2008.05.26: Mac vs. Windows

I had a pretty interesting debate with a microsoft windows supporter on digg.com. One of the things I dislike most about internet comments is that they often degenerate to insults and inflammatory statements. The reason I'm posting these comments is because we each list our reasons for believing what we do without resorting to any of that, and lots of information came out of it. Whether what we say is accurate, and whether or not we listened and learned from each other is another story, but I wish more internet discussion went something like this.

For some context, Kamujin often has to argue against outspoken windows-haters, so I understand why he's on the defensive most of the time. Here's what we said:

Part 1: Apple's Pros and Cons

Me: 

I've noticed you like to point out that Mac OS X operating system is not Apple's original code -- it is actually a fork of FreeBSD. Why does this matter? Shouldn't an operating system be judged on the strength of how well it works, not on what it's made out of?

Kamujin: 

I mention that so often because I think its the most often overlooked part of Apple's success and is critical to understanding the situation properly. If one were to mistakenly think that Apple designed OS X from the ground up, one would attribute to Apple skills that they have a demonstrated lack of. If one were to realize that Apple's current success is largely due to their ability to assimilate technologies and improve them, they are more likely to understand Apple's strengths properly.

Lastly, Open Source saved Apple, yet Apple fights against openness and is very anti-competitive. I think we will all be better off when people criticize Apple for it anti-competitive policies the same way that they criticize Microsoft.

I don't hate Apple, but I find that the "hype" so outmatches the reality, that I am compelled to speak up.

Me:

I agree that Mac is way too hyped up -- people talk like their computers don't have any problems at all, which definitely isn't true. Apple does have a closed business model, and locks down which hardware you're allowed to use to run it. This definitely makes people pay more -- their lowest end computers sometimes even ship with Combo drives, which could EASILY be superdrives except Apple wants to artificially force you to buy their mid or upper range hardware. If you want a desktop that's easily upgradeable, you have to shell out tons of money for a Mac Pro. I definitely don't like it. But is it wrong?

Apple's strength doesn't come from competing directly with Microsoft: if they did that, Microsoft would start with the advantage because it won the marketshare war back when IBM clones were cheaper than the macintosh. Apple survives by being different, by selling something people perceive as "better," something more expensive, something that isn't diluted by 3rd party hardware vendors. It's just like luxury car manufacturers don't have to worry about competitive pricing. People pay to get what's "better," even if it's more closed.

I don't like Apple's closeness either. But they're not going to change, it wouldn't benefit them. But I do like my macbook and I like how I can run unix programs on it. Regardless of how they got to where they are, OS X is by far my favorite desktop environment -- I'm glad they ditched their own code and decided to switch to something better -- in the end it was the best decision they could have made. Maybe Microsoft should do that too, if they can't improve their own code. Isn't windows still basically a single user OS with multiple users added at the top? Which gives you administrator powers, almost requiring them, by default? Whatever, if it works, it's ok. But I don't think it works as well as it could.

Even though I like Windows -- it detects my hardware a lot better than linux does, things work more often, and I can play games -- all of these reasons come from the fact that it has a majority marketshare. It's not a better operating system, it's just the one on top. That's how I see it. If I'm wrong, tell me why. I'd like to know.

Kamujin:

I can't really disagree with anything you said except for 1 thing. Apple can change. Quite frankly, they may have to. If you imagine Apple with anywhere near Microsoft's markets share, their anti-competitive business practices would make Microsoft look like a saint. I expect that as their market share increases, they will get judged by the same rules that they've used to help cripple Microsoft.

Don't take this to mean that I think Microsoft is innocent. They aren't. Apple is just orders of magnitude more guilty.

Part 2: Windows Vista vs. Mac Leopard -- which was a better upgrade?

original discussion can be found here.

Kamujin (responding to someone else):

With all due respect, Vista has twice the market share in 1 year as OS X does after several years.

Me:

With all due respect, that's because more than twice as many new PCs are sold each year with Vista preloaded. A higher percentage of people updated to Leopard than updated to Vista. A lot of this has to do with how they priced it I think.

Kamujin:

I agree that Windows inertia is part of the reason Vista has its current market share, but I am not ready to fault Microsoft for having repeat customers. It all counts, you can't just count the market share that you like.

Be careful with "percentages", In percentage terms, Linux had the greatest growth in 2007. When you speak of market share, they are already percentages. Taking a percentage of a percentage is just how marketing people like to lie.

Me:

I'm not trying to lie. Mac always has, always will have a lower marketshare -- heck that's why so many people like buying it, lol to be "non-conforming" (which I think is pretty stupid) and for real benefits like having fewer viruses targeted at them.

Vista may be a very good operating system -- I've honestly never tried it, because I haven't bought a new PC and I haven't felt the need to replace XP. Upgrading to a brand new OS just exposes you to bugs.

That being said, I did upgrade to the newest version of Leopard and Ubuntu soon after they came out. Ubuntu because it was free (I'm still regretting that decision) and Leopard because it did give me a reason to upgrade: stacks, spaces (not as good as in GNOME though, but better than nothing), a better Finder sidebar, and an improved samba implementation, hell even time machine was worth it. And it claimed "over 200" fixes under the hood. Lots of things got better. Yeah it had bugs: some programs that worked in Tiger didn't in Leopard. But I was patient and at this point everything works.

