Reader Comments

Good news (no yawning here)! So, Apple fans should be happy shouting about their 'Apple switches to Intel' headline that they said would never happen, and Windows fans can be happy with their 'Longhorn is better' headline that we've been saying all along. :)

"at they said would never happen, and Windows fans can be happy with their 'Longhorn is better' headline that we've been saying all along. :)" So you're saying: Apple users were wrong when they said Mactel would never happen, and Windows users are wrong when they're saying "Longhorn is better". Sounds about right. :-)

"Apple users were wrong when they said Mactel would never happen, and Windows users are wrong when they're saying "Longhorn is better". Sounds about right." No - if anything is wrong it's your grasp of the English language - try reading it again a few times, then explain to me, in a way that makes sense, just how you extract that inference from my comment?

Sooooo.... Is Longhorn still on track for a Beta 1 release at the end of June? I am curious to see if this date has slipped. I have to decide if I am buying a new computer this fall (with Win XP) or waiting at the end of 2006 for Longhorn before doing so.

All of are yawning as we wait for Longhorn. Yawn! Wake me when it released. Yawn!

Thank you Microsoft for really putting an effort into making it worth upgrading to the next OS. I would hate to be using the other OS and paying $130 maintenance fee every year.

THINK INTEL

For an encore: Microsoft Windows for the MacIntosh

More like Mac-rosoft for windows. The new Longhorn will be Mac OS X 10.5.

Redmond, start your photocopiers!!!

I dunno, lately Apple been doing most of the copying. :P Cant wait for PDC, Paul, make sure Microsoft actually copyrights stuff this time.

Basically, this is Microsoft desperately attempting to make up for lost steam. Longhorn is nothing but hardware-accelerated webpages-as-windows. I've been using hardware-accelerated windows in OS X since version 10.2. I guess my excitement over Longhorn has just been rather deflated, especially with Jobs dropping the info that OS X Leopard is already scheduled for release next year. More and more, it feels like all the forward-thinking innovation is happening at Apple, while Microsoft is just playing years of catch-up. I mean, desktop search? It's old news now for people who have been using it for months already on OS X Tiger and via Google Desktop on Windows. I get the feeling Longhorn is going to be really rushed to meet the artificial 2006 deadline. I've already seen it being referred to as "Windows XP SP3" at Windows fansites.

"I dunno, lately Apple been doing most of the copying. :P" Of what, exactly? Seriously asking. "Most" of the copying? Microsoft has been doing nothing but copying OS X. Hardware-accelerated windowing? Least-privileged user account? I could go on and on and on. Hell, the Recycle Bin is a rip-off of Apple's Trash can. If you say desktop search, you'd also be wrong. Sherlock 2 was doing integrated desktop search in the 90s. Longhorn will really have to hit it out of the park to impress me--a lot of the stuff being touted was already in OS X or got released in Tiger, and I'm already used to using it for months now. So now it feels like Longhorn is just Microsoft dressing up Windows to not appear five years behind like it actually is. I mean, seriously, window animations when you minimize them? That was in OS X 10.0 nearly five years ago! Except Microsoft, as usual, takes it too far and has windows "fly in" toward you whenever they appear, which will get extremely annoying fast. Apple uses animations when something is leaving but not appearing, because the user wants to see something displayed quickly but don't mind it leaving slowly. For instance, clicking a menu makes it appear instantly, but clicking away makes it fade out. There are the tiny details that make using OS X for eight hours a day a pleasant experience, and the kinds of details that Microsoft overlooks which makes Windows a tiresome headache. The cheesy 3D fly-in is the first thing I'm going to disable because it has no usability purpose and just gets in the way, like all of Microsoft's other interface decisions (Personalized Menus? What on Earth were they smoking?). Longhorn's gonna suck the same way all previous versions of Windows have sucked.

"I guess my excitement over Longhorn has just been rather deflated" .. and the rest Longhorn will be allot more than hardware accelrated webpages - you obviously haven't been paying attention. Desktop search was old news way before Apple released Tiger, and those of us with Windows Desktop search are loving not having to pay over $100 for the priviledge.

"Longhorn will be allot more than hardware accelrated webpages - you obviously haven't been paying attention." Longhorn's new tech is Avalon, which is GPU-accelerated windowing. It'll even be backported to Windows XP. OS X has had GPU-accelerated windowing through Quartz Extreme for years now, introduced way back in 10.2 Jaguar. I said webpages because Longhorn is going even further with the ugly, cludgy Windows XP "task-based" interface of overloading every window with never-used hyperlinks running down the side of the screen. Compare Longhorn Explorer windows to OS X Finder windows, and it's night and day. Longhorn looks like a bunch of webpages. It's ugly. "Desktop search was old news way before Apple released Tiger" I know, I already mentioned Apple's Sherlock 2 from the late 90s. "and those of us with Windows Desktop search are loving not having to pay over $100 for the priviledge." Windows Desktop Search can't search in PDFs, or allow you to search through other custom formats. It also doesn't integrate into the system and let you save your search as a Smart Folder. You were saying?

I've said it before...Microsoft should forget about their 2006 deadline for Longhorn and just finish the damn thing. That means including all of the technologies originally designed for it that are being scrapped as they try to finally get it released. Windows XP has been a good OS for Windows users and there isn't really a strong need for a new Windows OS, so releasing a stripped down version of the "next-generation OS" isn't going to cut it. They should forget about Apple and create Longhorn the way they want to. Sure Apple has been releasing new "cat" flavors of OS X annually, but they can afford to do so. Apple has a fanatic fanbase that will gobble up whatever they throw at them, like next year's Leopard, which will probably be quite unnecessary after the success of Tiger. Microsoft's customer base is less fanatical, and with the prices that Longhorn and their other products sell for, they need to make sure that they're worth the price of upgrading, and not merely another Windows Me.

"those of us with Windows Desktop search are loving not having to pay over $100 for the priviledge." Spotlight is actually integrated into the kernel and is notified of filesystem changes, so search results update in real-time. You can also search any file format you want thanks to custom importers. Windows Desktop Search doesn't even come close. It won't come close until Microsoft finally gets Longhorn out the door--and by then, OS X Leopard will be coming out allowing arbitrary file annotation through custom user fields as well as drawing relationships between objects via cool little dotted lines, and even displaying relationships with auto-generated flowcharts in the "Get Info" window. Yep, they're going to upstage WinFS before it's out the door.

One final thing: Can anyone here cite a single big feature of Longhorn that differentiates it from OS X Tiger? Seriously asking here. I can't think of one.

micro$oft is kind of forced to have a "blockbuster" after apple has been owning the tech press all year long. i've seen the demos of avalon, they're not that impressive. all stuff i saw in os x 10.0 public beta five years ago. every single one of longhorn's new technologies is being released for windows xp anyway. that means exactly one thing--the only difference between windows xp and longhorn will be that longhorn is just visually dressed up, essentially making it "Windows XP SP3" priced at $150. paul is right, longhorn is a "trainwreck."

"I've said it before...Microsoft should forget about their 2006 deadline for Longhorn and just finish the damn thing." I'm an Apple fan, and I agree. The 2006 deadline is so artificial, especially after Paul revealed that they started all over again on Longhorn after last year's WinHEC. Something wrong over at Microsoft.

"Windows Desktop Search doesn't even come close. It won't come close until Microsoft finally gets Longhorn out the door--and by then, OS X Leopard will be coming out allowing arbitrary file annotation through custom user fields as well as drawing relationships between objects via cool little dotted lines, and even displaying relationships with auto-generated flowcharts in the "Get Info" window. Yep, they're going to upstage WinFS before it's out the door." Exactly what does this mean, and is this supposed to be a selling point for OS X Leopard? Not trying to be smart or anything, but I don't see how or why this matters to a large portion of Apple's customer base, or any customer base.

"I'm an Apple fan, and I agree. The 2006 deadline is so artificial, especially after Paul revealed that they started all over again on Longhorn after last year's WinHEC. Something wrong over at Microsoft." I'm a Windows user, and I agree that something is wrong at Microsoft. Maybe it is that Apple is pushing the envelope and it's causing MS to panic, but the Longhorn project is just puzzling. Who cares if Apple releases features in OS X before they appear in Windows? Most Windows users aren't going to switch over to Apple anyway, so stop watching what the other guy is doing and take care of business at home. It seems like Longhorn has been plagued by a "watch & react" mindset instead of figuring out what they want it to be and then moving forward with it. If there's a new technology or feature you want to include, but you've already designed Longhorn, you can always release service packs. Not every version of OS X has been a mindblowing, revolutionary change over the previous one, so essentially, each OS X release has been a very good service pack. Apple seems to get it - release a new, core operating system (OS X), and then keep improving it (hence the OS X 10.x version numbers) until you're ready for your next major OS, which I guess will be OS 11. Will I switch to Mac? No, because I don't need to and am fine using Windows, but there needs to be a major shift in focus at Microsoft. Perhaps a change in leadership is needed - look at what Jobs was able to do at Apple after taking over again.

