A little background...
OK, I'm a Mac user. If you've read any of my previous posts, you know that. But I'm a fairly recent "switcher." For 20 years, I was a DOS/Windows user. I still have a couple Windows systems running here, one with WinXP, the other Win7. The Win7 system (a 17" Toshiba Satellite) still gets some day to day usage, while the XP system (an Acer Netbook) is only still maintained because I installed the Steem Engine (an Atari ST emulator) on it, and intend to one day get 'round to trying to try to fiddle with Atari software.
I feel I had good reason to switch. I bought the above mentioned Toshiba brand new, and made good use of it on a project I was working on. However, I'd always wanted to try a Mac, so I finally talked myself into getting an older used system. That way, if I hated it, I wouldn't be out the proverbial "arm & leg." Little did I know...
The system I bought was a then 6 year old, 1.5 Ghz, G4 "Aluminum" Powerbook. Two GB RAM, and an 80 GB hard drive, running OS 10.4 Tiger. (I went for the latter after a good bit of research on this thing Apple called "Classic," as I wanted to run older Mac software that I could pick up around the Net.) What an eye-opener it was.
I know it's a blinding cliché, but the Mac... Well, when a six year old computer runs circles around a brand new system... What can I say? I mean, I liked the Toshiba. It was a nice system. And I still have to admit that Win7 was a quantum jump over its Windows predecessors. But... I likened using Win7 to dancing with an elephant. In fact, "elephantine" was the best word to describe it. It took forever to boot. A couple of us on the project had newToshiba's running Win7, and it became a standard joke about the unending update sessions that would tie up the system, usually involving reboots. ("Please do not shut off your system. Windows is installing X of 50 updates...") And, bluntly put, the interface was ugly. It had all the appeal of the finest of Cold War East German design. (One could almost hear a faux German voice intoning "Vherrrh-y Nhiiice!" every time you hit the START button...)
In contrast... Well, you know the story. The Mac just damn well worked. Tiger was clean, fast, efficient. Everything just made sense. The transition from working with Windows to working with OS X was utterly painless, unlike switching from one version of Windows to another.
And, yeah, you DO know the story... I will never willingly go back to using Windows. In the words of writer and VP of IT, Steve Watkins on Low End Mac, "I have the radical belief that my computer should work for me."
Now, with all that out of way, back to the Edwards article. I'm not surprised that Win8 is a bit of a farrago. Not surprising at all. Microsoft is going down the same path that Apple is heading down with its OS 10.8 Mountain Lion operating system, only in a more shoddy fashion. I don't like the "tablet-ization" of operating systems that's currently the rage. But... What can you do?
But what really appalls me about this article is not the commentary on/about the the OS. It is what's in the comment section. The vitriol of the commenters is...well, disgusting. Now, I'm not saying that pro-Mac people can't go far, far over the edge in some of their "commentary," but the Windows fanatics...? Come on! This just stuns me, the level of almost violent rhetoric.
C'mon guys! It's a computer operating system! I use what I use, you use what you use. I have my reasons for using what I do. I assume you have your reasons for using what you use. I may disagree with you, and obviously you would disagree with me.
Why don't we all let it go, and get back to using our computers?
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