There's definitely a world of difference between Vista and the early iterations of Windows. In the end I prefer OS X's GUI, as it's a bit more subtle on the eyecandy, particularly the transparency. Vista in full-blown mode has way too much IMO.

As for the gadgets. God how I hate those. Dashboard FTW.

I use a PC for work and a Mac at home both have the latest operating systems (Vista and Leopard respectively). The eye candy is pretty much a draw (my preference is for the Mac but beauty is in the eye of the beholder). However, when it comes to stability Vista still acts like a beta. It is the proverbial two steps backwards ... the down grade commercials are true I am going back to XP.

In terms of visual appeal, yes I think Mac has a slight edge, but God knows that there are just as many windows users calling it a mish-mash of nonsensical gui's. I have used both and truthfully, after a while you start to care less about the shiny docks and see through windows and just want the thing to do the jobs you tell it and not crash. So yes in terms of functionality, its a whole different game. Frankly, I think everything runs better on a fresh copy of XP. Start with that, keep it clean and you can have a great business PC experience. I use a laptop running windows XP for school, run AliasStudio, Solidworks, Cinema 4d, and the entire Adobe CS3 suite without a hiccup, so I can say that windows is a solid interface (As long as you aren't stupid about it, check yourself before you wreck yourself). Macs do a good job too, they can't do 3d modelers yet, but the interface is nice, nothing a few XP skins can't fix, but there's nothign wrong with macs either. Its actually like the commercials say, Windows dresses like a gentleman and is a wiz with numbers...not to mention it can run with power under the hood. Windows can do all the art stuff like macs can, its just not in basic point and click gui's. It all depends on the audience. Me, a sophomore in Industrial Design (DAAP represent!) is more than fine with Windows XP for all my work. But someone who has their first computer experience, say a young child or my grandma, or just a casual user who wants to type and look at facebook can get a mac. Flame wars are stupid, stop the Interface on Interface violence!

im a mac fan for life, but for the love of god why cant we have a damn start button. i hate having to open up the hard drive to do stuff, seems so archaic, even though my machine and software are superior in everyway to the ancient windows.

Welcome to fanboy fest 2007. Go ahead show how much of a apple lover you are.

Vista... the reason I'm now a Mac owner.

I've used Windows since 3.1 and swore by it until it became too bloated and unstable to bear. With Mac I've found a much more solid platform and MUCH smoother workflow (have you ever really tried to multitask on-the-fly with Windows?... don't do it if you're doing mission critical stuff). I'll sacrifice dynamic drive partitioning (ala Vista) for reliability and ease-of-use ANY day.

The progression of the Windows interface appears much cleaner and far more logical as compared to that of the Mac OSX user interface.

@sprice82:

Welcome to Envy-boy fest 2007. Go ahead and show how much of an apple hater you are.

@sprice82:

clicking on the finder in the dock is the equivalent of the start button. You don't need to click on the HD. Stop complaining.

I've used all versions of windows starting from 3.1 and loved it, until I discovered the Mac OS X Panther. I've gone mac and I'll never go back. The main thing that reeled me in was the look of the mac os. Now that windows has brought its game up a bit with vista, I'm still in awe by all the new features incorporated into leopard. Vista just seems like a ripoff of the previous versions of Mac OS X.

I've used Mac and Windows for years. Each have there good and bad points. I prefer Windows becasue as a gamer I need customization on my system. If the Mac ever begins to get cheaper and offer better games, I may switch completely. I dual boot between 10.5 and Vista on my HP right now. Love both, but prefer Vista.

I use OS X Leopard and its great I have a lot of problems with XP, I hate the UI, and I find that there are a lot of Stupid decisions (Like turning of your PC with a button labeled Start (I know thats old but it really bugs me)). I have to admit that I quite like Vista, having used a friends PC I can say that its a step in the right direction, but having said that I just installed XP in VMWare because Vista doesn't play the games I want it to.

@MACADDICT21: If you use Tiger, why not put your Home Folder in the dock, that gives you perfect access to all you documents, and if you run Leopard, I would recommend you use Quay ([www.brockerhoff.net]).

Tiger & XP are good working Operating Systems.
Leopard & Vista aren't worth the money/hassle of your familiar programs not working. I'm an early adopter and understand that being on the cutting edge, one might bleed, but most people don't. Along with conveying new features of an OS, a warning should be given as well.

Trust - Difficult to earn, easy to lose.