Maybe the reason why I'm not excited to vista is because Microsoft didn't do as good a job advertising, or I believe Apple FUD. But I just not interested in eyecandy, DirectX 10, or new "safety features" which I hear get in the way. Definitely not enough to buy it.

Leopard cost a hundred and twenty five dollars for a fully functioning version. The windows fully functioning version costs four hundred. What kind of incentive is that?

I'm just telling it the way I see it.

Kamujin:

Leopard was a minor version upgrade (10.4 to 10.5), yet users were asked to pay for it as a major version upgrade. I upgraded my mac also and found that except for a few "me too" additions, it was largely the same OS.

As you yourself said, the Leopard code was buggy at release.

Why is Leopard not labeled a "train wreck" then? Because in 2007-2008 Apple is still considered to be "cool" and Microsoft is still "evil".

For the record, I run Ubuntu 8.04 on my daily driver. I own and use a mac as well as window machines.

Me:

However you number it, Leopard was a major version update, providing major improvements, new features, UI upgrade, etc. Minor versions are 10.x.x, which are security updates and bugfixes. It seems like Apple just gets more done faster than windows. After 5 years, Windows' major upgrade was eyecandy? Why should anyone pay four hundred dollars for that?

You might think Leopard was considered successful because apple is the "cool" company and windows is the "evil empire," but I don't think that's the whole reason. Leopard delivered improvements, and Apple squashed its bugs very quickly. How long did it take Microsoft to fix Vista's bugs? Whose fault was it that hardware requirements were posted too low? Whose fault was it that the pricing system was so outrageous? In my opinion, Microsoft brought a lot of this down upon itself, and it's sad to see that.

Kamujin:

Vista released with fewer bugges then Leopard. The early problems with Vista were 3rd part drivers.

A major version is designated by an increment of the digits to the left of the decimal. Thus 10.4 to 10.5 is a minor version. Apple's marketing people wanted your money, so they pretended it was a major version change. They lied. Also, the differences between tiger and leopard are mostly in its bundled apps. This is hardly anything to call a major change. BTW, they lied about the 64bit stuff too. Leopard is the same 32bit kernel as Tiger. They just added some 64bit application support.

Honestly, you might want to consider that the majority of the debate is about whether Vista is better than XP. Since, Microsoft sells both, thats hardly something they are going to feel bad about.

Let me be 100% clear. I use Ubuntu. I like OS X. I like Vista. I think XP is a pile of crap.

Me:

Ignore version numbers - look at the strength of the actual changes. With Leopard, everything worked better, including the bundled apps that are basically part of the OS.
1) Why isn't Leopard worth the money?
2) What did Vista do differently to make it a "major release" and make it worth the money to upgrade from XP?

I'll be clear too: I use Ubuntu on my desktop and OS X on my laptop for daily tasks, and XP for games and netflix. I like all three, and each excel at their own things, but in my opinion overall OS X is the most useful, followed by Ubuntu, then XP (which is great at games and netflix).

3) What is so bad about XP?

Kamujin:

Leopard is a minor version change because there are NOT any really great new features in it. Timemachine is a shadowcopy "me too" and spaces is a "me too" of 20+ year old unix app. If your happy with it, then its worth the money. For me, I like Tiger equally.

Vista has a totally rebuild TCP/UDP stack which is actually faster then earlier versions. The slowness complaints are due the CIFS/SMB issues, not the raw stack. The thread scheduler has been improved to be more fair to processes that spend part of their timeslice resource bound. Vista's thread scheduler is IMO the best out there right now. Vista's shell has been rebuilt and is far less buggy then XP's crash prone version. Vista UAC mode and driver signing requirements bring it in line with other modern OS's in terms of security best practices.
Also, Vista doesn't seems to have XP's tendency to get slower over time. A 1 year old Vista install of mine that I've installed and un-installed dozens of apps too still boots in 25 seconds.

XP is a dog because its horribly insecure, boots a little slower each day and after 3 service packs has a fisher price looking shell that crashes randomly.

Me:

You know what, that's really cool! I didn't know all that about Vista. But for me vista has a pretty big "me too" of them all, introducing Aero and Gadgets to compete with Aqua and Widgets. I'd probably turn aero off (I don't use compiz either) but gadgets seem like they could be cool -- widgets are definitely useful!

I don't have a problem with OSes copying each other as long as it makes them all better.

In the end what really matters is how you personally feel about an OS -- that doesn't deny the problems -- aero still is a resource hog and apple still locks you into their hardware -- but these things matter to people differently. Somebody with an older computer might like XP better because vista doesn't run very well on theirs, and some people (like me) might really get used to Leopard's features so much that going back to tiger feels primitive. But the great thing is, with so many choices, each person can use exactly what they want.

Of course there's still the problem of some software companies and nearly all game developers writing software only for windows, and microsoft and apple are both closed code companies with anti-competitive tendencies. But hey, yesterday Microsoft declared they'd start supporting open office formats, so maybe change is possible :)

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Wow. That was long.