Is there a Way Windows could be Argued to be better than the Macintosh OS?
When fans of the Apple computer experience go after Windows users and rib them for being faceless consumers of a mass-produced product (think of the "I am a PC" and "I am a Mac" ads for instance), Windows users more often than not seem to collectively just hang their heads in shame and go on the defensive for why they had to choose the inferior product. I wish they wouldn't; there really are areas where the Windows user experience can validly lay claim to some superiority; and they are ares that count. Let's look at some of my favorite Macintosh OS X gripes, and see if these add up to a valid case against the Mac.
Let's start with the gaming experience on the Macintosh. It's not fair to say that Macs don't game; it's just that the Macintosh OS platform doesn't really sit well with the latest and greatest in the world of gaming. For instance, if you go out and buy the latest souped-up Radeon with dual GPU's and a huge heatsink, how do you suppose you're going to get it into the case on a Mac Pro? Many games like Crysis, Macs will trail behind PCs on. There's just no way you can get the speed and the graphics quality of the PC.
OS X fans have lots of good things to say about how a Mac is ready to go out of the box with its iLife package. But lots of people would rather be counted out of the out-of-the-box experience. Entourage, compared to Outlook, to many users, is an annoying experience. It isn't customizable, and the interface often seems unreliable. iCal has no week view; iPhoto doesn't work as well as Picasa for many, and moving iTunes from the PC to the Mac is an exercise in frustration. Or how about the amazing variety of software and hardware that is available to you at any store that sells PC components. Certainly, Macintosh hardware is top notch, but it is priced for it; with a PC though, you have options for people who have two coins to rub together (but not much more), for people who wantsomething reasonable in a third PC for the rec room, as well as for the people who want the real high end stuff.
Macintosh OS X has a healthy open source movement - there are a couple of tools you can download for lots of things. However, if you are just coming over from the Windows environment, you'll find slim pickings for free software anywhere. It makes a lot of sense - nine out of ten computers run Windows; if you were a software programmer, which platform would you program for? My final bone of contention is for security. You probably think I have nothing to say here - the Macintosh OS has been virus free (and famously so) for a long time. There's a different way to look at this - the Windows platform has a half million cases of malware floating around. The Mac may not have that many; but when you compare the number of viruses the Mac does have to its 10% share of the market, it's a killer proportion - the Mac comes in first