Operating System Stagnation
Let's take a look at Windows for a moment. It began with 1.X, 2.X, and 3.X versions. Then came Windows 95, Windows 98/ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. That's seven versions of the consumer product, by my count.
Now, Windows Vista (the upgrade to XP announced in late 2002) has shed key features and will be more than two years late, leaving no shortage of businesses out in the cold on guaranteed upgrade contracts. This, in itself, is not anything terribly interesting, but let's look at the #2 commercial OS.
The Macintosh ran System 1 through System 7 before charting an aggressive course with Copland (that's a long "o," people), which was to be an OS with what would have been a stunning feature set for its time. It was even to have Yellow Box and Blue Box, two distinct hardware compatibility layers that would have allowed the operating system cross-platform compatibility.
Copland, running far behind schedule, was scrapped, and only a few of the GUI features saw the light of day in MacOS 8. Though 8 was a tremendous improvement over 7.5.3, much of that was due to the perception of users who had waited years past the original due date of the upgrade.
Here's the connection: both operating systems had seven clean upgrades. The eighth was the killer and ran into technical difficulties that resulted in dropped features and lost time. This in-between time (the System 7/MacOS 8 trasnitional era) was also the period in which Apple's market share plummeted from the 20% mark to the sub-5% mark.
Now we are seeing a similar effect. After seven versions of the operating system, Windows is dropping features and running years behind schedule.
I can see no reason that, given the differences in the times and the technology, this should happen, but it is there: seven version and trouble. Apple didn't fully recover until it's tenth version. In Apple's case, the change required a complete reworking of the OS because the underlying technology had reached its limits. This may well be part of the problem MS is facing. We'll see with Vista and its next two successors.
posted by Andrew Purvis @ 11:02 PM
15 Comments:
But, but xp is based on win 2000 which is based on win nt.
Which means that they are are struggling at the 4th upgrade rather than the 8th.
Teh majic number is 4, there!
At least it's clear that wasn't meant to be taken seriously. After all, 2.x was based on 1.x, right? Of course, all operating systems are based on basic math and logic, and logic is a branch of philosophy. Thus, both MS and Apple are really working on minor upgrades to Socrates.
*Hands Gates a glass* Trust me, Bill, it's an all-natural extract.
And there wouldn't have been no Socrates without the brilliant discovery of fire.
So really, they're working on fire starting technology. Ugha Ugha Awwwww.
Main point --> Microsoft Sucks. But, is Apple better? I know what you'd say Herr Purvis.
Your question regarding the relative merit (or lack thereof) of Apple and MS leaves a great deal of specificity to be desired.
How would you rate them each in terms of business ethics? R&D (innovation)? corporate culture? product quality? product price/performance? marketing?
I think that from a business perspective it is telling that Apple is higher in the Fortune 500 than MS, has more cash reserves, and has had both of those conditions met now for close to a decade. Apple, according to one recent survey of the world's most innovative companies (CEOs responded) was tops. In the computer industry, HP was next, followed by MS (7th overall, if I recall correctly). Google got bumped from the top spot in the world's most recognizable brand ratings when Apple took the crown last year.
But despite all of that, how is your question different that asking whether Ducati or BMW is better in high-end performance motorcycles? I have goals in mind when I look to using a computer. First among those goals is stable productivity. My machine doesn't crash. This is good, and it allows me to get things done.
I am also looking for a user experience (which goes far beyond pretty icons), and Apple more closely approximates what I want in a user experience than MS ever has (and based on the Vista screen shots, possibly ever will).
I want software that does, without fail, what I want, when I want. If I were a hardcore computer gamer, I would probably be on Windows right now, but I want a fast, secure browser; multiple productivity options (I have three productivity suites on this machine, and two of them were free while the other was a 3-seat license for $150); simple, powerful email that doesn't make me worry.
These and other reasons—often seemingly little things—are why I prefer Apple products. Neither the company nor its product line is perfect. Apple just delivers what I am looking for. MS delivers many things I'd rather avoid. DOES Microsoft suck? I wouldn't trust them with my life, and, given the choice, with my money, either. Repeated cases have shown MS to be a bad corporate citizen. I don't shop at Wal•Mart, for many of the same reasons.
Good Answer!
My question differs indeed from your motorcycle analogy. We're not talking about high-end-performance machines. Rather we're talking about run of the mill consumer products, like say washing machines.
As such, my problem with Apple machines is cost. Apple is a little more reliable and a lot more stylish at an expected extra cost.
Style is nice, but does it really matter whether you wash your clothes in style?
I love Apple's style. That said, I have never purchased a computer with style as a factor in the decision. That may not be true for everyone, but I would not pretend to speak for the world of Mac users.
To extend your washing machine example, though, I would say this: I want the clothes I put in to be clean when I am done. I want the machine working when I am done. I want all of my clothes back when I am done. What you call "a little more reliable" is enough to make me willing to pay at least 50% more than Apple charges. BSOD? not in this household.
