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Mac OS X Versus Windows Vista
An anonymous reader writes "With Macworld set to start Jan. 8, InformationWeek has a detailed comparison that pits Mac OS X against Vista. According to reviewer John Welch, OS X wins hands down. The important point: he doesn't say Vista is bad, just that technically speaking, OS X remains way ahead. Do you agree?"
Vista still has all the games and applications people use, most not available on any version of OS X.
As a cross-platform developer (hail Qt!), I recently got a MacBook Pro so I could run both OS X and Windows on the road, and I will admit, the Mac has remained booted into OS X the vast majority of time. This is admittedly do to mostly Universal Binary testing, but I could easily see that if I wanted to, I could run my day-do-day stuff purely on OS X. Except for its continued mouse-happy interface (come on, make ALL of those popup dialogs keyboard accessible!), when running on a fast machine OS X is very nice.
At the end of the day though, I can do MORE stuff on Windows, and Vista will be no exception.
Technical superiority doesn't mean as much when you can't get vendor support. This is sad but true. For a long while to come Vista will enjoy all the attention and benefits of a larger install base regardless of technical merits (or lack thereof).
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
...I don't think I've ever seen so many ad hominem attacks against a non hominem. ;)
Saying that OSX is better than Vista because OSX hasn't changed its UI much since 2001 (at least regarding buttons) and Vista has changed the look of the window bar buttons? That's just stupid.
Spending most of the first page of the article beating the dead horse of Cairo promises regarding WinFS and other things which have nothing to do with comparing Vista to OSX?
I'd much rather read an article by a Linux or Windows fanboy bashing each other unapologetically than listen to that author say "I'm going to compare A and B" and then spend half their time talking about C.
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Mac OS X and Windows Vista completely fail in this area, however. I cannot see the source code to the window systems of either, for instance. Nor can I inspect the kernel source code.
You are correct that you cannot view the OS X window system source but wrong about the kernel. The source to the Mac OS X kernel (XNU) is easily available from Apple. Apple also releases source to other major parts including things like launchd and bonjour as part of the Darwin core operating system.
I don't believe it's possible to get a fair comparison of two so completely different things unless you have been forced to use both of them for an extended period of time and have truly given them both a chance.
I am in that position where I work, and I have to support both macs and PCs in the desktop support world. For me what it all comes down to is simplicity of use. Just pulling an example out of thin air... 99% of mac software runs as non-admin, and better than 70% will run as a very restricted user. (kids) 98% of software can be installed as a non-admin so long as you know the admin l/p. Then we have windows. 0% of software can be installed as a non-admin, even if you know the admin l/p. After that, 80% of it requires you to be logged in as an administrator. So make them an administrator you say? (like THAT is a good idea in a school!) In OS X that is one check box and takes 15 seconds to do. I have a sheet of paper somewhere around here with all the steps needed to promote a user in Windows, I was astounded by what the PC tech said had to be done. Anyone that says windows is easier to use needs a closed door meeting with a baseball bat. When it all comes down to it, the amount of software available isn't truly what's important, it's how easy, pleasant, and non-frustrating the system is that actually matters to a lot of people, tho they may not admit it. Having a flying car isn't so great if it takes you 45 minutes to get it into the air every day and is prone to running into buildings. I admit I get a little personal enjoyment when I see a windows user is just totally frustrated and ranting and I say well you know how we can fix that? and they scream back, "Don't tell me about macs, I don't want to hear it. I *LIKE* my pc!!!" Yessir, I can see that, looks like you've having a great time. The 5% of them that finally switch come to me later and say why didn't you tell me about this before? I triiiiiied.....
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Hi:
Apple is a hardware company. It's how they make their money. You're basically saying you'll test a BMW if you can get it for the price of a Pinto. Asking companies to adpot suicidal business models for your benefit is a bit rich.
Anyone who looks at my post history will see that I am a Mac zealot, but I have to correct a small bit of misinformation in the review.
He praises Mac OS X for dimming toolbar buttons when windows are in the background, using the example of a Safari window behind a Finder window. Unfortunately, the reason the Safari window's toolbar buttons are dimmed is not that it's in the background, but that it's not displaying any page. Put a Safari window displaying any page into the background and its toolbar buttons (unfortunately) stay active. The behavior he describes is application-specific.
For example, both the Finder and Path Finder do the right thing.
