John Lamansky

I checked out Apple’s website recently and have noticed that they’ve replaced their generic anti-PC content with specifically anti-Vista propaganda. And I think there are a few things that need to be cleared up.

They say that Mac OS X is still the best OS, and then proceed to say why.

While Vista does its best to copy some features that have been in Mac OS X for years, Mac OS X offers an experience that is simply years ahead.

So what do they do after saying that? They go on to list features that Mac OS X has (all of which Vista has too) or will have in Leopard (all of which appeared in Vista first). Sounds a little turned-around to me.

Spotlight, for example, is always there to help you find that elusive file hiding somewhere in your computer. It shows search results literally as you type, in emails, contacts, PDFs, images, contacts, calendars, and applications.

Dashboard Widgets are small, focused applications for accomplishing discrete tasks (like tracking deliveries, checking the weather, playing Soduku, printing envelopes, reviewing your stock portfolio, etc.).

Based on what they said above, it’s clear that they’re trying to imply that Vista doesn’t have these features, which, of course, is totally false.

Unlike Vista, which comes in four distinct flavors at four distinct prices, each with its own distinct set of features (and each in 32- and 64-bit dialects), there’s only one Mac OS X. It runs on every Mac. With a full set of features.

OK, I do admit, Vista’s editions can be a bit confusing. However, it does ensure that you’re not paying extra for features you don’t really need.

But even as Vista falls short in features that have long been part of Mac OS X, it’s about to lag even farther behind. Because Mac OS X Leopard is right around the corner. And with it will come an even richer set of features to make using your Mac easier and more amazing.

This is where I start laughing, because all of these features have been in Windows for years.

With the new Time Machine, built into Mac OS X Leopard, you’ll be able to peer into any folder on your Mac and travel back in time to retrieve an earlier version of a document. It’s an all-new (and fantastically cool) take on data backup.

This four-year-old (at least) Windows feature has been around in Windows Server 2003 (and quite possibly earlier versions, though I don’t know for sure), and is now entering the consumer editions of Windows.

The Spaces feature allows you to create multiple desktops so that you can organize your workspace differently for different tasks. And that’s just scratching the surface.

Excuse me? This feature is a free Microsoft add-on to Windows XP … that’s right, it’s a five-year-old feature. Sure, so it’s not integrated in the OS, but this still sounds like a rip-off of Microsoft innovation.

The choice today is between an OS trying its best to catch up— or Mac OS X, which continues to lead the way.

Pah! I do respect the Mac OS X, but this “marketing” just seems to be deceitful propaganda designed to take advantage of people who don’t know the full feature set of Windows Vista and earlier versions.

Apple feels threatened. I can tell.

Wow. Apple did it. They created a beta program called Boot Camp that lets you dual-boot Windows XP on a Mac. And according to the SuperSite for Windows review, published just today, it works quite well.

Paul Thurrott (author of SuperSite for Windows articles) gave an interesting an opinion on why Apple would do this:

One might wonder why Apple would create such a thing. After all, with barely 2 percent of the market for computer operating systems, should Apple be trying to win market share for Mac OS X and not offer a way for Mac users to run Windows? Not exactly. Unlike Microsoft, Apple doesn’t actually make a lot of money directly from sales of its OS. Instead, Apple makes most of its money–even now, in the heady days of iPod supremacy–by selling computer hardware. So one might think of Boot Camp as a win-win. Apple wins because a much wider audience of users can now consider its Mac systems, secure in the knowledge that they can run Windows if they want to. Microsoft wins because these users will still be using–and paying for–Windows. And best of all, we as users win, too, because now we can have the best of both worlds: the elegance of Apple hardware coupled with Windows, the operating system that runs all those applications we want to run.

Some Mac users don’t see it that way. They’d like you to believe that Mac OS X is all anyone would ever need, and they’re actually quite a bit distressed that anyone would want to run Windows on a Mac. Get a life: This software will open up the world of Apple to a much wider audience and if OS X is as great as they think it is, surely some of those people will start spending time with OS X instead of Windows. I can’t really see the issue there.

The review also said that:

A future version of Boot Camp will be included with Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard,” due in late 2007. That version, presumably, will support Windows Vista as well.

I do daresay that I’m actually getting somewhat excited about this. I’ve never wanted to switch from Windows because it is, as I consider it, the ultimate progamming platform. With a dual-boot setup like this, I could still do programming etcetera on Windows and then doodle with Mac OS X if I ever wanted to. Hmm…

The SuperSite for Windows has some interesting articles that compare Windows Vista Beta 1 with Mac OS X “Tiger.” The site has part 1 and part 2 of the review so far. I’m looking forward to the yet-unpublished part 3, where the author will “declare a winner, of sorts, at least until we have a more feature-complete version of Windows Vista to evaluate.”