Will Longhorn's Delays Feed Apple's Hungry Tiger at Major Cost to Microsoft?

[spectrum]

@squeegee

But hadn’t you just finished saying that most of the benefits will come after developers release new software? How is that worth $129 now?

Yes. It’s worth $129 now because I get the unbelievable coolness that is Spotlight, the Dashboard, the improved Mail program, all the kick ass beneath the hood tweaks and improvements AND I am ready to use the programs that will leverage Tiger’s goodies the moment they are available.

[spectrum]

@asterion

Look, you’re right that for the average user, a Mac is a perfectly fine choice. Even better, in some ways, especially if someone is afraid of doing anything to their computer or want to think of it as a toaster.

Is this supposed to be intentionally insulting to Mac users? I am very much a power user, I do not think of my computer as a toaster, and I wouldn’t lower myself to use Windows regularly if God himself so commanded.

Give me 2000 bucks and I’ll build an XP system using some of my current gear that will blow away a $2000 G5.

But it won’t run OS X. It won’t run Final Cut Pro. It won’t run Page. It won’t run NetNewsWire. So it will be effectively useless to me.

[istara]

Well, I just installed Tiger - OSX.4 - today, and it wasn’t a particularly overwhelming experience. Mainly because:

1. My previous system (OSX.2 or Jaguar) was already so advanced and stable that I wasn’t really having problems.

2. I was expecting a huge nightmare of having to reinstall stuff, find stuff, set preferences, but the Upgrade installation option worked so smoothly that nothing has really changed. There’s one new icon in my Dock (dashboard) but that’s it.

3. My system - a G4 800mhz powerbook - is getting on in life (though it still runs as fast as any brand new PC I’ve used in the past six months) and isn’t perhaps taking advantage of all the Tiger features it could.

The truth of it is that Tiger isn’t a “killer update” by comparison to earlier versions of OSX, merely because they are all still so incredibly advanced and stable, compared to WinXP.

[asterion]

@spectrum

Is this supposed to be intentionally insulting to Mac users? I am very much a power user, I do not think of my computer as a toaster, and I wouldn’t lower myself to use Windows regularly if God himself so commanded.

No. I was thinking about some like my mother or my grandparents, to whom a computer is somewhat intimidating or they don’t care to put in the time to learn how to really use a computer. Apple has designed a product that is easier to use in several ways and is less suspectible to viruses and spyware. If it is a first computer and they don’t have any money invested in software and hardware, there is no reason to go with Microsoft over Apple. And remember, it was Apple’s own marketing campaign that basically said that using a computer should be as easy as using a toaster.

@spectrum

But it won’t run OS X. It won’t run Final Cut Pro. It won’t run Page. It won’t run NetNewsWire. So it will be effectively useless to me.

Well, you have some specific desires that makes a Mac a good choice for you and a Windows box a bad one. Similarly, OSX still won’t run most games that I play (at least not without having to rebuy the software) and thus would be useless to me. I said I could build a computer just as powerful or more so for the same price as buying a new G5, but I didn’t say that it would be useful if you have a specific software requirement.