I prefer my Mac for music, web, widgets, and email. I use my Windows machine for work/school (GIS, database, industry apps). Both have their place. The choice is nice. To be honest, if Mac had GIS software, I'd probably use my Mac for everything. It just "feels good." I don't dislike Vista.

Perhaps owning an iPod has something to do with it. I've actually considered buying a Zune just to mix it up. In the end, does it really matter? If people have a preference for one operating system over another, let them. I'm not gonna ride somebody because they LOVE Windows. Nor am I going to hop on a bandwagon because OS X is the best thing of all time. They both have their place. They are both necessary.

Let's just get along.

Out.

both windows and osx suck, os2 all the way.

ADD, Linux to the mix and lets see what happens..

As to the post about the start button to get places... some useful OS X shortcuts.

Click on the desktop (to give finder focus) and type Command+Shift+A for applications
Click on the desktop and type Command+Shift+C for "Computer Home Directory"
Click on the desktop and type Command+Shift+D for "Computer Home Directory"

And then there is also Quicksilver.. where you can hit CTRL+Space and then start typing the name of what you're looking for...

Or you could use the built in spotlight Command+Space to do the same... works awesome in OS X.

I think your frustration comes with the way Apple has gone away from the logical file structure of the past. Once you learn a way that fits with your psychology then you might be less frustrated.

Good Luck!

I think we can probably all agree that Mac > Windows. Thanks for posting this story so that we could finally clear that up. Can we tackle the console question next, please?

@rsg2003: You don't need to have regret. So long as you got Leopard on your machine, it has dynamic partitioning.

Commad+Shift+d is for desktop sorry for the confusion

Also I think the timeline is missing one big thing...

OS X 10.3, 10.4, 10.4 Universal... all w/o responses from M$.

@leadster618:
Macs are also great for computer science sorts, too--the system is based on BSD/Unix, so most terminal commands work the same as in Linux; fundamentally OSX is the the same as BSD Linuxes, at least in that respect. It has the ability to run a lot of open source softwares with less tweaking (running in x11 compatibility mode), as well as mainstream software releases (ie Photoshop).

That's one of the things that drew me to Mac. That, the high quality of hardware, and the fact that the new releases of the OS were lightweight and stable (10.4 was faster and more responsive than 10.3 on a 500 MHz G3 PowerBook). The hardware's viable for a terribly long time; I expect to keep my three-year-old G5 in running order for another five years, at least.

MacOS was nasty looking, bland and old until OSX. Windows has looks good since Windows 95 (3.1 looked similar to OS9 and older).

Hey, I honestly don't care for this fanboy fight.
I run Linux and Vista on my computer (and i switch back and forth almost daily), and if I had the option, I'd run OSX on it too.

If we really cared about OSes where the UI was in line with the performance and stability, we'd be using RSTS on a PDP-11. Snazzy graphics? Amber VT52.

That was God's Rig when He created the universe.

i agree lafonda, it is almost like there was one section of hardware evolution in the industry that windows knew they could use to make the os a little better to look at, and apple missed it somehow.. all the way to os x. perhaps it was just the nature of their standings at the time, economically speaking.

My desires in an os won't be quenched until it's spawned from the hardware of 42" multitouch ultrathins, eye tracking, and some speech recognition. Until then i'm just watching in anticipation.

@ microsoft fans

if we ever needed anymore proof that mac > windows, please remember how vista copied everything OS X had to offer and MISERABLY failed. last time i checked, no one is downgrading to a previous version of OS X because the new one sucks. have fun downgrading back to XP you poor bastards. astala VISTA bitches!

i think that BOTH systems are not perfect. for example vista: the "start-button, programms, quickrun-icons, taskbar" clutter is still not solved, its too difficult to use and user are fed up with cleaning up and this area start to become digital-messy-land. on the other side: os X "dock" is way too big and too 3dimensional, if you keep it on the screen it is too big, and the new 3d-table look is ugly.

i love mac osx, but mac os9 and below is the biggest steaming pile of crap i have ever used

I use both- and am usually a defender of windows- not so much because I prefer it over macs... but just because i think it unfairly gets a bad rap- and the apple fanboys are such... fanboys. both have their pluses and minuses.

I don't understand it when mac users claim it's so much easier to use than a windows pc- is safari so less confusing than ie/firefox? I think that mac's HIDE things better- novices can't mess things up easier- but I'm never more than two (three at most) clicks away from anything I would want to do.

