testing

advantage. Haven't seen a good Apple ad in ages.

Vista is just "Longhorn" renamed. Longhorn was announced in 2001 (just after the initial release of Mac OS X) and expected in 2003. But then it got feature bloat and release was pushed back several times. Then in 2004 Microsoft scrapped all that and basically started over, without many of the major new features, causing Windows developers to call it "just a bloated xp service pack". Microsoft apparently declared Vista "code-complete" in February, but they're still trimming back features and even so, still needed to delay its release date. Again.

Why on God's green earth would any mac user pay for an app that looked liked it belonged on a Windows machine and required a shower after use?

Funny. Sorry, but most people don't live in a world where we think using windows is so nasty it requires the theoretical 'cleansing'. But maybe here's why someone would do this: a) It doesn't look like a windows app b) Its the only version available c) You need to run it.

Gee, that was tough.

Another way to look at it: Why would anyone want to run Windows on an intel mac, or run Virtual PC, or run VMWare? Don't they all require the same bathing experience afterwards? Yet people keep saying they want it. Must be a reason....

Why would a developer create such an app for the mac market when Apple provide an incredibly rich OS experience that has been well ahead of Windows for about 7 years in terms of graphics?

Well, how about these reasons: 1) money. Why spend extra money writing two sets of software, supporting two OSes, etc, when you can just write one that works on both? This, BTW, is what's going to happen when VMWare or WINE become truly usable. Mac specific versions of some software will disappear more and more. Especially those in the niche markets.

2) Time. (And time is money). What's quicker? Writing and testing one app for one OS, or doing it for two OSes. (Which, BTW, require two different code bases and development environments).

What more is there? Oh, how about for internal business apps. This would actually make it easier for companies to use other platforms but windows, if they knew the software they wrote for their use could be used on other platforms.

I had to use an XP machine the other day and I immediately noticed the coarseness of the graphics compared the anti-aliased, pleasant look of OS X. urghhh!

You HAD to use a Windows box? OMG! I'm sure you poured kerosine on your hands and eyes and set yourself on fire to make sure you got all the cooties off of you, right?

And there's lots of people who complain about the blurriness of apple's anti-aliasing.

Oh, and we can all say that Apple releases stuff on-time (relatively), but, seriously, if they were MS, they would have gotten slammed for releasing an obviously buggy OS before it was ready (yeah, I'm talking 10.3, 10.4, probably 10.5). But, as Apple users and devotees, everyone just genuflects, pays the yearly subscription price for the new 'features', and learns how to work around the problems.

Me, I'd love it if Apple could just solve their existing issues. Or their stupid inconsistent interfaces (why does Mail look different than anything else???). h***, I'm still waiting for a version of the finder to remember that I said "Calculate all sizes" for All windows. But, no, it keeps getting reset somewhere along the line. Or having a finder not lock u

Me, I'd love it if Apple could just solve their existing issues. Or their stupid inconsistent interfaces (why does Mail look different than anything else???). h***, I'm still waiting for a version of the finder to remember that I said "Calculate all sizes" for All windows. But, no, it keeps getting reset somewhere along the line. Or having a finder not lock up waiting for info from a network share. Or a find command that will find a file by name, even if you've turned off spotlight for that directory. Or where you could see changes to folder permissions without having to log off and log back on.

But, hey, who cares about that. We've got FrontRow!

Also keep in mind MS is hindered by several other factors:

1) Trying to make the software as backward compatible as possible. And with all that crappy code out there, that ain't as easy as it sounds.

2) Keeping IT departments happy. Several features that were going into Vista have been pulled separate so they'll run also on XP. Reason, most IT departments won't upgrade immediately.

3) Keeping OEMs happy. They have to have Window's 'their way', so they can make sure they can litter the desktop with useless apps and offers.

Apple doesn't worry about stuff like this.

They don't have OEM's, so #3 is ignored.

They don't care about IT departments, so they ignore that too. (Hey, if they did, they might tell them how long they plan on supporting an OS with bug and security fixes. Or, when releasing new hardware, like the intel stuff, make sure their management software actually works on it).

So they only spend time on #1. And, really, we sometimes wonder how much they worry about that.

I think they're sticking with "And you thought XP sucked!"

This is a very interesting development because it mirrors something that I would have done with the Mac at the start of OS X. If Apple where to create an OS X Lite, basically an Aqua-based desktop/windows manger for Linux, it would get Linux people used to the intereface, secure with it, craving it. After awhile they would realize that while the interface is nice, they still lack the Apple services that lay beneath the surface. Et Viola! A mac sale. And, I'll still scream from the heavens that abandoning Yellow Box was one of the craziest things I've ever seen a company do. This far into Mac OS X, if Yellow Box had at least survived at the developer level, would have seen the whole world programming on a Mac. The Intel transition provides a unique opportunity to fix that mistake. Sometimes I think Apple is afraid of success, so afraid of failure that they actually prefer to stay the sole fish in a very small pond.

Who cares two squats about Linux. Let the penguins play with their geek operating system.