Ed Bott makes an excellent point about playing favorites (from: Marc Orchant)
http://microsoft.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000710041724/
I listened to Walter Mossberg’s review of the new Mac OS X release this morning on Audible.com and I was surprised -shocked might be a better word - to hear him claim that the “best and most advanced operating system on themarket” that leaves Windows XP “in the dust” experiences repeated delays in everyday tasks like running its built-ine-mail program. Delays, by the way, that did not exist in the previous version of the operating system.
As Ed points out, imaine what the reaction would be if this operating system update had been relased “by a companythat was located further north?”
I’m not trolling for Mac flamers here. I use a G5 every day and love OS X. It has the most carefully crafted userinterface I’ve ever used and is incredibly stable. But Apple has been developing a nasty habit of shipping known flawsand then fixing them after the fact. The Mac Mini problems with VGA monitors and the Java break in the last OS updateto Panther are the latest examples.
I’d like to see the playing field be a bit more level. Either cut Micorosft a break for Windows’ flaws orstop forgiving Apple for OS X’s. All software is flawed - no matter how rigorously it’s tested. To make astatement like Mossberg did this morning is just wrong. It’s apologism of the worst sort.
Look… it’s not like it’s any secret that Mossberg likes the Mac and OS X. So do I. But let’s have a little morebalance and credibility in reporting.
P.S. John Siracusa does his usual fine jobreviewing Mac OS X Tiger at Ars Technica. As he points out, there’s a lot to like both in the new stuff you can see andthe “behind the curtain” stuff you can’t. But there are also a number of very curious and decidedly un-Apple-like UIdecisions in Tiger that he raises, especially with Mail and Spotlight. I’ve had a couple of very interesting exchangesthe past two days with a number of Mac users who think I’m either attacking Mac OS X Tiger (I’m not) or defendingWindows XP (not doing that either) in this post.
I’m looking forward to Tiger every bit as much as I have every preceding release of the Mac OS and will install itonce I am certain it won’t break the critical application I run on my G5 (a web analytics server). So one more time -what Ed and I are talking about it reporting, not operating systems.
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