Game over."
The Register is reporting that Apple may be coding Leopard to run Windows applications natively (meaning, no need for Parallels, Boot Camp, etc.). It's a wild guess at this point, but the clues are there:
Leopard's PE (Portable Executable--a way of encoding executable files) support was uncovered by one Stephen Edwards, who'd been working with Wine, the open source version of the Windows application programming interface (API). He found that Leopard's Dynamic Linker (Dyld) will try to load a PE file. Soon after, Leopard's hunt for DLLs referenced by the PE file appeared as further evidence that the presence of PE support may not simply be a hang over from Apple's use of the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI).... Read more
I've been a bit of a Mac freak since 2002 when I got my first PowerBook. I've since converted many friends, nearly all family, and half my company to the Mac. I can tally up at least $300,000 in Apple hardware and software that I've personally paid for or purchases that I've influenced. I love the Mac.
As for Apple's newest operating system, I like it, too. Kind of how I like cereal. It's there. I eat it. I don't think much about it.
This is, of course, really what an operating system should do: not play at being the center of attention and just let me run the applications that I want. In this, Leopard is great for me. Unlike others (like this Slashdot rant or Dave Rosenberg's own complaint), I've never had Leopard crash. Not once. The upgrade from Mac OS X version 10.4 (Tiger) was completely pain-free. Everything just works.
Maybe this is the problem.
... Read moreThere are so many features listed on Apple's Leopard landing page that it might be easy to overlook this one (which Glyn Moody pointed out): OpenDocument Format, or ODF, support in the new operating system. It's baked right into OS X, and TextEdit will also support both Microsoft Word 2007 and OpenDocument formats.
At some point, Microsoft may also come around to ODF. In the meantime, there's Apple. Innovative as usual.
[UPDATED: As someone pointed out to me in an email, I made a mistake on "OpenDocument" in TextEdit. That appears to be a reference to Microsoft's confusingly named "open" format. But the ODF reference was right.]
- prev
- 1
- next