"Exactly what does this mean, and is this supposed to be a selling point for OS X Leopard? Not trying to be smart or anything, but I don't see how or why this matters to a large portion of Apple's customer base, or any customer base." It's what WinFS will be doing, among other things--allowing you to create relationships between anything. So for instance, you could tell Spotlight that a picture file in your Pictures folder is connected to an address entry in your Address Book, and that is connected to a Microsoft Word document in your Documents folder. It lets the system give context to everything, so now you know everything connected to anything else--files will now have real relationships to other files and not just be things sitting in folders. I can create an address book entry for a client, and then connect every project file I work on for them to that address book entry. Then I can just easily pull up anything connected to that client and even see a visual "flowchart" of all the relationships to that client on my computer. I could connect a scanned album cover art JPEG on my desktop to an MP3 on my USB drive, so that the compuer knows they're related. Imagine the possibilities--finding things through other things, instantly querying all related objects together into a Smart List for easy manipulation, etc. Imagine chatting someone on iChat, and being able to bring up all e-mails and pictures that were given to you by that particular iChat contact. WinFS will be doing things like this a year after Longhorn. Expect Apple to try to beat them to the punch again with Spotlight 2.

"I'm a Windows user, and I agree that something is wrong at Microsoft. Maybe it is that Apple is pushing the envelope and it's causing MS to panic, but the Longhorn project is just puzzling." They're probably comfortable with their marketshare and not worrying terribly much about it. But not thinking about things has come back to bite Microsoft in every single decade of their existence. For instance, Bill Gates ignoring the internet until it was too late, forcing them to throw together Windows 98. "Who cares if Apple releases features in OS X before they appear in Windows?" Well, it makes Apple the place to be for both users and developers. With iPods selling like crazy, Apple is in a good position right now to get switchers tired of Windows. The Intel change will make switching even more appealing to PC users. "It seems like Longhorn has been plagued by a 'watch & react' mindset instead of figuring out what they want it to be and then moving forward with it." It permeates Microsoft. Take IE7, which is including tabs, international domain support, RSS, and so on--all features already existing in alternative browsers. "Will I switch to Mac? No, because I don't need to and am fine using Windows, but there needs to be a major shift in focus at Microsoft. Perhaps a change in leadership is needed - look at what Jobs was able to do at Apple after taking over again." Paul has nailed it about Longhorn--Microsoft's developer groups are much too big and have trouble communicating. When Jobs came back, he stripped down Apple's product line and dev groups, and that's why they've been so fast and flexible in pushing out a seemingly never-ending stream of OS updates. Microsoft, however, is creaking under its own weight. It's managing itself as a giant enterprise ala the 80s IBM and not as a cool tech company putting out cool stuff for people to use. That's Apple's attitude, and it works for them. When Microsoft attempts cool, it falters.

Many thanks to you man. That sounds fantastic. I never even thought of things like relationships between files, but now it sounds like the nost natural thing in the world. And now it really makes me reiterate what I said before - finish Longhorn completely and don't give me some watered-down version. I am now officially looking forward to WinFS. You'll have to let me know how cool it is in Leopard :)

"Many thanks to you man. That sounds fantastic. I never even thought of things like relationships between files, but now it sounds like the nost natural thing in the world. And now it really makes me reiterate what I said before - finish Longhorn completely and don't give me some watered-down version. I am now officially looking forward to WinFS. You'll have to let me know how cool it is in Leopard :)" Apparently WinFS will be a free beta download when Longhorn ships, so we Apple users and you Windows users may be getting it at the same time. Cool.

"...and Windows fans can be happy with their 'Longhorn is better' headline that we've been saying all along." It's pretty stupid to say that some product is "better" when it doesn't even exist.

"Thank you Microsoft for really putting an effort into making it worth upgrading to the next OS. I would hate to be using the other OS and paying $130 maintenance fee every year. " Yeah! Instead, you can sit around waiting for over 5 years for an OS that never materializes. Well, at least Bill Gates doesn't charge you for waiting.

"It's pretty stupid to say that some product is "better" when it doesn't even exist." That is something that has bugged me about every OS X Tiger review. They compare it to Longhorn, which wasn't due out for another year and a half. When Windows Longhorn comes out, will those same reviewers compare it to Apple's unreleased OS X update a year and a half away? Nope. Sometimes the tech media bugs me. Comparing a current product to one that's not due out for a year and a half? It'd be like comparing the X-Box 360 to a future Playstation 4 that's three or four years away.

"Thank you Microsoft for really putting an effort into making it worth upgrading to the next OS. I would hate to be using the other OS and paying $130 maintenance fee every year. " You'll be paying that much for Longhorn. I don't get the argument. Longhorn's technologies are even being backported to XP for free. Why pay for Longhorn?

Parts of the longhorn tech is being backported, but only the very basic bits, all the advanced stuff is still in longhorn. The only bit taken out is WinFS, but that will be in beta when longhorn ships with the final version a few months after that again for free download. Someone said that windows desktop search right now can't look in PDF files, that's wrong, you can get free filters for any file format out there, and one for PDF's is already out. Just download the free filter and you're set to go. The least privilidge user account isn't a Apple idea btw, Unix has been using this from the start, so if anything Apple has taken a page out of Unix, hell OSX is a BSD hybrid. Longhorn will have more to it then just desktop search, if you think that's all there is to it, then you'll probably be shocked at what other new things they have in store for people. 3D accelerated graphics in longhorn isn't new, that's true, but it's differrent in a few parts, first MS has unified the 2D and 3D parts of DirectShow and Direct3D into one part, making it easier for developers, the new DirextX API's aka WGF 2.0 will be great, just look what DX9 can do for todays games and then look at the next gen games which use something close to WGF. Also the new driver models in place and so on which will make the system more reliable and stable. Features aside, the changes done to the core system and it's other parts make it worth the upgrade in my opinion.

I dunno, lately Apple been doing most of the copying. :P ----------- I KNOW! I mean.. Gates has all these concept sketches of brushed metal and Jobs just rips them ALL OFF.. damn.. Spotlight? That was on Gates' fridge since 1995.. Jobs came over.. stole the idea...

... those of us with Windows Desktop search are loving not having to pay over $100 for the _priviledge_ --- Built-in dictionary too.. I guess stuff like Core Image, and spotlights/automator plug ins for devs and speed increases don't mean anything to you hrmmm

so if anything Apple has taken a page out of Unix, hell OSX is a BSD hybrid. --------- HOLY ****!! THIS IS BREAKING NEWS!! APPLE IS A WHORE.. UNIX?!?!? HOW COME NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT THIS? PERMISSIONS?? WTF??

"You'll be paying that much for Longhorn. I don't get the argument." For some reason, many people seem to be blind to the fact that no company is better at sucking money out of people's wallets than Microsoft. Hey everyone! Wake up! How did you think Bill Gates become the richest man in the world? Who do you think pays for all those nice houses and cars owned by all those well-paid Microsoft employees? Mull over that for awhile.

""Thank you Microsoft for really putting an effort into making it worth upgrading to the next OS. I would hate to be using the other OS and paying $130 maintenance fee every year. " You'll be paying that much for Longhorn. I don't get the argument. Longhorn's technologies are even being backported to XP for free. Why pay for Longhorn? " Lets see... 6 years from longhorn to xp. upgrade = $80 In that time @apple would a have 6 releases at $130 = $780. It's called Math you silly graphic designer. One thing M@c users forget. If Longhorn is the same as Tiger then why would users want to switch if they are getting the same thing?

