this is why I think Microsoft will win in the long run if they manage to offer quality materials w/1st party hardware - Apple just doesn't understand software QA. Nor do they care. It would be kind of comical if it wasn't so sad.
I'm running Windows 8.1 on my Macbook Air and I really enjoy it. I might get a Mac mini for dev work, but I'm strongly considering whatever version of the Surface Pro is out in a year or two during my next hardware refresh. 10.6' is small, but 90% of the time I'm at a desk with an external monitor.
Microsoft has won the desktop OS war for a long time, they're not in any danger of losing it any time soon. I'm honestly considering grabbing the upcoming third generation Surface Pro because of Apple's mistakes.
Apple's QA has gone down the crapper since they've kept switching teams between iOS/OS X. I've been with them for a long time, they were reliable, especially up to Snow Leopard. At that time, Microsoft pissed me off with bad releases such as Me and Vista. XP was kinda ok but not enough to take me away from OS X. W7 was great but again, not enough to convince me.
Apple's messy Lion, ML, and iOS 7.0 releases are what's pulling me away, not Windows.
I have less problems with Windows 8.1 in a VM than I do with Mavericks on my rMBP. I'm putting aside the design issues with Windows. I'm very impressed with what Microsoft has done in terms of producing a very quick and lightweight OS, especially if you just use the desktop mode all the time in Windows 8.1. It is noticeably light on RAM, CPU, and everything.
I can no longer say that OS X is better. It is just heavier, bloated, and slightly slower with all the animations involved. I do see many instabilities in the last two years starting with Lion, especially on rMBPs. Mavericks was a good release. I'm hoping they'll do a better job with 10.10 but there's only so much I can put up with.
This !
I just don't understand why Apple is so bad with software quality in general. I mean they're able to create some of the systems with the highest user experience available, but in general terms of general software quality they're really awful.
Bugs don't get fixed for ages, features that work on one platform (i.e. Exchange integration on iOS) don't work on another platform (OSX) and nobody knows anything about when, how and if things will get fixed.
I mean c'mon, we can't use our Macs in a corporate environment without SMB, and all other OS-platforms are able to deliver this feature, why is it so difficult for a company that's sitting on a huge stack of money to fix this ?
Microsoft is so much better in terms of platform reliability and enterprise support.
Like one guy already say, it has nothing to do with money. You can't throw money at a problem and expect it to be fixed.
You need a lot of reliable and quality software engineers to work together in a harmony.
Apple's constantly switching teams between OS X and iOS development is not helping them, it's causing the problem. They need to start hiring more folks, they're too slow at everything.
Microsoft is already catching up very quickly in producing annual releases, better ones too. Their WP 8.1 release is very impressive and the work they're doing on Windows 8.1 Update 1 and upcoming one is great. This is the area where Apple needs to catch up.
Don't even get me started on Apple's work with crappy web services.