I hate that graphics tear so much in windows- that's one thing thing Mac guys have taken care of that windows just doesn't seem to get (it's so basic!!) I thought this was going to get taken care of in vista as well?? Can't they just put in parallel the graphics processing output? ... It's just one extra little step that they can shut off when you're not in the windows shell. (at least, i think its that easy...? if not, it should be...)

I love how easy it is to manipulate things in windows. don't get me wrong- i still remember all my BSD lines from way back when- but I'm talking about things like regedit and msconfig. Really mac? I can't turn off dashboard? ... of course I can! just let me get to pulling a few hairs out first... even something like the cursor speed and acceleration! arg...

back to knockin' windows? ... VISTA BROUGHT BACK THE CRASHES... what the? I thought that was a pre XP thing.

macs run xp amazingly well... my thinkpad doesn't run osx. ...

and seeing as how I'm going off anyways.... my thinkpad doesnt have a windows key! i need to reroute my keys to get flip3d working! ... thanks old vestiges of the ibm/m$ rivalry. (although, i heard the lenovo made thinkpads have the wn key now...- should i upgrade?)

what was i talking about again? ...arg...

and yes- i know, macs crash too, i know, not just a windows thing.... but for some reason (with exception to office 2007 which is freaken amazing at recovering data from closes/crashes) i alway seem to lose data when my pc crashes as opposed to the mac.

on the topic of macs crashing... am I the only one who has iphoto crash on me? like.... right after i've done a bunch of tagging- go to another app and then go back?... why does no one talk about this outside the mac help forums? is it a secret that one mac user wants out but will gladly discuss it to other mac users?...

@MacAddict21: Easy there, buddy. While I agree there is some copying between the two, it all depends on how it is implemented :-)

Well, into the fray ... you have much more control over EVERY aspect of the "look and feel" of a windows machine. I pick XP over OS X, but Vista's made me prefer Leopard. Vista's problem isn't it's look (which, unlike the Mac, can be heavily modified), it's the implementation of things like the UAC and it's drag on resources. I personally think the horizontal layout of files for the Mac is archaic, as is the by now tired, tired, battleship grey. But PC or Apple ... give me stability and utility. Leopard delivers on performance and price.

@MacAddict21: Wow. Just...wow.

Personally, I think Vista's aesthetics are much cleaner and unified than OS X. Vista does glass right, and does clever things to make text always readable, no matter what is behind the 'glass'. The current design of the OS X menu bar is abysmal, and the dock is even worse. The dock's forced perspective and screwed up shadows are downright ugly. The way it displays stacks, by default, is useless and gives no information to the user, and the jaunty curve that stacks expand to might look nice, but means you have to scroll in two dimensions just to pick something from a list.

So where are we? Take Tiger and you get an operating system that doesn't know what style to use (brushed metal? stripes? plain?), or upgrade to Leopard and get a poor implementation of just about every key feature to the operating system?

I'll stick with Vista, thanks. It actually displays information in a way that is meaningful and useful, and I just feel more productive using it. Haven't had a system crash yet, either. Not even an explorer shell restart. Did I mention the icons?

I'm buyin a new notebook tomorrow for my sister (she knows her way around xp, but she's not a geek) and I got 2 different choices a macbook and an $600 acer, do you guys it's worth the extra cash and will she handle the transition quickly? she mostly does web related stuff and photoshop and msn messenger. but I just wanna get the feet wet in OSX while she is not using it and maybe change the whole family to mac if it works well. what do you recommend?

xp over osx, but leopard over vista... I agree. I do think Vista is beautiful, but function-wise - it's a nightmare. Not even talking about performance, but the way they reoganized everything was counterintuitive to what people had grown to expect. I would accept the changes if they improved performance, but they slowed things down. Leopard is really pretty and seems to do most of what someone would want to do short of playing video games. To be honest, I'm happy with Ubuntu (what I'm using right now) - it's a little buggy with this laptop and crashes occasionally, but what OS doesn't ever crash? Oh, that's right - Apple *rolls eyes dramatically*

It's a neat little retrospective. The fallacy is that screenshots give us a sense of usability. Moving through the workspace is a very different experience than comparing the looks alone.

The newer OSes look shinier, but are also more obtrusive. System 7 flatness + OS X functionality would be ideal (for me). Enough gumdroppy Fisher Price horseshit!

And yeah, the evolved (say XP era)Start menu is more Mac like than the Dock. It is closer to the old Apple menu that was functional and stayed out of sight unless needed.