There were other inconsistencies in the review. Two examples: First, he slammed Vista for requiring UAC approval for installations where it might not seem necessary, where OS X does the same thing. Second, he praised Vista's interface consistency, without mentioning the lack of consistency that has been typical of Mac OS X in recent years. (This lack of consistency, because it is strictly cosmetic and apps have remained well-executed, is something I think is OK or even valuable... but there are a whole lot of Mac users out there who violently disagree with me.)
Personally I find the actual issue with XP or Vista is that there is simply too much over stimulation on the screen, a user is desensitised to the bold interface and thus the OS requires more brazen efforts to gather attention when it's required in a different area of the screen. This is why windows users find that all the mac windows look grey and unsubstantial (this is also why mac users can tolerate many windows on the screen at once). Opposingly mac users find that windows is excessively clunky and child-like in appearance (hence terms for XP such as Fisher-Price). The excessively bold interface of windows leads users to maximise each window otherwise they can't concentrate on the task at hand.
Microsoft's customers would rather pay for competent technical support.
Programming is not their competence, the internals of an OS is something they have no desire to muck with, ever.
comparing osx with vista has to include also the level of usability for an a liettle bit more experienced user. can you open a terminal with bash in vista? compile and run code for Xorg? or is that oging to come when microsoft figures out how to implement this?
i never tried vista running, but from what i see from all the screenshots all oover the internet is basically: it has a new widget-style, some of the GUI elements are inspired form osx and diverse opensource apps but there is nothing "new" and really unique to vista.
I think your numbers are just a *bit* exagerated there me bucko.
I can get a brand new dell XP-pro system with free upgrade to Vista business from Dell's small-business line of servers for $500. I don't know anybody's business, that isn't getting fleeced by people (which I guess like you are implying you do when they stay on Windows) who pay $300 annually per system to clean up their crap. Either their internal IT staff don't do their job/the outside support staff (your group) is milking them for cash or more likely your made up numbers are just out of wack and you are hoping nobody notices.
You should realize that one of the top features of a Mac system is that things work well together -- OS, software, and hardware. This is due to a hell of a lot of QA testing on Apple's part, and I just cannot fault them for it one bit. On the other hand, just releasing a DVD for people to install on whatever frankenbox they've cobbled together (or whatever cost-cutting box Dell sells now for $500) will mean the OS and software will no longer "just work" -- it'll turn into the driver/hardware support nightmare that Windows has enjoyed for quite some time. Given the beast that MSFT has helped create in terms of hardware diversity, there is now simply no way MSFT and/or anyone else can do the level of QA Apple performs -- at least not where the software would be meaningfully improved. I'd rather never see this happen to OS X, and if that means you turn your back on OS X as a result, that'd be just fine here. [shrug]
"Most people just don't care about things like who has the superior kernel. People care far more about the parts they see and work with, so that is what I'm going to deal with here."
So immediately, this article is already biased to a "who has the best user interface" because people don't care about the rest of the operating system - I highly disagree, and while most people might not directly care, it still matters. Afterall, the most important parts of the OS are Process management, Memory management, Disk and file systems, Networking, Security, User interface, Device drivers - to only focus on one yet claim that OS X is miles ahead because of it seems a little biased. But even then, is it a fair review?
So lets have a look at what this article boils down to, at the start:
> Messages from the operating system: Windows by default gives you feedback when you do things, wheras Mac OS X doesn't have to because "it just works".
Some people like feedback, I plug in a mouse to a windows PC, and it "just works", just like their mac example, yet it tells me it's installed new hardware. I like the feedback, and if I don't, I can disable it. Some people like feedback, some people don't. If I plug in a stranger hardware device, it's nice to know what Windows had the drivers, rather than me needing to install them. Surely this would only be a flaw if the messages were forced upon you, but the fact you can turn them off and gives you the choice suggests to me it's not really a problem with the operating system.
> User Interface: It is difficult to tell which application is active because buttons are still coloured even when the window is not active. Furthermore, Vista is both consistenty yet not consistent at the same time, wheras Mac OS has great consistency.
