...and still is to some degree, even though it doesn't seem much different from Leopard. So what went wrong? Windows 7 RC had much fewer problems when compared to Vista.
Think about it. Apple spent as much time on Snow Leopard as it did on its other OSes, except all the changes are "under the hood" this time. Apple basically rewrote the OS in preparation for the future. "Under the Hood" is where all bugs come from. It doesn't matter if there aren't many additional visible features; what matters is the code itself, which is used to run the OS and all its features.
Windows 7 on the other hand, is more or less a patched up Vista. They focused on fixing all what gave Vista a bad reputation, and got rid of a lot of unnecessary junk, but did not try to fix what was not broken. That's why even at its beta stages, it was much more stable than Vista.
That's my explanation. Snow Leopard and Windows 7 had different purposes. One was preparing for the future, while the other was making up for an embarrassment.
Think about it. Apple spent as much time on Snow Leopard as it did on its other OSes, except all the changes are "under the hood" this time. Apple basically rewrote the OS in preparation for the future. "Under the Hood" is where all bugs come from. It doesn't matter if there aren't many additional visible features; what matters is the code itself, which is used to run the OS and all its features.
Windows 7 on the other hand, is more or less a patched up Vista. They focused on fixing all what gave Vista a bad reputation, and got rid of a lot of unnecessary junk, but did not try to fix what was not broken. That's why even at its beta stages, it was much more stable than Vista.
That's my explanation. Snow Leopard and Windows 7 had different purposes. One was preparing for the future, while the other was making up for an embarrassment.