Story: As the Mac turns 20, has the PC caught up?

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The Devil's in the details with Windows.

Yes, the broad strokes have been copied by Windows -- and there have even been some good ideas that came out of Windows from time to time which Apple has borrowed, themselves. But, there is so much more attention and care placed by the engineers and designers at Apple to their systems (hard and software) that, if you've used both for a sufficient amount of time (and, we're talking Mac OS X, NOT System 6, for God's sake), the benefits of the Mac platform emerge.

What also becomes evident is that Apple and Microsoft have different priorities when creating their products: Apple thinks about YOUR interests: the end-user. Microsoft thinks for themselves and THEIR interests. The most important aspect of Longhorn's "Trustworthy Computing Initiative" (or whatever even more arcane term they renamed it to at Winhec, last year) will be whether or not Microsoft can trust YOU with their intellectual property (i.e.: is this version of Longhorn legal?)

Beyond this anti-piracy issue, Apple's OS and applications WORK TOGETHER so much better than what is available on the Windows platform, that this refined design does impact positively on one's productivity. One example is Panther's Exposé function is deceptively deep and has improved the way I work -- and that's not taking into account the truly wonderful integration within Apple's iLife media application suite. And iSync. And Rendezvous. And .Mac. And more.

Combine the benefits of Apple's design mandate with the fact that OS X is more secure and less attacked (those are TWO different and valid aspects, people), and you have a far more productive and easier workflow, a platform that -- more than Windows ever will be -- is more robust and stable (I'm still running Mac OS X, updated since 10.1.x -- no reinstalls), is fun to use and looks a lot better than that Fisher-Price reject of a GUI, XP's Luna (notice that cosmetics are virtually a footnote in my post?).

Oh, and let's not forget the iTunes Music Store, a triumph in a field of commerce left for dead by everybody; a hopeless situation being shown the way by the light of Steve Jobs tenacious drive (that wasn't too over-the-top, was it? I bet that the copycat music stores wouldn't think so). How the entire "musical ecosystem" of iTunes Music Store/iTunes app/iPod works is another excellent example of how Apple "gets it"; how technologies should work together to result in easier and faster end-user experience.

As for your article, Matt, it was interesting to read of those early days of the Mac Plus and how it was superior to DOS, but you gave extremely short shrift to what Apple has pulled off over the past scant five years, leaving an imbalance in your myopic look backwards. Hopefully, my post here will serve to correct your vision.

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