I found this quite a long shot, I've never had problems telling windows apart because there is colour in a non-active window. I'm typing this in notepad right now, and firefox is behind me with coloured buttons. The window is darker because it's active, the window behind is lighter - people have been used to that, and I haven't heard of people having problems with it in Vista or Pre-vista. If you don't like the UI, you can change it too, to make it easier to tell the difference, or even to go back to windows classic. As for consistency, I've frequently heard people complain about the lack of consistency on Mac OS X, so I found their reference to it amusing. For example, this article on the 'many facces of Apple's OS X applications' here http://www.robservatory.com/archives/2005/05/17/co nsistency-of-design/ - not to mention the fact that different programs often need different interfaces. Internet explorer does not look like Media Player. iTunes does not look like safari - they're different things alltogether. On Windows, most of the time things are fairly consistent, however, on Mac, you can have 3 or more different interfaces showing at the same time ( eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TigerDesk.png )
Change and renaming: Some things have changed in Vista, for example "My computer" to "Computer"
I would say change is a natural part of the evolution of an operating system. There were lots of changes from OS 9 to OS X, it takes a bit of getting used to at first, but most is done logically, and I wouldn't say it's a significant disadvantage.
> UAC: It doesn't ask for a password, and it's annoying because it isolates the rest of the operating system when it asks, therefore it's bad and it's different.
Ok, it's different but it's not as flawed as they seem to make out - first, it does require a password unless you have the priviledges to not require a password (contrary to what the article would have you believe) - this is an added convenience in the fact that if you're the system admin, you don't want to constantly be putting in the p
This is a perfect example why Mechanics should be Mechanic and the IT Staff should be the IT Staff. Your poor experience with a program was more to do with the crappy design of the program and your lack of knowledge of the software you use, then with the Framework itself.
I think he means the practice of bundling Windows through manufacturers. They used to make OEMs pay per computer whether or not they wanted to install Windows on it(do they still?) so the logical conclusion would be that they would install Windows on every computer.
But on a side note, I think Apple would be a bigger challenge because they are much bigger control freaks than MS. When was the last time you saw a mac being sold that wasn't in a white shiny box? And don't forget how IBM kicked their asses all over the place because they wanted to keep a tight lid on their components. Look where that got them.
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
Well, among other things, he spends most of a page discussing the difference between authentication, which OS X does, and approval, which Vista does.
Authentication means you actually enter a password to prove you're the person who has rights to modify the machine.
Approval means you just click a "yes, go ahead and do it" button.
The article then discusses the weakness of 'approval' from a security standpoint: i.e.: it doesn't stop J. Random Passerby from hosing your system, it just means he has to push the 'Okay' button to do it.
In practice, this means that if the two of us are sitting side by side, you on a Vista box where only you know the admin password, me on a Mac where only I know the admin password, I can change the settings of your machine while you step away for coffee, but you can't change the settings on my machine while I step away for coffee.
First off, this really isn't Vista v. Mac OS X.. it's a comparison of their user interfaces (the author ignoring everything else about them..) - OK fine, but let's just make that clear from the get-go.. because while Vista has a lot of nice UI improvements, many of the exciting changes (at least, from my perspective) are more "under the hood" (one of them.. a I-can't-believe-they-took-so-long-to-get-this is per-application volume levels).
Now, here's where the article gets a bit nonsensical. It's a comparison of the UIs.. but he turns OFF part of Vista's? OK.. I see we've got an objective comparison coming here..
In all, he makes a few good points about Vista (UAC nagging and "personalization" vs "display" notable), but it's mostly just nitpicking.. and he doesn't criticize MacOS in any way, and doesn't point out any of the deficiencies in the MacOS UI (because it's plainly obvious what action clicking on red, yellow, or green circle has, to someone who hasn't used OSX..)
I am the maverick of Slashdot
I use about 90% Kubutun and 10% Windows XP, I've spent perhaps a total of 1 hour on OS X, porting a small Java application for a friend, so I am definitely not qualified to talk about OS X.
But after skimming through this article, it seemed like the author's just using a lot of words to say that, he likes Apple's OS X.
From his other articles, obviously he uses OS X a fair bit and is his preference of platform. And all signs of Apple favouritism is there in his writing, albeit wrapped in much nicer language than your typical fan writing. Nevertheless, it comes across.
But this article is almost not worth reading. I mean, he spends most of time talking about the UI experience between the two, which is completely subjective to users, rather than anything that can be compared objectively. So he ends up saying, OS X is superior to Vista, because he likes it better. Pretty much nothing more, just _because_ he's used to it and likes it better, and he's probably been using OS X since its inception, and likes things to stay that way for a long time.
