Vista and Tiger

[Paul Shields]

There's a very interesting article in the current PCPro magazine (a UK computing rag, and in my opinion one of the best) comparing the relative merits of Tiger and Vista. Although one is beta and the other is due an update, I found it a very interesting read. I've always admired the Mac ethos. I've had a couple in the past, and as my profession is based around UNIX/Linux systems the OS has always had an appeal to me.

Anyway, one thing that came out of the review, and which solidified a view I was already forming, was that Apple are taking a very big risk in moving to Intel, and above all promoting the 'boot camp' of running Windows OS on an Apple hardware. The argument being that OSX developers will find it even harder than currently to bring out new software in an Intel world, particularly if Apple are basically saying 'don't worry about application availability - just dual boot into Windows for the apps you can't get on OSX'. Yeah, right...

Seems to me that this just dilutes the Apple experience. Apple was always a bit exclusive - even if that meant that it didn't always have the great range of software available in the WinTel world. This seems like quite a gamble, particularly with the much richer Vista offering (e.g. - a lot of Tiger features are not included as part of the OS - media centre (including TV), OS utilities etc. Vista has a much greater app bundle it seems).

I've always liked the Apple way of doing things, but I feel that Vista is going to be a big leap forward and with Apple basically saying 'don't worry - just run your OS on our hardware' they aren't going to convice a lot of people who could happily (in theory) run the same OS on a DELL laptop at a third of the price.

[metalstorm]

I'm not so sure who the "boot camp" will help. Apple or Windows. Probably will be a wash with some of both jumping to the other. I'm not going to eval Vista until it is out officially.

[Paul Shields]

Have to say, after playing with the latest Vista beta 2 I'm less than impressed. It's really XP in a new skin from what I can see. It could help Apple a lot if OSX Leopard comes out with some of the killer features that didn't get into Vista (such as a 'WinFS' type meta filesystem). If they can produce a generic release that works on all x86 machines - then I'll be first in the queue. Not sure they would do that though...

[rnyholm]

It is very nice to be a simple person and not try to understand everything. I bought a Mac from the beginning because of it's OS. I was so tired having all the time problems with the computer. With Mac at home I can just enjoy and do not have to worry about crashing OS or what ever. Therefore I do not understand these who wants to run Windows XP in a Mac. OK I am an old man and I do not want to play any games.

[Paul Shields]

Originally Posted by rnyholm

It is very nice to be a simple person and not try to understand everything. I bought a Mac from the beginning because of it's OS. I was so tired having all the time problems with the computer. With Mac at home I can just enjoy and do not have to worry about crashing OS or what ever. Therefore I do not understand these who wants to run Windows XP in a Mac. OK I am an old man and I do not want to play any games.

That is the perfect answer! The Mac OS really is the best way to enjoy using a computer. Though it should be said that the current OSX can be very geeky due to it's BSD underpinnings, but Apple are to be congratulated on how they keep all of the drudgery hidden from the user, unlike most Windows OS offerings.

[metalstorm]

Note sure if Apple will ever go pure software release.* They seem to want to tie their stuff to their hardware.* Probably because they can control the approved hardware list a lot better.* If Apple made a generic OS that would run on any PC you'd see a LOT more crashes due to the exponential increase in hardware/driver variability(due to venders not coding quite right just like in the PC world). That's why it's very important to get good components(with good driver support) with a PC. If you do that, that's half the battle. It's usually not Windows crashing, its some third party driver not co-existing correctly. I've had Windows servers up over a year without reboots.

Originally Posted by Paul

Have to say, after playing with the latest Vista beta 2 I'm less than impressed. It's really XP in a new skin from what I can see. It could help Apple a lot if OSX Leopard comes out with some of the killer features that didn't get into Vista (such as a 'WinFS' type meta filesystem). If they can produce a generic release that works on all x86 machines - then I'll be first in the queue. Not sure they would do that though...