Again, though, it's more the little things. We can bicker about reliability or what is now a relatively small price difference (especially considering the relative upgrade cycles). Sunshine, for instance, just today was going on about how much she loves command-shift-4 (sometimes I go for the quicker command-shit-3), so I told her about option-command-shift-4 (works with 3, too). This has been built into the Mac OS for a loooong time. What, you ask, is it? Screenshot (the "3" versions do the whole thing, and the "4" versions allow you to select a rectangle). Throw in the option key, and it doesn't make a file, just puts it into the clipboard.
Want to grab an image from online? drag it from your browser. Want to insert a filename (or many)? drag the icon from its location into a file or the menubar icon of an opened file into another opened file (dragging to a destination saves the file). Want to clip text? select it and drag it to its destination (copied into a file or clipped into its own).
There are many more. It may even be that some of these have become standard in Windows, though if they have, it has only been more recently. I like being able to select multiple files and double-click any one to open all. I love searchable metadata. I love being able to connect to a printer, a camera, a scanner, or any other device and just have it work. Period. I like being able to connect to a network in less time than it takes to find a TV show worth watching (OK, to be fair, even Windows can do that, though it says more about the state of TV programming than anything).
Study after study has shown that keyboard shortcuts almost always take less time and generate fewer errors than do mouse actions. Apple's HIG ensures that any core app I pick up will use the key combinations that I already know—have known since I first used a Mac. If there is cause for a premium, the above listed makes up a significant portion of it. For me.
So, you’re willing to pay at least 50% more for Apple. Does that show Apple’s merit or your obsessive values? The price difference, though trivial to you, has been too much for me, while I remain unimpressed by shortcuts that enthrall Sunshine and the trivial things you mentioned below. Ms mice have two buttons to Apple's one. Do I go on about that?
Where do you get "at least 50% more"? Have you ever done a real comparison? I just went to the Dell website, but sadly I found bare bones systems listed for laptops. Wow! I I haven't heard that specious, unresearched claimin a while.
I did a price comparison inlaptops just now using Dell and Apple. For machines with comparable processors, I looked at hard drive capacity, video cards, memory, optical drives, and included software. For a price difference of $75, Dell offers the same hard drive, a step up in video card capacity, more RAM, the same optical drive, and no software. I don't play any games that require the video card I have in this machine, much less the ones in those two, but OK. The RAM is nice, but I will be able to buy that with the only a touch over the $75 less that Apple charges. So for about the same price, I can have essentially the same machine, excpect that the Dell lacks software.
Where, again, is the higher Apple price?
On to your mouse comment. UNIX uses a 3-button mouse. Woop-de-doo. I will get a 2-button or 3-button mouse if I want one (Sunshine plugs in a 2-button mouse when she wants to use it). Then again, I have the same capabilities on my machine as your 2-button system. No, I don't need to hold down a key. Thus, my trackpad has the same functionality as your two-button system. I can't say I have much use for the "right-click" functionality, and more often than not, I can perform the same functions with keyboard shortcuts in less time than it takes a Windows user to right-click and select the proper menu item, so from an efficiency standpoint, I remaiin unimpressed.
Please try arguments that have some substance.
I think I struck a sensitive spot Senor Purvis. I got 50% from your previous post. Quoting Andrew:
"What you call "a little more reliable" is enough to make me willing to pay at least 50% more than Apple charges."
My argument does have more substance then you read into it. That is that all the things that enthrall Sunshine and tickle you are as trivial as the two button mouse. Yet I don't go on about the greatness of that second button.
Your price comparison is conveniently distorted in your favor, one can easily get cheaper and better machines than from Dell online, while the same is not true of Apple.
Did you read the passage you quoted? I said I was willing to pay more THAN Apple charges, not the more THAT Apple charges. This means that if I pay $1,000 for a Mac, I would be willing to pay %1,500 or more for the features I am getting. You really can't chalk this one up to obscurity: the letters are quite nootably different.
You also point out that the things I list are trivial. I said as much repeatedly. I also pointed out that they are things that improve the experience of Mac users and allow us to do things that Windows can't do, or at least that they can't do as efficiently. Trivial, individually, yes. As a set of, quite literally dozens of features, however, they are tremendous. Go ahead and joke about a feather, but get hit by a ton of feather, and it still hurts.
It also seems that you have missed my point. Your two-button mouse is cosmetic, at best. Of the four Macintoshes in our home, only one does not have its own ready access to two-button functionality. Actually, the old desktop machine has a three-button mouse with application-aware behavior.
You can go on, you see, about the two-button mouse. In the end, I will have to ask that you explain why that is a "feature," as it is certainly not a difference in functionality. That would be like my saying that my having glasses is better than your not having them. You can get glasses, too. (Oh, please, try to show me how that is inaccurate, especially when you fail to comprehend how two-button behavior is already built into the Mac.)
Your phrase "conveniently distorted" suggests, to my mind, a deliberate attempt. Dell sells more Windows boxes than anyone else. People buy them, and if their prices are so incredibly out of line, there must be some compensation, right? Oh, wait, but should you answer that satisfactorily, you might explain why people buy Macs, too.