Informative article as usual. Wish it was sooner than september though. [[ "I dunno, lately Apple been doing most of the copying. :P" Of what, exactly? Seriously asking. "Most" of the copying? Microsoft has been doing nothing but copying OS X. Hardware-accelerated windowing? Least-privileged user account? I could go on and on and on. Hell, the Recycle Bin is a rip-off of Apple's Trash can. ]] Microsoft has been doing nothing but copying OS X? I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean Microsoft has been doing nothing but copying Apple? Yeah, that's right. Visual Studio is a rip-off of what on the Mac exactly? Microsoft Office is a rip off of what on the Mac exactly? ActiveX was a rip off of what on the Mac exactly? If all Microsoft did was copy Apple, wouldn't they have to a) Switch to a BSD kernel and b) Make their own hardware? [[ For instance, clicking a menu makes it appear instantly, but clicking away makes it fade out. There are the tiny details that make using OS X for eight hours a day a pleasant experience, and the kinds of details that Microsoft overlooks which makes Windows a tiresome headache. The cheesy 3D fly-in is the first thing I'm going to disable because it has no usability purpose and just gets in the way, like all of Microsoft's other interface decisions (Personalized Menus? What on Earth were they smoking?). ]] Ok, let's say that all menus will be the same. Screw personalization. So, i'm a user, and I go to my programs menu. A bunch of programs are displayed that I don't have access to. I can hide them right, or remove them from the menu? Nope, because by doing that, the other people who DO have access to those items won't have them in the programs menu and may be a bit upset. Here's another example. I open Microsoft Word. Instead of seeing MY recent documents, I see EVERYONE's recent documents...

Hey, nobody mentioned what Microsoft ripped off from Apple regarding the MSDN. Because we all know that apple once had this huge MSDN-style website with it's APIs documented :P.

Does MAC OS X have something better than notepad (I'm talking about basic text editors)? Would it have killed Microsoft to add in "advanced features" (find /w wildcards, use of regular expressions, finding and replacing special characters, etc.)? I'm still waiting for them to fix the god-awful replace routine that Notepad uses. It doesn't exactly make me feel confident that windows developers are that bright when they can't get basic tools provided with the OS done correctly (who in the hell would write an editor that needed to repaint the entire editbox every time it did a find and replace).

guys, guys, this show is still due in september. You guys are wishing your lives away - and what for a few movies, pictures, articles and hype. Just let the thing mature, if you keep yourselves occupied it will be out before you know it.

"One thing M@c users forget. If Longhorn is the same as Tiger then why would users want to switch if they are getting the same thing?" I know that Windows supporters are getting a bit desperate if the biggest arguement that they can come up with is that (in their minds) OS X costs more. All of a sudden they become misers obsessed with pricing and costs. If that are really that concerned about costs, why don't they all switch to Linux? If they are really that concerned about costs, why do they put up with the $400-$500 cost of MS-Office? I'll tell you why. It's because talk about cost is a red herring. It's because Windows XP is clearly inferior to Tiger, and so they grasp out for anything for reassurance and comfort. As for comments like "..IF Longhorn is the same as Tiger..", I wonder if the writer ever stops to realize how silly he sounds. We are talking about an OS which, by MS's own admission, is over a year away from shipping. Right now it's vaporware. Moreover, IF it is the same as Tiger when it comes out, it will already be obsolete the moment it hits the shelves because OS X Leopard will be out. (You didn't really think that Apple was going to just sit back and relax for the next two years, did you?)

Heck, people are asking about the real benefits of buying Longhorn when its tech is going to be out for XP, but there's an even bigger question--with Macs going Intel, that means easily running both Mac OS X and Windows on the same machine, but not vice versa according to Apple devs. So why buy a Dell box? These are truly weird times in the computer industry. Microsoft going PowerPC, and Apple going Intel! I would have thought it a joke, but it's real...

"Longhorn's technologies are even being backported to XP for free. Why pay for Longhorn? " Lets see... 6 years from longhorn to xp. upgrade = $80 In that time @apple would a have 6 releases at $130 = $780. It's called Math you silly graphic designer." So your argument is that it's cheaper to use an obsolete operating system for five years with no updates instead of getting fresh updates that put you ahead? Microsoft sitting on Windows is the reason they're so behind with Longhorn as it is. "One thing M@c users forget. If Longhorn is the same as Tiger then why would users want to switch if they are getting the same thing?" Because Tiger is alreayd out now, and Leopard is coming out next year.

"Parts of the longhorn tech is being backported, but only the very basic bits, all the advanced stuff is still in longhorn." Avalon, WinFX, Indigo, and WinFS are all going to be backported to XP. That leaves the Aero interface as the only major reason to get Longhorn. "Someone said that windows desktop search right now can't look in PDF files, that's wrong, you can get free filters for any file format out there, and one for PDF's is already out. Just download the free filter and you're set to go." Even so, Windows Desktop Search is still not tied into the kernel like Spotlight is, so there is no filesystem change notification. This means no search result changes updating in real-time. No Smart Folders. "The least privilidge user account isn't a Apple idea btw, Unix has been using this from the start, so if anything Apple has taken a page out of Unix, hell OSX is a BSD hybrid." In any case, Apple did it before Microsoft, and Longhorn's dialog that asks for a password when you install a program looks exactly like OS X's dialog. "3D accelerated graphics in longhorn isn't new, that's true, but it's differrent in a few parts, first MS has unified the 2D and 3D parts of DirectShow and Direct3D into one part, making it easier for developers" I don't see how this is different from, say, Quartz 2D Extreme. "Also the new driver models in place and so on which will make the system more reliable and stable." More stable drivers. Nice, but worth waiting these five years? "Features aside, the changes done to the core system and it's other parts make it worth the upgrade in my opinion." My point is that there aren't any major changes to Windows taking place that don't mirror or catch up to features in other systems like OS X. I'm not saying it isn't great to see Microsoft catching up, but it's embarrassing that it took them five years to see the writing on the wall. Animating a bunch of wobbly windows in DirectX is NOTHING new to OS X users. That's all I'm saying.

"Microsoft has been doing nothing but copying OS X? I'm not sure what you mean." Pulldown menus Start menu Desktop icons Drag-and-drop Recycle Bin Hardware accelerated windowing Integrated desktop search Least-privileged user account And on and on... "Yeah, that's right. Visual Studio is a rip-off of what on the Mac exactly? Microsoft Office is a rip off of what on the Mac exactly?" Neither of those ship with Windows, and Office is also available on Mac. In fact, it started on Mac in the 80s! "ActiveX was a rip off of what on the Mac exactly?" ActiveX was a horrible security hole. It was an attempt to take control away from Netscape's JavaScript which was making Windows irrelevant. "If all Microsoft did was copy Apple, wouldn't they have to a) Switch to a BSD kernel and b) Make their own hardware?" This is one of the stupidest things I've heard. Besides, Microsoft IS making their own hardware, it's the X-Box 360 and it's based on the POWERPC! "Ok, let's say that all menus will be the same. Screw personalization." There is no personalization in Personalized Menus. Menus should be standardized at all times to avoid confusion and increase user speed. "So, i'm a user, and I go to my programs menu. A bunch of programs are displayed that I don't have access to. I can hide them right, or remove them from the menu? Nope, because by doing that, the other people who DO have access to those items won't have them in the programs menu and may be a bit upset. Here's another example. I open Microsoft Word. Instead of seeing MY recent documents, I see EVERYONE's recent documents..." 1.) Yes, you should see all functionality. None should be hidden away where the user has to go fishing for it. When you're looking for something in the Office menu, it sucks when everything is hidden from you. 2.) Your example would ever happen, because recently used items are tied to whichever account you're logged into anyway. You wouldn't see everyone else's items; you'd see yours

"Does MAC OS X have something better than notepad (I'm talking about basic text editors)?" TextEdit is way better than Notepad, but there's also BBEdit, which can do anything and is the king of text editors on any platform. It is Mac-only. Windows has Wordpad, but its editing has always been very clumsy and feature-less. It goes against Steve Jobs' obsessive aesthetic to release anything cludgy and featureless like that, though things do slip through now and then (hello, OS X 10.0!).

""That is something that has bugged me about every OS X Tiger review. They compare it to Longhorn, which wasn't due out for another year and a half. When Windows Longhorn comes out, will those same reviewers compare it to Apple's unreleased OS X update a year and a half away? Nope."" So what are you suggesting they do, compare OS X 10.4 Tiger to Windows XP? Do you think that would be more appropriate? Do you feel that would make Microsoft look better than if it were compared to Longhorn? I think it does MS good for Longhorn to be the one compared to OS X instead of their current OS, Windows XP. I guess you'd rather the computer media compare 10.4 to the five year old technology of XP instead. Whatever floats your boat, but if that's the case how would you suggest they go about doing so? OS X 10.4 is a modern, highly advanced operating system for its' time while Windows XP is five years old, has massive security issues, and nothing up-to-date in not only the respects of being more advanced than 10.4, but not even matching 10.4. Yeah computer media gets to me too sometimes, but I feel that the best thing to compare OS X Tiger to as far as MS goes, would be the future release of Longhorn. For Microsoft's sake atleast. Tiger to the current XP, would be nothing more than a bash fest.