He complains that it takes complicated steps to find the computer's IP address in Vista. Two questions here, 1) do users who care that much about whether the title bar goes transparent on inactive windows really need to know the computer's IP address? 2) I believe you can get it in one step by typing in ipconfig or something like that.
and spouting stuff like "being able to use USB memory sticks as additional RAM"...
WTF... in words of Pauli, this is "not even wrong". why is he even worth reading?
I've run out of steam, so don't actually know how to finish this off properly.
Something a lot of people tend to forget is that Windows has to account for much more different hardware then Apple ever had to...
That's also something that escapes everyone who whines that they'd use OS X if oooooonly Apple would sell it to them for use on a generic PC they built themselves.
As if Apple could support all that generic bargain-bin crap overnight and have all it work as well as it does on genuine Macs. Microsoft has spent billions over the last 20 years trying to achieve the kind of HW/SW synergy that the Mac offers, and they still haven't gotten there (and probably never will).
If Apple tried to open up OS X for generic hardware and things didn't go absolutely perfectly, the impact to their "it just works" reputation would be devastating. Think about the bargain bin hardware these fools want to run OS X on. Shoddy drivers, poor "documentation" (i.e. a short text file written in Engrish)-- Apple would never let their corporate reputation ride on the quality of 3rd-party Mac drivers, so the only other option would be for them to write the drivers for everything, which is completely and totally impractical.
The best they can hope for is a return of how things were in the NeXTStep for Intel days, which was something like: "Here's a list of the dozen or so motherboards, CD-ROM drives, network cards, etc that we support. If you don't wanna use this stuff, you're SOL."
~Philly
The problem with knowing a large number of programming languages is that the disadvantages of of each language become so much more clear. Recently, I was devising a class in C# and .NET 1.1 that would sort a large text file. My approach was standard enough; divide the file into chunks, sort each one in memory, and then progressively mergesort each file pair until only one output file remained. In C#, the class took well over 60 lines of code. In Haskell, it would have been barely over 6 (lazy evaluation is extremely useful for these sorts of problems).
The Haskell version may well be shorter but it generally takes a much longer time to write and then, when somebody comes along to maintain the code, it is very difficult to understand the deeply nested recursion. It probably also runs 50x slower! I actually did a fair amount of Haskell 98 programming a few years back and while functional languages are certainly interesting Haskell has very few real applications.
Um... right. Take a look at Amazon's best-selling software list sometime.
1. Many of the top 25 ship media containing both Windows versions (World of Warcraft, TurboTax, H&R Block Taxcut, Rosetta Stone Spanish)
2. Others are available in separate versions for both OSes (Microsoft Office 2003 for Windows/Office 2004 for Mac, QuickBooks, Quicken). What're you left with that's Windows-only?
3. Some Windows-only apps compete with things that come free on every Mac (Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements)
4. Some Windows-only apps are largely unnecessary on a Mac (Norton Antivirus, Norton Internet Security Suite)
So out of the top 25, what apps are we left with that are Windows-only?
Microsoft Money, the Pets Expansion Pack for The Sims 2, Age of Empires: Collectors Edition, and Dragon Naturally Speaking.
Yep, the games and apps people use are definitely not available on any version of OS X.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Yep, the games and apps people use are definitely not available on any version of OS X.
You are correct in your facts, even when you just consider games, but I think you are looking at the wrong information. Whether or not the most popular software is needed/available on OS X is not as important as if the average person wants to run software or perform a function which they cannot. There are many applications that don't have a port and while individually they may not have a lot of market share, together they account for a lot of people being stopped from doing something. Also, software piracy/lending plays a big part. A whole lot of people use games and applications they borrowed or copied from someone else, and even if there is a Mac version for sale, that does not mean there is a Mac version accessible to them.
> If you're the sort of person who wants to use keyboard shortcuts then you're the sort of person who's able to go to the preferences and activate them.
Are you sure about? How about people who are blind or have mobility problems? And how about touch typist secretaries?
Keyboard shortcuts aren't some "guru feature", their a natural part of a well designed accessible interface.
I'm really surprised by this. I thought Apple learned its lessons years ago when they added "Apple key short cuts" to their menus by default. At least I thought they were on by default (I don't own a Mac, I've just occasionally used one for testing for cross platform support at work).
Beagle.
Beagle can search email, and plenty more.
