Lockergnome hooked me up with a very interesting article from John C. Dvorak (as I have said in the past, one of my fav tech writers). Johns says that we are experiencing a Vista Death watch. He explains that Vista is nowhere near as popular as the installed base of Mac OS X users, and is a mere sliver of the installed base of Windows XP users. XP users are so fed up with Vista that they are moving back to XP. Windows just seems unable or unwilling to concentrate on their "core" software business. Vista is a gluttonous OS, and this should be expected, it is huge, has too much eye candy, and is expensive.
Now, I have been a Mac user for a few years now, so that qualifies me as being an advanced user, based on my system admin background in the PC world. Mac OS X for once, has followed in Microsoft's footsteps. They have placed all kinds of eye candy in OS X 10.5 Leopard, that the advanced user sees the functions as getting in the way. This software feature glut, I call it, has crept into the Mac OS. It was always standard with Windows.
Ok point: Apple has taken an incorrect detour with this last iteration of Mac OS X Leopard. They have decided that features and eye candy are more important than stability and bug fixes. Don't believe me? Take a look at the RSS feed (feed://docs.info.apple.com/rss/macosx.rss) from Apple on the sheer volume of bugs in 10.5. Not to forget that complaints on the semi-transparent menu bar, and the Dock. Oh Spaces, the virtual screen manager has many people worked up too, and Time machine is a little buggy, even if it is kool.
Apple should never follow Microsoft, but Apple should listen to us. I would prefer to see these cool new features have an ability to be toggled off. Mac OS X Tiger is sturdy, fast efficient, and gets the work done. Leopard is eye candy, and chock full of extras. I don't mean to be rude, but 10.5 should have been a 10.4 feature pack. Thats all it really is.
I see both Microsoft and Apple in trouble on this war to settle the eye candy debate. Vista is indeed so plum full of eye candy that gets in the way of doing work, email and web browsing, that many just can not take it anymore, and are dropping it for XP. I opted to pass on Leopard because of the same reasons. It didn't offer me a single thing I needed. Not one thing! Sure, it looks cool, and has many new tools and features, but nothing I can not life without. I would love a new iMac, but would load 10.4 on it if it would allow me, and I suspect it would.
Both of these companies have upped the ante. Not long ago, within the last 2 years, Apple always sold their OS based on speed, efficiency, and user experience. However Leopard took some of that away. They decided to please some, instead of everyone. Why not release each program as a small iTunes download?
Why not be able to purchase just Time Machine? If thats all one needs, sounds viable to me. How about Bootcamp, I want that as an extra, but don't need it, since I run Parallels. Let me but it for $20.00 if I want it. Or maybe give me a "triple choice". Buy any three software packages for a reasonable price, maybe $30.00.
Both companies are still entrenched in the old way of doing business, even though Apple is somewhat ahead in the Music category, they lack in many other places.