*Yeah computer media gets to me too sometimes, but I feel that the best thing to compare OS X Tiger to as far as MS goes, would be the future release of Longhorn. For Microsoft's sake atleast. Tiger to the current XP, would be nothing more than a bash fest.* Yeah you're right. This is a rather funny perspecive to take on comparing what is truely on the table today. Longhorn isn't out yet, so let's all compare OS X 10.4 to Windows XP. That would be some very rich argument I'm sure lol.

Comparing the current state of operating systems out today in 2005 really does put things in perspective as far as Apple and Microsoft. All this talk about Longhorn almost as if it's already out is rather irrelevant. When I look back on OS releases, I don't say; "Windows 98 was very advanced in comparison to operating systems that were released 2 years prior to its' time." That would make it sound as if it were behind. When I compare operating systems of the past, I compare them to what they were up against in their time. Which in that light, really makes the current state of Windows look bad. Now I see why mac fanatics go on and on about how windows is supposedly five years behind. Microsoft might as well be comparing OS X to a ghost if they're trying to compare it to Longhorn. OS X's competition as of right now, summer 2005 is in all reality, Windows XP.

HAHAHA! This is great! I've never heard so many downers from Windows users about their newest OS. They have to compare OS X Tiger to an operating system that isn't even out yet because comparing XP to Tiger is a joke! MS truely is 5 years out of date, and if Longhorn is delayed any further than 2006, it will be more than 6 years out of date before they catch up!! lmao! And by then, Leapord will be out! This is sad you guys, really it is.

"Cupertino: Start your conversions." Welcome to the light, my MAC friends. Sorry to learn that the 5th thrilling installment of OS X in as many years, "Leopard" will probably mean you upgrade all your proprietry hardware as well as convert all your software over to the enemy. Poor you. Still, never mind, knowing you, you'd follow Jobs straight into traffic so emptying your wallets all over again should seem par-for-the-course. Don't go thinking that you'll be playing Intel Based PC games any time soon. Apple is as committed to keeping you away from everyone else just as ever before. No doubt someone somewhere will work out how to run Longhorn on a MACTEL machine just as there will likely be WINTEL machines sporting an OS X OS. I never thought I'd see the day Apple would be sleeping with the enemy and as I've also discovered, they've been doing it behind your backs for the past 5 years!

HAHAHA! This is great! I've never heard so many downers from Windows users about their newest OS. They have to compare OS X Tiger to an operating system that isn't even out yet because comparing XP to Tiger is a joke! ----- Good point, so I might as well say it. Don't go on and on about how Leapord isn't out yet when people start comparing it to Longhorn, because that is exactly what all you Windows fanatics are doing with Longhorn right now by comparing it to Tiger.

"HAHAHA! This is great! I've never heard so many downers from Windows users about their newest OS. They have to compare OS X Tiger to an operating system that isn't even out yet because comparing XP to Tiger is a joke!" Exactly. Welcome to the bias of the Microsoft-owned tech press. They're actually comparing a released product to a future product not due out for another two years, instead of the latest version of Windows--Windows XP SP2. The Windows you'll get when you buy a new Dell for the next two years. You can't compare an existing product to one that doesn't even exist. I guarantee they won't be doing it when Longhorn gets reviewed. "Longhorn is nice, but it doesn't compare to OS X Lion (which is due out in 2010)!"

"So what are you suggesting they do, compare OS X 10.4 Tiger to Windows XP?" Of course they should. What else would they compare to? That's Microsoft's current offering--Windows XP SP2. "Do you think that would be more appropriate? Do you feel that would make Microsoft look better than if it were compared to Longhorn?" It can't be compared to Longhorn because Longhorn isn't out. "I think it does MS good for Longhorn to be the one compared to OS X instead of their current OS, Windows XP. I guess you'd rather the computer media compare 10.4 to the five year old technology of XP instead." Yes, because Longhorn isn't out yet! What part aren't you getting? When you buy a new Dell, you're getting Windows XP SP2. You'll be getting Windows XP SP2 for a whole other year and a half from now. Of course Tiger should be compared to the latest version of Windows! Not some future version not due out for over a year. "Whatever floats your boat, but if that's the case how would you suggest they go about doing so? OS X 10.4 is a modern, highly advanced operating system for its' time while Windows XP is five years old, has massive security issues, and nothing up-to-date in not only the respects of being more advanced than 10.4, but not even matching 10.4." That's Microsoft's fault. You seem to be arguing that people shouldn't compare Tiger to Windows XP because Windows XP sucks. Tough. "Yeah computer media gets to me too sometimes, but I feel that the best thing to compare OS X Tiger to as far as MS goes, would be the future release of Longhorn. For Microsoft's sake atleast. Tiger to the current XP, would be nothing more than a bash fest." It's unfair. Longhorn isn't released yet. It doens't exist. When Longhorn's out, nobody's going to compare it to some future OS X version due two years away.

I can't believe some of you are actually defending the tech press. It's "unfair" to compare the latest version of OS X with the latest version of Windows?! Are you serious? We're supposed to compare something that came out this year in April to something that's not due out for another year and a half and isn't released in any form at all? Would you want people comparing the X-Box 360 to an unreleased Playstation 4 due out three years away? Get real.

"Don't go thinking that you'll be playing Intel Based PC games any time soon. Apple is as committed to keeping you away from everyone else just as ever before. No doubt someone somewhere will work out how to run Longhorn on a MACTEL machine just as there will likely be WINTEL machines sporting an OS X OS." There will be Windows on Mac, but not vice versa, according to Apple. Macs are much more than just their processors. Makes you wonder why anyone would want to buy a Dell when you could have both OS X and Windows on one well-designed computer! Game companies are already talking about how much easier porting to Mac will be.

I can't wait to see a mac with an intel inside sticker. that's their ultimate humilliation. and so falls the ever dying powerPC chip. delegated to gaming consoles for the rest of it's soon to end life

who even uses desktop search? i will NEVER use it....

I'm surprised everybody is looking at the user interface only. It is not the most important thing in the world for OS. As a cross platform software developer I can tell that OS X and all *nix clones suck all the way through. OS X does not provide that flexibility and reusability of system components as Windows XP does. It takes forever to write good looking and functional application on OS X. I'm not talking about the documentation, Microsoft MSDN has the best documentation on the world. As you can see not many companies can afford to rewrite their software every half a year to be compatible with new OS X release. I'm not saying that by switching to Intel processor all older application will stop working. Looks like Apple does not care about their users and developers at all.

The new Longhorn will be Mac OS X 10.5. ------- GAH! What a fscking insult!!!! Try 10.2... minus the virus security of a Unix system.

delegated to gaming consoles for the rest of it's soon to end life --- That's not such a bad fate.. 200 million PC's are bought every year.. MOST of which do nothing remotely high end that doesn't involve the word 'frag' Face it.. you could do productive work on a Pentium III. You just buy new stuff for gaming.

"who even uses desktop search? i will NEVER use it...." That sums up a feeling I have about all of the OS wars that take place here. A lot of the bragging and chest-thumping takes place over features that are admittedly very nice, yet do not even matter to the majority of computer users and will probably be rarely used, if at all. Like the aforementioned Desktop Search. I use Windows Desktop Search, and I think it works very well, just as I'm sure that Spotlight works very well. But I KNOW where I keep all of my files, so why should I care if it's integrated into the OS's kernel or not? Most people know where they store their files and what's in them, so is desktop search really so important that we have to go on and on about its merits? All of us here are computer geeks (yes, that means you), but a lot of people don't even understand what the technologies in Tiger or Longhorn mean, or how they work. They just want a nice, cool computer that does what they need it to do, whether it's emailing and web surfing, software development, or photo/video/music creation and editing. I think we sometimes forget that all of our "important" knowledge of the inner workings of our favorite OS means nothing to the average Joe who makes up the majority of the computer buying market. He or she couldn't give a damn whether or not Spotlight is integrated into the kernel or whether WinFS will actually ship with Longhorn. Later, guys.

To me, it seems that Apple is basically running down the list of features that Longhorn is supposed to include in an effort to get the jump on them. If I were Microsoft, I would be holding back on the really good stuff until the end to prevent Longhorn from getting 1-up'ed. It's funny just how many people are hoping Microsoft absolutely fails with Longhorn, but I'm actually hoping they succeed. OSX is cool and all, but it's not the end all, be all that people make it out to be. There is always room for improvement, even if you're Apple.