And if that's not enough, although it hasn't been written yet, it seems possible -- even easy -- to write an IMAP server with Spotlight-like responsiveness. Since IMAP allows you to search on the server, this means you'd have that lightning-fast search from anywhere, not just your Beagle-enabled Linux or Spotlight-enabled Mac.
Bullshit, you do not get to say "Linux has rough corners" on that basis. You get to say "our corporate Debian installation has rough corners".
My USB key -- in fact, damn-near any USB device -- loads flawlessly in Gentoo, but not automatically -- I have to mount it. However, plug it into a fresh Ubuntu, and it's mounted on your desktop in about the same amount of time it'd take to do in OS X. Added bonus is, it'll work for filesystems Linux supports, but OS X doesn't.
Why does it have to be default?
I mean, I like OS X's defaults, but even there, I have to tweak some things. I am not going to hit fn+f9 to use Expose (f9 is mapped to keyboard brightness on my Powerbook), so I mapped it to something else. Unfortunately, OS X forgets this keyboard mapping on every reboot.
Personally, I never used Expose much, once I got used to virtual desktops (or workspaces, or Spaces, take your pick) -- and while I did eventually find a replacement on OS X, it has plenty of glitches.
So, something like this may exist -- if it does, it's probably part of Beryl -- but I don't know about it, and I don't care much right now.
Perfect? No, nothing's perfect. But I do think Linux is the best we've got right now.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Huh?
1. What are you talking about? The active window gets the menu bar. How is that confusing?
2. You're just making stuff up. There's no "configuration panel" in which to select wireless networks at all. You just click on the WiFi icon in the menu bar then select one from the list.
3. It's called security. Guess what, if you can change the settings without a password, so can XYZ Soft that you downloaded and ran for some other reason. There is a reason that Windows has a spyware problem and OS X doesn't this is it.
4. Fair enough. There is a logic to the zoom button, but it's not always clear to people. I think it should be reformed some.
Wrong. Any program that can be installed by copying it to any folder (besides Programs) does not need admin access. This includes small programs like uTorrent and VG emulators.
Wrong, again. In XP, for example (I haven't used Vista), right-click > "Run As
Uh, no. Enter the password as above and you're good to go.
Please, there's plenty of material for which to bash Microsoft. Don't make stuff up.
And mods, don't mod something up because you agree with the opinion; that's what digg is for.
Care to enumerate them?
I can name a few off the top of my head:
I'm sure there are more items I'm forgetting and again I want to stress that OS X is not ahead in all areas and can really benefit from improvements. It is just that some of these things have been on OS X for quite a while and most Linux developers I talk to don't even recognize the value in them. A lot of them are things that you can work around on Linux, or hack something that works in one instance, but until they are available to average and novice users, they are just ignored anyway. I'd love to see Linux catch up to OS X on the desktop, I just don't anticipate it happening anytime soon. I don't think Linux developers are willing to make some of the hard choices needed or will be willing to accept complexity on the server for the sake of making Linux nice on the desktop.
No, when USB connectivity is working, it's just working. Plug in a mouse or keyboard and start using it, plug in a USB drive and it visibly appears on the desktop. Plug in a USB printer, and next time you print, there it is. It's only when something isn't working that you need more data. I find this preferable to XP - "you've inserted a USB device" "found: USB memory stick" "your USB device is installed and working". Now, I could see having the second one there, since Windows doesn't update its explorer windows as quickly, but do I really need the OS telling me I plugged something in? I should already know that, since I did the plugging.
Then it should be called "Program management", not "Programs and Features". The "Programs and Features" folder is where you'd go looking to run your programs, not to install them (yes, I know it's in the control panel, but from a design standpoint, it's almost as if MS thought that they couldn't have more than 20 or so letters in a window title. You get the same problem with program identifiers, too - run task manager, and you see a whole pile of 8.3 named processes running. I thought we got rid of that limitation 20 years ago).
As opposed to a Lynksys WRT54GS+?
Or a Zune?
Let's just agree that marketing people are dolts.
But didn't XP show us that most people are running admin by default, particularly since many games and programs (I'm looking at you, ProTools) only work if run by an admin? The same thing will happen on Vista - outside of corporate IT, most users (and 99% of home users) will run as admin... which means it's just an Annoyance control instead of an Access control. Even as admin on OSX, you still have to password authenticate to modify system-level stuff. That's safer, and since people can go months without ever seeing the password box they know that something important has happened, and they can't just click to okay an action.