Clearly, however, you were not talking about the Lenovo Thinkpad series they have precisely one laptop under $2,000 that even comes close to matching the stats on the two I mentioned before. If I look at Lenovo's cheapest laptop offer, which is the same price as the machine I am using to leave this comment, I find that I have a better graphics card and lighter weight, though a slightly smaller screen. Once more, it's close.
Gateway seems to have lower prices, but the quality is suspect. The repair rates, customer service, and hardware compatibility workarounds that come with Gateway tend to keep me from considering them as a viable contender when discussing quality. Some may say they have had great experiences with Gateway boxes, but industry data puts the company at the bottom of the heap and losing money.
HP is perhaps the only laptop manufacturer of Windows machines that uses industry-standard hardware and software. HP also bundles software, but not at the base price. By the time you throw together all of the pieces to bring it up to the standards of the comparison of my earlier post, the price doesn't even have the same number of digits as given in the TV ads.
I am sure you can find still cheaper laptops, but you really should have paiid attention when Apple, a couple years back, slashed prices on every model by a couple hundred dollars, bringing it almost in line with the Windows side, before factoring in bundled software.
Abuse is really not necessary, especially because I read carefully and understood correctly: if Apple charged 50% more, you’d pay it. I expressed it as: “you’re willing to pay at least 50% more for Apple.”
How you arrived at the interpretation that “Apple is charging 50% more” is beyond me. Maybe you’re lashing out at me for calling your values obsessive, for saying that Apple’s thingies enthrall Sunshine and tickle you. Maybe I committed blasphemy by comparing Apple to a washing machine. But to go back to the issue at hand, my question still stands,…mmm unanswered. Does your statement show Apple’s merit or your obsessive values? I vote for obsessive values, … and Apple tickles them.
“Conveniently distorted” should imply first a distortion and second that the distortion favors your opinion,… conveniently. Rather than suggesting deliberate action, convenient suggests inaction, meaning that you wouldn’t go out and search for the best price just to disprove yourself. But nonetheless, top brand Wintel machines can be had for say 4/5 of online list cost, one just has to dig, while Apples have a standard price.
The line "you’re willing to pay at least 50% more for Apple" is not the same as my saying that I am "willing to pay at least 50% more than Apple charges." For someone who has chastized me for clarity, you should be careful with that. The former (your words) implies 50% more than something other than Apple, not 50% more than Apple charges for its current product line. My intention, furthermore, was not to be abusive. Your language suggested an gross misinterpretation, and later misrepresentation, of my original comment.
To answer your original question, which you will note is a false dichotomy, it demonstrates that Apple pays attention to design details that have real value to users who want them. If this were about "tickling" customers, these would be useless little doohickeys, but I use these many features on a weekly basis, and some on a daily basis. Why would I, given a choice, opt to use an operating system that does not provide me with functionality that saves me time?
You can characterize these things however you want, though I know your experience with Macs is far more limited than my experience and training with Windows (yes, I have formal Windows NT Server training and more than a decade of experience with Intel boxes, including DOS and every version of Windows from 2.x through XP).
As for your defense of "conveniently distorted," you should have considered, I might suggest, using another word than "conveniently." I never professed to have gone out in search of the lowest prices. I can also save hundreds of dollars on Macs. I guess you "conveniently" left out the discount reseller, huh? Have you considered—and I must ask since you didn't take it up earlier—the upgrade cycles of the two platforms? The average lifespan of a WinTel box purchased in order to meet the user's needs at the time, is around two years. Check with The Gartner Group and others for more details on that. They routinely write reports that are available, at least in excerpt, via such places as wired.com, osviews.com, and macslash.org. I am sure there are other places you can find such stories, but those are the web sites I read with some regularity. These same studies show about a three-year upgrade cycle for Mac users. Unless my math is really off, you need to have a comparable machine at 2/3 the cost of a Mac to break even at those rates.
You have still left one thread hanging. How do you value the bundled software? Every major reseller of Windows boxes that has lower priced machines also bundles relatively little software at the base price. My brother, on his Mac, wanted the ability to edit movies and burn them to DVD with professional menus. The only software available to Windows users that will match the capabilities of what comes free on a Mac starts at $800. People who want to develop software for Windows may shell out thousands for the development tools. Apple supplies them for free. Want to make a PDF of some document you are viewing? Windows users need to pay for that functionality. Want access to the entire Oxford American dictionary? Write a check for three figures. Want to use professional-quality music creation software, just like Trent Reznor? Shell out around $1,000. Want system-wide text-to-speech that really works? You're looking at close to $100. Yes, I actually use some of that. I use enough, in fact, to more than make up for the basic price that too many people "conveniently" fail to understand.
I don't mind that you make your snide comments regarding how enamored Sunshine and I (and many others) are of the features of the MacOS, but please, don't criticize my research when you know significantly less about my side of the debate than I do of yours.
Regarding the two-button mouse:
http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/
'nuff said.
OMIGOD
OMIGOD
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