Why do Apple users hang around here anyway. It's getting tiresome. PLEASE TURN THE COMMENT FEATURE OFF!

"All of are yawning as we wait for Longhorn. Yawn! Wake me when it released. Yawn!" Your life. Yawn! Wake me when you get one. Yawn!

hmm... if Longhorn is due to be released in 1-2 years... Ouch Microsoft... STI Cell Processors running linux will be out before then... and they'll be lighting quick compared to everything else on the market.

You know what makes me laugh about all of the Mac v's Windows debate is that the Mac community seems to be ignoring one thing, simply that despite its protestations its a niche machine for a series of niche markets. Windows is the mainstream. Not XP, not Longhorn but Windows. Windows is so much more than a nice looking front end. We are talking ENTERPRISE here. SQL Server, Exchange, Windows 2003, Sharepoint, Biztalk, Office, all there as enterprise level applications. You can keep your nice looking interface with its cute UI, I'll be off running corporate level business applications on robust solid technology. Oh and please, its taken 5 attempts to get OS X sorted, each time you've had to pay for it. Go back to drawing pretty pictures or writing copy tossers.

"We are talking ENTERPRISE here. SQL Server, Exchange, Windows 2003, Sharepoint, Biztalk, Office, all there as enterprise level applications." Exactly what I have been saying too. Until the Mac gets traction, and we start seeing Enterprise quality apps running on it, we aren't going to see it break much more market share than we do right now. I run Windows because it has all of the stuff I want or need to use. It's just like going to the mall. There may be a prettier and better mall down the street, but if it doesn't have the stores I want, it is worthless. Exchange and SQL are certainly two success stories from Microsoft. Both are quality apps, that have solid reliability stats, and are very robust. Any accounting system worth its salt runs on SQL at least as an option. Same thing goes for games. I see a lot of talk how since the Mac is switching to Intel that suddenly games are going to be made for the Mac. You wish they would come. Games cost A LOT of money to make, and you go for the greatest market share that you can grab. That means Windows. And remember that Linux runs on Intel chips, and I don't see a huge market of games available, so why would the Mac be different?

This talk about desktop search is a non starter for the most part. While Spotlight looks like it is a wonderful part of the OS, to tell you the truth, the majority of the stuff that I have will not be easily searchable from any sort of search, and this is not that different from what most people have. I'm talking about pictures, videos, and MP3's, a lot of times with improper ID3 tags. Desktop search isn't going to help much in these cases, more than just looking at the file names and thumbnails. I seriously doubt the average home user has a ton of PDF's and other types of searchable documents on their machine.

There once was a company that held over 80% market share in a dynamic growing market, was populated by some of the best and brightest people, generated cash by the ton and is now struggling to keep from turning the lights out. That company is General Motors. GM's main problem is that it became SO big and dominant that it became complacent, wasteful and reactive rather than proactive. By trying not to screw up rather than innovate, they slowly dwindled and shrank into an overlooked also-ran. At the time GM had an 80%+ share of the US market, Toyota held less than a 1% share of the US market. Through years of continuous improvement and innovation, they slowly increased their share of the market and reputation in it. A couple of years ago Toyota passed Chevrolet in car sales and passed Ford last year. Toyota now is the #1 brand of cars in the country. Their Lexus brand is giving Mercedes-Benz & BMW fits. Pickups are next. The Ananlogy- MS in the late 90's is the modern version of GM in the late 1950's and is in danger of becoming the GM of 2010 if they do not change their ways. The jury is still out if Apple can follow the Toyota trajectory, but the motto is "innovation never sleeps".

Great article Paul. I'm looking forward to Longhorn, for it will probably be the only OS, save Linux, that gives me the choice to use whichever hardware I choose. Looks like someone let the Mac fanboys out of their cages. It's ok kids. Daddy Jobs still loves you.

"To me, it seems that Apple is basically running down the list of features that Longhorn is supposed to include in an effort to get the jump on them." Like what, exactly? The precise opposite is true. Microsoft is touting its new hardware-accelerated drawing APIs--just like Quartz Extreme from OS X 10.2 three years ago. Least-privileged user account? Also from OS X since 10.0. I could go on and on here. Hell, your "Recycle Bin" is a direct rip-off of Mac System 1.0's Trash can. "If I were Microsoft, I would be holding back on the really good stuff until the end to prevent Longhorn from getting 1-up'ed." Honestly, there are many who feel that's already happened. "It's funny just how many people are hoping Microsoft absolutely fails with Longhorn, but I'm actually hoping they succeed." Hey, I'm an Apple user, and I hope Longhorn fixes all the problems with Windows. It would make my job as an IT admin much easier. Just this morning, one of my users came to me because their brand new Dell with Windows XP SP2 blue-screened. Yet meanwhile, I'm here on my iBook that has never crashed, and I just did a clean install of Tiger last weekend. I needed to print something, and we have a network printer from HP that is Bonjour-capable, so all I had to do on my Mac was go to "Print" and select the printer in the Bonjour submenu. No driver installation, no goofy control panels, no ugly system tray icons that you get on Windows. I sincerely hope Windows ever gets this incredibly easy and simple to use. Seriously, it took me three seconds to up and print to our network printer. It takes a lot longer with the Windows machines. All that wasted time in maintenance adds up. "OSX is cool and all, but it's not the end all, be all that people make it out to be. There is always room for improvement, even if you're Apple." Absolutely true. But OS X gets a whole lot of things right, and even with its flaws (hello, metal Finder), it's worlds ahead of Windows, so far anyway

"I'm surprised everybody is looking at the user interface only. It is not the most important thing in the world for OS. As a cross platform software developer I can tell that OS X and all *nix clones suck all the way through." You don't give any specific examples of why. "OS X does not provide that flexibility and reusability of system components as Windows XP does." Uh, OS X has Frameworks. "It takes forever to write good looking and functional application on OS X." No, it doesn't. It's faster to create a good-looking and functional application using Cocoa than ANY OTHER SYSTEM ON THE PLANET. Interface Builder lets you serialize an instantiated object graph, so you design the interface right in front of you and save the objects to disk. On Windows, when you create a GUI component, it's actually writing procedural code behind the scenes. Cocoa, on the other hand, doesn't need it. Cocoa Bindings automatically ties your data model to your view objects. OS X is so far ahead of what Microsoft is doing with .NET that it's insane. I created a company database app in two hours. The previous version of the software was in Windows and took two days. "I'm not talking about the documentation, Microsoft MSDN has the best documentation on the world." MSDN is a complete mess. "As you can see not many companies can afford to rewrite their software every half a year to be compatible with new OS X release." Nobody has to rewrite their software to be compatible with newe OS X releases. You're just flat-out trolling here. "I'm not saying that by switching to Intel processor all older application will stop working. Looks like Apple does not care about their users and developers at all." And Microsoft does? Have fun waiting two years for Longhorn to get the basic featureset OS X has today. Hardware-accelerated, vector-based graphics?? Hello, OS X Quartz from 2002... Let me know when Windows gets anything has incredible as CoreData.

"I can't wait to see a mac with an intel inside sticker." You won't. The sticker isn't mandatory. "that's their ultimate humilliation." Why is it a humiliation for Apple whatsoever? It's humiliating for PC users to see Intel jump ship and embrace Apple. "and so falls the ever dying powerPC chip. delegated to gaming consoles for the rest of it's soon to end life" Ever dying PowerPC chip, huh...and yet Microsoft is using it for their future "digital media hub" X-Box 360! Apple left IBM because IBM isn't able to get the PowerPC fast enough without having to resort to dual-chip solutions that put out tons of heat. I love you Windows trolls. And to you SANE Windows posters, thanks for counteracting these guys.

"who even uses desktop search? i will NEVER use it...." A ton of people. I use it to search my 360GB of data. I have everything organized too, but more and more I'm finding it easier to just move files into a generic "Data" folder and get my files through Spotlight. A lot of times I don't even go to the Applications folder to run things. I just hit Cmd-Space, type the first few characters of the app I want to run, and select it at the top of the list and hit Enter. Desktop search is just the first step toward a totally relational filesystem. WinFS will be doing it, as will Spotlight 2. You guys bashing desktop search are unable to think innovatively. You may as well declare that 640kb is enough for anybody.

