Last night I installed Mac OS X on my laptop (which is a PC). It involved a bit of tweaking and I had to short circuit two pins on the VGA port with a paperclip to get it to boot, but it worked. In fact, it worked almost perfectly except for the built in wi-fi card. I played around with it for 15 minutes and then the novelty wore off, so I blew OS X away and replaced it with the latest build of Windows Vista.
In two words: I'm impressed. Vista is long overdue and has been getting tons of bad press lately, so I expected to hate it, but I don't. Not at all. I really, really like it. The installer is fast, pretty, and simple compared to previous Windows installers and even compared to the OS X installer. I didn't have to configure any of my hardware; Vista detected everything and booted up looking and sounding perfect. The Aero visual theme is slick and clean looking, albeit just a tad sluggish due to my laptop's unimpressive video card.
There are little annoyances here and there (the useless "security" dialogs come to mind), but they're outweighed by the vast improvements that have been made in the UI. I'm still getting used to the idea of replacing menus with ribbon bars, but in most places it really does seem to simplify things. I'm not sure I like them better than menus, but I think they've got potential. I'm a lot more enthusiastic about other changes, such as the new Start Menu. I also really like the new Explorer UI; it's quite possibly the best file manager I've ever used.
In short, Mac OS X was nice and all, but Vista won me over. I may even like it enough to buy it when it's released. That would be a first.
Comments
Ok
Now you've convinced me to install it.
That's Just Lame
There's a 'rightness' about OSX which is especially nice on a PB or the Mini. Don't ask me why. It just works fantastically well.
The only fly in the ointment is the Finder, well, it's sometimes sucky. Even CUPS works right for fricks sake. How can you not like a working CUPS!!!
Yeah, I'll give Vista a try, but it's only a gaming box, and only because I can't install OSX on it, legally, and usefully.
Re: That's Just Lame
It wasn't the Bovinity image and it wasn't unstable (once I got it running). I don't really have anything against OS X. I liked it. It was nice. It just didn't rock my world or anything. Vista came perilously close to rocking a world perilously close to mine, and I like it better because I'm more comfortable with Windows.
Believe me, if Vista hadn't been an improvement over XP, I would have hauled my arse down to the Apple Store forthwith.
Try it for more than 15 minutes
The real beauty of OS X becomes apparent three months down the road, when you're trying to do something you've never done before, and you go to the most logical place it might be, and it's there, and it works.
re: Try it for more than 15 minutes
I am afraid I must concur with the learned poster above. :P The whole 'making sense' thing was what really earned my loyalty.
Long-term usability of OS X
On the other hand, CUPS, spotlight, spaces, expose, and most of the Apple software suite are brilliant. Were it not for the expense, I'd probably buy a Mac myself.