I like how alot of you claim that Microsoft steals all of "Apple's" innovations, let me tell you a little thing. Apple's OS is based on a GNU distro of Unix, Apple has since then given nothing back to the open source community from there OS. A majority of the apps in OS X are all purchased and or ripped from small time developers. Is this wrong? NO! Why re-invent the wheel? Are you telling me if Ford comes out with a new power steering tomorrow that requires no power steering pump no one else in the industry will try and mimic this? Its competition get over it.
First, OS X is based on BSD, not GNU (are you talking about the legendary Hurd? Or are you talking about Linux, which really has nothing to do with Gnu other than that it uses the Gnu toolset generally?). It ships with the BSD toolset along with a handful of gnu tools (gcc obviously; several others).
As for a majority of apps in OS X being bought or ripped off of smaller developers, I'd like to see some accounting of that. I can see iTunes 2.0 having that claim (although iTunes 7 can no longer claim that it is primarily or even substantially the code bought for iTunes 1). iPhoto? iCal? Mail? Spotlight? Expose?
Yes, as in all industries one maker will build off the advances of another maker. That's good for everyone. However, when one maker tends to do nothing more than incremental improvements over the other while the other makes leapfrog advances (Cocoa, Core Video, Quartz Extreme, etc), well, that first maker is open for ridicule as nothing more than a copycat.
I can tell you right now, Vista is a great OS. It is what XP should of been and more. The GUI is more then enough, what the hell more do you need, do you guys just sit and open and close apps to watch the effects instead of using them to get work done? The developer tools are amazing and years ahead of any other os. The longhorn server / Vista features are again outstanding, have a look for yourself. Windows update actually works, no more issues with drivers it finds 99% of everything.
I am very glad that Vista is an improvement over XP. XP was a huge improvement over Windows 9x (Me was an abomination so I'm not going to mention it further). The thing is: after five years, the features don't seem substantially better than what we've gotten with multiple Mac OS X releases over the same time period. It appears to have caught up with Tiger, at long last.
The things that scare me about Windows are the "Genuine Advantage" bits (I don't need Microsoft re-validating my licensing on a weekly basis, especially as it has a record of getting the answer wrong far too often) and the general usage restrictions (I can not move a bought copy of Vista to more than one computer, ever).
You mention developer tools. Is Microsoft now shipping Visual Studio free with Vista? I wasn't aware of that. As a full-time developer on both platforms, I appreciate the extras built into Visual Studio (although I don't like how recent versions have become significantly slower and more burdensome from release to release). Still, I really like the XCode/CHUD tools for fast, fun development, so much so that for the past two years I've done all my primary development in XCode and then ported back over to Visual Studio for Windows validation.
That having been said, when the developer tools cost many hundreds of dollars, they can hardly be said to be a factor for the majority of users.
All I am saying is try it out, and it is not as expensive as you think
www.newegg.com and grab yourself an OEM version for $149 - $199....
If you like macs thats fine, but don't bash something you know nothing about.
Good advice. Do know, however, that OEM copies are absolutely, 100% tied to the motherboard on which they were first installed, and offer no tech support from MS if you find you need it. So, if you get a new Mac or Dell you'll have to buy the OS again. Still, the non-OEM version only allows one transfer to another box over its lifetime, and costs twice as much, so no big difference. Just realize that what you're getting for $149 from Microsoft is not the same as what you might be used to, and you'll have to re-buy for the next machine you purchase as well.
1 $129 version approach. Oh yeah, I forgot about the family pack for $199. Still, that's nowhere near as confusing as Microsoft's 20 different versions of Vista.