"You know what makes me laugh about all of the Mac v's Windows debate is that the Mac community seems to be ignoring one thing, simply that despite its protestations its a niche machine for a series of niche markets. Windows is the mainstream. Not XP, not Longhorn but Windows." This seems to be the only thing Windows user can offer about their OS. "Well, it sucks in almost every way, but it's used everywhere!" Yeah, and Britney Spears sells more CDs than Mozart. "Windows is so much more than a nice looking front end. We are talking ENTERPRISE here. SQL Server, Exchange, Windows 2003, Sharepoint, Biztalk, Office, all there as enterprise level applications." OS X can run all the industrial-strength UNIX apps that the enterprises actually use. Few of them use Windows stuff. Even the military switched to OS X after http://army.mil got hacked running Windows NT. "You can keep your nice looking interface with its cute UI, I'll be off running corporate level business applications on robust solid technology." I'll be running off UNIX. UNIX is used in the enterprise way more than Windows. I think you've kind of put your foot in your mouth here. "Oh and please, its taken 5 attempts to get OS X sorted, each time you've had to pay for it. Go back to drawing pretty pictures or writing copy tossers." Five new revisions that have added more and more features while you have been stuck on a stagnant OS for five years that will finally be getting basic features I had back on OS X 10.2. it's so bad that Apple has desktop search and other features out before Microsoft, who has pushed WinFS three years away! OUCH! Go back to playing The Sims 2, because Windows is little more than a gaming platform. Hell, you guys are still running with admin privileges in the year 2005! It's insane what you guys will cling on to because Microsoft marketing robots told you to.

"Exactly what I have been saying too. Until the Mac gets traction, and we start seeing Enterprise quality apps running on it, we aren't going to see it break much more market share than we do right now." Is that why supercomputers are built using Xserves? Is that why OS X is based on UNIX, which runs more enterprise apps than Windows could ever dream of? Get real, guys. "I run Windows because it has all of the stuff I want or need to use. It's just like going to the mall. There may be a prettier and better mall down the street, but if it doesn't have the stores I want, it is worthless." OS X has absolutely everything Windows has to offer, and a lot more. So much so that Microsoft is playing catchup with Longhorn. "Exchange and SQL are certainly two success stories from Microsoft. Both are quality apps, that have solid reliability stats, and are very robust. Any accounting system worth its salt runs on SQL at least as an option." Which is why I can run MySQL, Oracle, Postgres, and all the other SQL apps that enterprises run. A lot of companies switched from SQL Server after they got hacked from Microsoft worms. "Same thing goes for games. I see a lot of talk how since the Mac is switching to Intel that suddenly games are going to be made for the Mac. You wish they would come. Games cost A LOT of money to make, and you go for the greatest market share that you can grab. That means Windows. And remember that Linux runs on Intel chips, and I don't see a huge market of games available, so why would the Mac be different?" You're admitting that Windows is nothing more than a gaming platform. Good. Go and sell your el cheapo plastic Dell and just buy an X-Box. Leave the real computing to Macs. And yes, more games will be coming to Mac now. Don't you understand that I'll be able to run Windows at 100% native speed on my iMac? Why would anyone buy a Windows-only Dell when they could buy a Mac and run OS X and Windows side by side? Bad year for Microsoft.

"This talk about desktop search is a non starter for the most part. While Spotlight looks like it is a wonderful part of the OS, to tell you the truth, the majority of the stuff that I have will not be easily searchable from any sort of search, and this is not that different from what most people have. I'm talking about pictures, videos, and MP3's, a lot of times with improper ID3 tags. Desktop search isn't going to help much in these cases, more than just looking at the file names and thumbnails." Apparently, you've never read up on Spotlight at all. Spotlight uses plugins to import any metadata you want it to. It already searches through ID3 tags. Heck, I just downloaded an importer that lets me search through all the UNIX man pages. You can even search through all your pictures and limit your query by exposure, lens used, and so on. It's light years ahead of what Windows will offer until Longhorn comes out, and even then it will probably be rushed and hard to use like all Microsoft products (based on usability studies, the ratio of clicks to get something done is three on Windows and one on OS X). "I seriously doubt the average home user has a ton of PDF's and other types of searchable documents on their machine." Nobody cares what you seriously doubt. You don't represent the whole computing world, which uses PDF on a daily basis. Read up on Spotlight sometime. It searches any metadata you want it to. META being the key word. It doesn't just do filenames like Windows does.

"Looks like someone let the Mac fanboys out of their cages. It's ok kids. Daddy Jobs still loves you." Better go feed Ballmer the jumping monkey! DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS... Meanwhile, Intel jumped ship and embraced Apple! Bill Gates must be worried under his desk right now. I'll be running Windows at 100% native speeds in a window on my OS X desktop. And before you say it, believe me, Apple will be preventing OS X from running on a generic PC. Not only will Apple not be using the crappy PC BIOS introduced in 1981 that you guys are stuck with (Windows users aren't interested in being on the forefront of technology...they're interested in the latest Sims expansion), their Logic 7 hardware copy protection has never been cracked and never will be. It's all over for the Microsofts and Dells of the world. Two more years of Windows XP, and Apple is the media darling of tech news this year. Why do you guys stay with Windows, anyway? It takes twenty clicks through a "wizard" to get something done that happens automatically on OS X. God, don't you get tired of wasting all that time? Wasting all those resources on anti-spyware, anti-virus, and firewall software sucking up memory on your system tray? I honestly don't get why Windows users defend an obviously infrerior system that has been designed to bloat itself every few years to force you to give Michael Dell money, because he signed a deal with Bill Gates. You guys are just sheep in line, I guess.

Uh, OS X doesn't have enterprise apps? OS X is based on UNIX, which has been used in the enterprise way longer than Windows has even been around. OS X runs all the UNIX apps. We use it for parallel computing simulations. I think Microsoft users just defend anything Windows does because they need it to play the latest Sims expansion pack. Nothing more.

HEY, EVERYONE. This is silly. We're arguing over a stupid operating system. How dorky are we? Look, we all know OS X does a lot of cool stuff, and Macs are all great. And we all know Windows is the standard and is used everywhere, and Microsoft is at least *trying* to fix what's wrong with it through Longhorn. Let's just sit back and enjoy all technology, shall we? Use whatever you need to use, and don't bash the other side. One of the reasons Mac users are so elitist is that they've been listening to loud-mouthed PC users for 25 years bashing them and telling them Macs suck and that Apple is dying. 25 years later, that's obviously not the case. Let's ease up here and call a truce. We're all just the same human animals stuck on this floating rock in space. If I met you guys on the subway, I wouldn't care what freaking OS you used on your computer at home!!

Yeah, I love how in OS X, when you plug in a USB device, it just automatically starts working. In Windows XP, you plug it in, and you get that "DING DONG" sound. Then you get this balloon that says it's detected new hardware, and the hard drive starts grinding. Then the balloon says it's installing the drivers (Huh? They should already be installed). Then it grinds and grinds, and finally it says "Your hardware device is ready to use." On OS X, it just starts working immediately. I don't see how any Windows user can defend this. This is just one small example. Windows is PACKED with crappy little things like this. Another one: WHY do I have to run the "Network Setup Wizard" to connect to anything and have properly shared folders? When you turn on an OS X machine for the first time, it just automatically starts working. In fact, if you have a Mac network, all the computers use Bonjour to auto-configure themselves with IP addresses--no IP configuration, no DHCP server necessary. This is futuristic stuff Windows doesn't have. In fact, Apple had to release Bonjour for Windows just to throw you guys a bone! When I have to use Windows, I feel like I've stepped backwards in time by about seven years. Hey, Longhorn may fix all this stuff. But honestly, as a former Windows user for over ten years, and as Windows users yourselves, how many times have you been promised that the new Windows would be the best thing ever, only to have it not be so? Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows XP...etc. I still remember when two-thirds of the world was rebooting thanks to the MS.Blaster worm. These are major embarrassments to a company that's supposedly #1 in the computing industry. Meanwhile, there are ZERO viruses and trojans for OS X. Numbers speak for themselves. If you use Windows, great. Just defending Macs because, yes, I love them. If you tried one, you'd end up loving it too...I don't know what it is, but it just feels so intuitive and out of my way. Try it.

I just think this is really childish. If OS X is so amazing (It does feel a little nicer when I've used it at work) then why don't apple ship it for $100 and allow it to be installed on any PC. That way they would increase market share. Better for everyone. But at the end of the day, and these posts just prove it, everybody who works at Apple and everybody who says "Apple are great, go play The Sims", are just too stuck up in their own little designer worlds. Get real!