Heh, nice call putting OS X Beta up there with Windows ME. I think the most dramatic difference between Vista and Leopard for me is Dock versus Startmenu/Quicklaunch/Taskbar and Dock doesn't even have to try to win. Microsoft really needs to wipe it's ass from the bottom of the screen and replace it something, anything. That said, most of the applications I need to run work on Windows, so it'll stay as my main computer while Mac supports my digital life.

I don't hate at Macs. They are perfectly capable for doing SOME things. But, frankly, I like to do 2 things that are not easily done with a Mac:

1. PLAY GAMES! And I mean NEW games... no "Battlefield 2" 3 years after it's release. I want Crysis, Elder Scrolls, Unreal 3. Just can't do that on a Mac.

2. UPGRADE HARDWARE! I realize that it is possible to upgrade Mac hardware, but there are two problems with it:
1)The hardware is WAYYYYY more expensive
2)It is not easy to get it in the machine. I saw an article titled "13 Easy steps to Install a new processor in your Mac!" On my PC, installing a new card or processor consists of popping the case open, taking the old out, putting the new in, closing the case. 4 steps. THAT is easy.

That's my opinion. I think PCs are better, but that's my personal opinion. I swear, though, with just a little more PC bashing, Gizmodo might as well join Slashdot...

I still like the look of OS 9. Looks functional to me.

Waaa Linux Waaa... oh now that that's out of the way.
All truth be told you won't ever get that "Giant Leap Forward" in UI design because the world has trained itself on how to use the OSes as they've been designed since the days of old. That's why the "categories" view of the Windows Control Panel is so often complained about.

As for the flame war getting a Windows user on Mac requires them to learn that the Apple Logo is almost equivalent to the Start Button and vice versa... explaining menu bars and how to properly perform installations is always a bear and whoever is dominant will always get a bad rap. Everyone hated XP when it launched because a lot of legacy Win32 apps failed in the Win NT environment, and I'm sure that many more Apple fans would have been unhappy had the Classic OS been axed at OS X's debut.

Apple prefers to launch a New OS instead of releasing service packs so they have more iterations and opportunities to shine it up, but if the Mac OS ever becomes dominant there will be fanboys who detract from it as much as current Apple fans detract from Windows (some of the old computer guys still do).
Thanks for the side by side Gizmodo it's funny how so little has changed. Oh and as for your side bar (Vista) and Widgets (OSX Dash) you can both thank Win 98 SE with Internet Explorer 4.0 for web apps that always run and consume resources!
Have a nice day! :-)

@arashi: I find nearly everyone I work with has the opposite sentiment: the Dock is broken from a usability standpoint (icons have no accompanying description unless you hover on them, stack icons show nothing of what is inside the stack, scrolling over icons makes their neighbouring icons move (counterintuitive), the whole bouncing thing....I could go on and on and on)

The Taskbar needs an update, but its gloriously simple and effective, and it displays information well both pictorially and with text.

@Soulxside: Though, yes, they've reorganized things in Vista compared to XP, nothing is counterintuitive. The Control Panel is still task oriented by default, making it easy to find what you want to do. The clean way the Start Menu operates now, without a branching tree that takes you all over the screen is even more intuitive: you know exactly where the next list is going to display. Performance-wise, obviously I can't speak on everyone's behalf, but performance isn't really an issue in Vista outside of a couple frames per second in games. It's fast and responsive on a relatively recent computer. Even moreso than XP, due to it's vastly superior memory handling.

There really isn't a feature I've seen of Vista that I would consider a step down from XP. Okay, one: theyve removed the Filmstrip view from explorer, which was a very nice way to scan through photos.

Well, as a long dyed in the tooth Mac user I am obviously biased but I have to say that using Vista is at last a reasonable visual pleasure, (albeit because they have tried to make it look and behave like a Mac!) - I wish I could say the same for it's functionality. It still behaves like a beta, with many peripherals not recognised and hugely over-protective warning messages ALL THE TIME! The Mac still leads the pack. However, as an OS I believe that Linux is the true way forward.

To each his own I always say. I guess that why I use Windows, Mac and Linux. It's nice to be familiar with all the OS's. They each have their good and bad points. I'd probably spend more time with Linux if the wireless networking was a little less flakey. Mind you it's better with the latest build of Ubuntu but it's still not 100% yet.

@topcatticus:

Windows
- Start menu is relatively slow to use and needlessly complicated entity. I think it's good concept to have such a hub around, but forcing users to open it all the time is just s