So Russell has a rather long list of reasons why he might switch back to Windows from Mac OS X. Given that I use Windows, FreeBSD and Mac OS X on a daily basis I don’t really consider my self a zealot, but I’ll discuss his points anyway. So you’ll know where I’m coming from the Apple systems that I use include a G4 PowerBook (for the last 18 months or so) and an Xserve + Xserve RAID server. Although I have complaints about how I’d do things differently, that is true for Windows as well. Overall I’ve found the systems to be stable and have worked well, although I don’t have nearly the array of mobile devices to test that Russ does. About the only time I reboot is when an update requires me to.
- I personally have found to my OS X systems to be much closer in stability to FreeBSD (very good) than Windows (so so). I can count the number of times my OS X systems have gone wacky on one hand over the last year and half. I won’t dispute that Russ is having problems, but I can attest that that isn’t the case for everyone.
- I’ve had mixed feelings about this. For instance Java tends to run much faster on my PowerBook than on my older Windows systems. For recent (3+ Ghz) Windows systems it is probably a close tie. This is kind of a toss up though, somethings certainly run faster on even older Windows systems, and other things run faster on my PowerBook.
- I don’t use my PowerBook for too many graphically intensive tasks (like games) so I don’t have much of a comparison there.
- For the most part I really like Mail, especially the ability to have a unified inbox across my IMAP accounts, I wish Thunderbird supported that for more than just POP3. I like Firefox and Camino because of the community of plugins that are available. But there is always one thing that I miss in Safari, built in spell check! I know there are plugins for Firefox, but it just isn’t the same. I tend to mostly use Safari and Camino with some Firefox thrown in. When Firefox 1.5 becomes official I’m going to consider moving to only Firefox.
- Okay, I can not stand Windows thumbnails! It drives me nuts. It really gets me when it decides to automatically switch my view to thumbnail mode just because it found one jpeg in a directory full off hundreds of other files. Arg! I use iPhoto sometimes.
- In general I like the Windows explorer is better, but not for everything. There are some specific features in Finder that make me go duh, why doesn’t everybody do it this way?
- I’m not a big chatter, but I will go with Skype on this one. I’ve used Fire and iChat and been okay with them too.
- Only spent a few minutes with Garageband, looks like it is extremely cool for folks into making music, but I’m not one of those.
- The built in screen shot feature uses PDF in OS X so I’m not sure what Russ is using that generates Quicktime tiffs.
- I’ve never used Keynote or Pages.
- This is a rather self serving argument, but it does have some validity.
- This depends on what “most stuff” is. I’m pretty sure that Subethaedit comes out on Mac first 🙂
- Vim
- Never used .Mac
- Wide screen is awesome. Yes web pages are generally long and not wide, so what, do you want your notebook to have a 14″ tall screen?
- True, I carry my adapter around a fair bit just in case.
- I’m sorry, you are complaining about the install process on OS X vs. Windows? You’ve got to be kidding me. I’d be thrilled to have it so easy on Windows when installing and uninstalling.
- Why complain about the .DS_Store files if you enjoy Windows adding dot files when viewing directories in thumbnail mode.
- I’ve got a DVD burner on my PowerBook, I’ve used iMovie a couple times.
- So don’t buy the Apple mice. The old Microsoft mouse that I’ve had on my desk works fine from the first day I plugged it (USB), didn’t even have to install any additional drivers.
- Being a FreeBSD user/admin for awhile (over 7 years) I’m thrilled with the Unix guts on OS X. Sure I’d like to systat (from FreeBSD) on my OS X systems, but without Unix guts OS X wouldn’t be OS X (to me). man ps.
- I don’t use Expose very often, instead Desktop Manager allows me to have virtual desktops, which pretty much does the trick for me.
- I would like Command+tab to cycle through multiple windows of the same app also. For the most part I like the dock.
- Like I mentioned above I don’t have the huge set of mobile devices that Russ has. Everything I’ve plugged into my PowerBook works, often better than it does on Windows.
- I haven’t used iSync. Perhaps if I get around to buying a mobile phone with Bluetooth that will change.
- Flip a coin on this one, I could argue for either side I think.
- I haven’t used Spotlight as much as I thought I would. When I have though it has worked okay.
- This arguement sounds too much like a sales pitch 🙂
- Nope
- I’ve found the virtually everything looks better on an OS X system than Windows, including fonts and especially colors.
- I’ve never had to install drivers for the various mice that I’ve plugged in, so I’m not sure why Russ has.
- Rendezvous/Bonjour is awesome! Many of the new network printer cards support, which makes adding a printer to my PowerBook a snap. I wish there was wider support for Bonjour, especially in Windows.
- I’ve forgotten what the default function is for F11, what’s the problem?
I’m fairly excited about the move to Intel for OS X systems. But then again, if Windows Vista were revealed to be built upon Unix guts I’d be excited about that too. I spend a huge amount of my time on my PowerBook in iTerm and the Windows shell doesn’t even come close, not by a long shot. I could switch back to a Windows notebook though, it wouldn’t kill me. But if I had an x86 PowerBook I could triple boot between OS X, Windows and FreeBSD with a FAT32 shared data partition, the best of all worlds!