Let me put it this way. Apple is absolutely the leader of the computing industry. Even with just 16% install base of the world's computers. All those USB ports you have on your el cheapo plastic Dell? That's all thanks to 1998's iMac which used only USB. After that, all the devices became USB and everyone switched. Now we have Firewire. And iTunes. And H.264. And Quartz Extreme. And Spotlight. And even going back in history, Apple invented the use of desktop icons, drag-and-drop, pulldown menus, and even the Trash can. Microsoft stole all of it and packaged it as Windows 95. Even the "Start" menu, a collection of shorcuts to apps, is just the same as the old Apple menu, which did the exact same thing. And the "taskbar" is just the Apple menu bar moved to the bottom. So now the clock is in the bottom-right instead of the upper-right! It's SOOO obvious how much Microsoft rips everyone off. Now they're doing tabbed-browsing, after having popup blocking. Gee, thanks for the innovations, Microsoft! I'll be running your little OS in a Window on next year's fast Intel Powerbooks. Hey, I hope Longhorn kicks butt. Competition never hurts. But man, Microsoft seems so huge now, like they're doubling over under their own weight. Why else would Paul Thurrott himself declare that Longhorn "is a trainwreck?" Or that "OS X is simply better than Windows. Especially for power users." You guys still have to deal with the PC BIOS system, a legacy system from 1981. You have messy APCI that doesn't always work. Macs have the elegant Open Firmware, complete with the Forth programming language, and I can close my iBook's lid at any time to put it to sleep, and it will always come back up when I open it. This is why Mac users rarely shut down their computers. They just open the lid or hit Escape, and the desktop appears in less than a second. PC users go to "Start->Shutdown" and have to wait 30 seconds for Windows to grind the hard drive.

"If OS X is so amazing (It does feel a little nicer when I've used it at work) then why don't apple ship it for $100 and allow it to be installed on any PC. That way they would increase market share. Better for everyone." 1.) Apple makes its money on hardware. 2.) OS X would grow as unstable as Windows in trying to be everything for everybody and support everything. Apple is able to push hardware innovation by controlling their own hardware. The reason all PCs have USB ports today is because the iMacs in 1998 went all USB, forcing device manufacturers to upgrade. Apple also uses OpenFirmware, includes Firewire ports with every device, has an actual working sleep mode, and so on. 3.) A big reason PC users want OS X available for their computers is just so they can pirate it. That wouldn't help Apple at all. "But at the end of the day, and these posts just prove it, everybody who works at Apple and everybody who says "Apple are great, go play The Sims", are just too stuck up in their own little designer worlds. Get real!" I love the way people still stereotype Apple users as graphic designers. Does that mean Windows doesn't work in the graphic design world or something? I won't even talk about how all the universities use Mac, the government uses Mac, etc.

"If OS X is so amazing (It does feel a little nicer when I've used it at work) then why don't apple ship it for $100 and allow it to be installed on any PC. That way they would increase market share. Better for everyone." Market share doesn't matter, it's a measure of annual turnover rate in sales. This goes back to the bias of the tech media again. They know that market share numbers are misleading but love to mention them over and over again. Mac's install base has been announced to be 16% of the world's computers. The turnover rate for Mac computers is much longer, meaning Mac users don't buy a new computer every six months like PC users seem to be forced to do (3ghz just to display windows on Longhorn? Heh, good luck...). So their use doesn't get reflected in annual market share numbers.

"This is silly. We're arguing over a stupid operating system. How dorky are we?" This is what I want to know - why are the Mac guys here in the first place? Since you make it well known that Windows is inferior to your OS X, why do you even care what Paul writes, since it's 99% about Windows-related material? Now, I know a lot of you are tech guys who probably use Windows at work, or just interested in the tech field period, and therefore you have to keep up-to-date on stuff like this, so I'm not talking about you fellas. You're cool with me, and your thoughts and opinions are nice to read. I'm talking about the obvious trolls, who add nothing to this community, and start a flame war EVERY SINGLE DAY! I'm convinced that all of this flaming stems from some stupid fool starting crap about how Mac rules and Windows users are Sims-playing sheep, and then a Windows user takes the bait & retaliates, or vice versa, and there we go again. 6 pages of comments containing about 10 useful, on-topic posts and the rest is a neverending, pointless argument. Not all Windows users play The Sims or other games - a lot of us work and get accomplish great things with our Windows machines. Just as all Mac users aren't elitist, graphic designers. As long as we're all making money and our machines do what we require of them, why not just cool out and agree that this is a great time to be alive, technology-wise, and that BOTH of our OS'es are allowing us to do things many people never thought possible. Let's just put a stop to this constant back-and-forth, leave the childish namecalling out of it, and just discuss topics intelligently like gentlemen.

I just think this is really childish. If OS X is so amazing (It does feel a little nicer when I've used it at work) ... ----------------- That's what happens when you can't think of a comeback.. You start questioning why MS doesn't have any competitors. 'They must have all been wiped out by MS, right?' No. You're half right. Apple could sell a standalone OS for X86 computers and sell a ton, but that would mean going open architecture. Apple has historically been CLOSED architecture, and that's why Macs 'just work' Forget what Gates and Co. have been telling you, getting a Windows machine to operate 'like' a Mac is garbage. With a closed architecture, Apple can make sure the OS is airtight and the code doesn't have to have 'hooks' for third party plug ins, etc. Why? Because the third party already knows what Macs are like.. and write their stuff for IT. Your suggestion is not new, but really considers Apple only as a software developer. That's not their game. Apple has been a home computing company since the beginning. Even the Apple ][ had a certain human quality to it.. before Home Computing was a consideration.. My point is that.. you wouldn't say to Sony.. 'why don't you just stop shipping hardware, and license your designs to other companies' ... Apple is a hardware company and they use their software to push the hardware line by keeping it closed. It's just a little weird that Apple's software development seems to outshine MS's. The reason is the closed architecture. Why does MS stay with open architecture? Because they believe it can lead to an even better computer? God no. Not even close. The Xbox360 is a very nice closed arch. PC.. I'm sure they'll sell millions. MS knows that for the home computing, closed arch is slick, stable and easier to develop for. They make all their MONEY pretending to like open architecture.. that's for all those business sales.. Follow the money..

"Why does MS stay with open architecture? Because they believe it can lead to an even better computer? God no. Not even close. The Xbox360 is a very nice closed arch. PC.. I'm sure they'll sell millions. MS knows that for the home computing, closed arch is slick, stable and easier to develop for. They make all their MONEY pretending to like open architecture.. that's for all those business sales.. " Interesting point you make here, because I refuse to believe that Microsoft doesn't know how to make Windows a lot more secure than it is. You seem to state what I've had a hard time putting my finger on about Gates & Co. You don't get to where Microsoft is by being stupid, but they've gotten so damn arrogant and reactive instead of proactive, while the cats at Apple keep rolling along. Sometimes it is better to be the "underdog" and keep doing what you're best at instead of trying to be everything to everyone . Someone else here said that they're acting like the GM of old, more concerned about being a huge corporation than putting out a rock-solid product, and I agree 100%.

"I'm not saying that by switching to Intel processor all older application will stop working. Looks like Apple does not care about their users and developers at all." Well they would, except that Apple makes it less of a big deal. For current PowerPC apps, they have issued development tools for conversion. They already have an x86 OS ready to go, for developers to work on...dev kits are already in the hands of developers (a PowerMac w a 3.6ghz Intel chip) For devs. that don't 'make it' in time for the launch of Intel Macs, their Apps will still run, thanks to Apple lisencing Transitive technology. IE. You can already run standard apps on an Intel Mac. Developers have 1.5 years to get to 'Native' which isn't a huge deal anyway.

"Longhorn's new tech is Avalon, which is GPU-accelerated windowing. It'll even be backported to Windows XP" >> Technologies such as Avalon and Indigo etc are being backported to Windows XP just for compatability, not to add exta functionality. "Windows Desktop Search can't search in PDFs, or allow you to search through other custom formats" >> http://addins.msn.com/ Go here my son, and see how wrong you are. I hate Apple fanboys, I mean yes, the iPod is good but what is the dominant consumer OS due to practical reasons?

What is the dominant consumer OS due to convicted monopolistic practices?!

Yes, the focus of any business model I've ever heard of/come accross is to make money. I think they're doing a good job, don't you? Any company that does anything for free/no return/out of the goodness of their hearts is called a charity.

I'd like to see if Apple have the balls to release OSX generally. If that believe they have the best OS, I say let them prove it..... .....building a generic OS for specific technology is so much more harder then providing a general use product - look at Linux - will never become mainstream as it currently stands

Apple is all about smoke and mirrors. They are just lucky they only hold 3% of the market, otherwise they would be in more trouble than the early settlers - I mean come-on, lets bundle everything under the sun - the same thing (probably worse) than Microsoft!

Actually, yes it can search for PDFs. Adobe actually has a free plug-in for Desktop Search that lets you search PDFs. The *only* thing it can't do is create *SmartFolders* (however, it will let you save the results of a search).

First of all Intel have not "jumped ship". To be doing that they'd have to have stopped deveolping PC processors at all, something that just isnt going to happen. The correct term people is "expanding". Intel is expanding, taking a contract with Apple to develop even more processors. Anyway, that being corrected, lets go back to the point of the article, Longhorn. What a pile of cr*p Longhorn is turning out to be. This PDC demo will have to be fantastic to convince people that Microsoft haven't wasted the last 4/5 years of deveolpment, which is what it looked like the last time Longhorn had been shown. I'm beginning to think that staying with Windows XP will be a better thing that "upgrading" to Longhorn. Grr... BenN

I'd like to see if Apple have the balls to release OSX generally. If that believe they have the best OS --------------- Yeah it would be sweet.. But it wouldnt be that great for their hardware division now would it SOrry about the bad punctuation, Ièm on a Dell. question mark É forward slash é quote È apostraphe è itès important for apple to have control over the whole widget...

What's wrong, Paul? No word on Microsoft dropping yet another technology from Longhorn--the Monad shell? So the question on everyone's minds at this point is: What *will* Longhorn actually have in it? Avalon, Indigo, and WinFX are all being backported to XP/2003, WinFS has been dropped for the release, and now Monad (I love that name) is being cut. I'm not quite sure how Microsoft plans to sell the OS on such exciting features as "Better DRM!" and "We've got the security thing right this time. Promise!" "It will take three to five years to fully develop and deliver," said Microsoft Senior Vice President Bob Muglia this week at Tech Ed 2005. *Jaw hits the floor* Five years? Whoa. Five years ago, Windows 2000 was brand new. Five years ago, Mac users were still stuck with OS 9. Five years ago, the tech boom was still on. Five years ago, Bill Clinton was still President. Even worse is that Win32 is only ten years old! If it takes Microsoft five years to get something out the door, I think they will soon find themselves becoming irrelevant in the desktop market. Confidence can be a good thing, but over-confidence can mean disaster. The bright side to this is that users will win when Microsoft is forced to go back to being an applications vendor instead of an OS vendor. Maybe they'll even get around to making another BASIC that doesn't suck. ;-) On a slightly different topic, I really think that Microsoft is really on the wrong track with their combined Desktop/Server codebase bent. As technology marches on, Microsoft will quickly find that their competitors are taking advantage of technological solutions that only make sense on one side of the fence. I have to wonder if some of the delay that we're seeing isn't caused by Microsoft attempting to make all of their technology work in both arenas.

Mac zealots suffer from a medical condition known as "persistent diarrhea of the mouth"

http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/ Apple: We're going to move to a platform that our previous advertisements said sucks. That's the kind of service we provide our user base!

Listen to you guys its like play time at school, my red wagon is better then your fire truck :p

"What is the dominant consumer OS due to convicted monopolistic practices?!" Microsoft Windows of course. And they got off for it too... It seems even the EU might cave for them. I wish I had the POWER that MS had. Anyone who has that kind of POWER man... Don't count on Windows going away anytime soon. They may be a convicted, evil corporation, but they make good dev tools, and they're job security. And when Longwait does come out, who knows... maybe they'll FIX a lot of holes. They better if it's taking this long. Remember how everyone used to complain about Windows 98 stability... they fixed that issue (by moving to another kernel). Longhorn, being all that it is hyped to be, should hopefully to something to fix the craptastical security provided with MSIE. "I'd like to see if Apple have the balls to release OSX generally. If that believe they have the best OS" Why, because it looks the best? Or because installing programs is a breeze? They have an OS that PWNs, but don't you think the *nixers are taking notice and making *nix UIs a bit more Apple-ish. Besides, *nix is completly open. Can't say that about MAC OS X. I seriously hope they introduce some sort of OS that will run on MY computer, that will support MY tv card, and that will come with a wine-ish technology. That would own (except that the "emulation" would be slow). Paul, hope MS comes out with a good OS. :| They kinda need to...

Oh yeah... That's right. Everyone knows it's SO hard to install programs on Windows... Next, Next, Next, (fill out some basic info), Next.. Installing Install Complete Sure, you have the evil registry in Windows, but MS is seemingly trying to "hide" it (phase it out in the future) with the .NET framework. If Longhorn fixes a majority of MS OSes security shortcomings, provides customizable skinning, and remains as stable as 2k/XP Pro... Ahhhh... Now if only IE7 would support CSS properly... Or PNGs for that matter...

When everyone gets done bashing one another,they may find that a third OS of some sort(Whatever it may be)will outshine them both.You do have to admit that more people do things with Linux because of Source code and such being readily available.As far as programs like Office goes,I don't use any program that I have to pay for when I can get something comparable for free(Open Office is one example.Sure I have to dowload new versions,but a service pack is somewhat the same thing unless it is a major version change).Also,I have not had any problems with Open Office either as far as opening M$ documents go.I don't have a use for Outlook anyway as I use Mozilla stuff with integrated support for Open PGP.If you like Mac,that's fine.If you like Windows,that's cool too.Linux?Ok as well.We live is somewhat a Free world.So choose what fits you best.If this were NASCAR,we'd be discussing Dodge,Ford,and Chevy. They are all good.

Has anyone seen the registration fee for the PDC conference, US$2000. Yikes!!

What a moron... "Windows Desktop Search can't search in PDFs, or allow you to search through other custom formats. It also doesn't integrate into the system and let you save your search as a Smart Folder." Umm lets see the google desktop and the microsoft dekstop both support ifilters which can expand the desktop searches to search ANY FILE TYPE and index them. As for longhorn explorer windows give it a break the box is in development for another full year and your already ******** over how it looks give it a break MAC is the damn copy cat hell its fully based on *nix so lets not get into the copying, i personally hate the osx file manager and yes i own a osx laptop and i truely dislike it, sure i dont use most of the hyperlinks on the side of xp but guess what? there are people that do so microsoft pleased the majority of them. And for us that dont use it? We dont click it ;) Also thats the reason Longhorn will have persona's another feature not discussed much by microsoft except in bits and drabs that will basically scale the operating system in the way it displays and is used depending on the type of person you are. People need to stop complaining over longhorn when its a major work in development. As far as i know it wasnt Microsoft that had to dump there hardware manufacturers and swap sides for a decent chip... oh wait now i remember why... microsoft isnt arogant enough to force you to use only there hardware... give me a break ... osx is moving to x86 hardware and theres still gonna forse u to use MAC Certified Intel products... so lets see i can run anything on mac hardware but i cant run osx on gray market once again... hmm not much changed there.

http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/ Apple: We're going to move to a platform that our previous advertisements said sucks. That's the kind of service we provide our user base!

People need to stop complaining over longhorn when its a major work in development. As far as i know it wasnt Microsoft that had to dump there hardware manufacturers and swap sides for a decent chip... oh wait now i remember why... microsoft isnt arogant enough to force you to use only there hardware... give me a break ... osx is moving to x86 hardware and theres still gonna forse u to use MAC Certified Intel products... so lets see i can run anything on mac hardware but i cant run osx on gray market once again... hmm not much changed there. --------- Man Microsoft SUCKS they won't let us play Halo on PS2. **** they're arrogant. I guess they're just afraid that if they released it for PS2, it would BOMB... yeah.. totally.. Pffft.. arrogant bastards.. i can only use the damn.. "XBOX CERTIFIED" controllers.. what a joke..

http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/ Apple: We're going to move to a platform that our previous advertisements said sucks. That's the kind of service we provide our user base!

Mac users make things like gout, irritable bowel syndrome, and brain tumors seem fun!

"No one was more disappointed in the Longhorn content Microsoft provided at April's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), but the software giant appears ready to make up for it this September." No one was more disappointed THAN WHO???? Your constant grammatical errors make for very hard reading.

CNet: Java Flaws Open Door to Hackers http://news.com.com/Java+flaws+open+door+to+hackers/2100-1002_3-5746913.html?tag=nefd.top But the Mac zealots said only Microsoft writes buggy insecure software!!!