The honest truth is not and will probably never be that Windows is better than any Mac, its just not so. Microsoft in its infinite wisdom choose to buy technology from other companies, tried to make it look uniform and told the hardware vendors out there that as long as you were close enough to the x86 Intel architecture, the system would run. Plus, it needed to support MS-DOS (eh eh eh that’s the extra kick in the pants). This created a price war on the hardware not the OS or the software.
In its inception, Apple put a stranglehold on the software AND the hardware for its system. If it wasn’t made by Apple, if it wasn’t sold by Apple and if it simply wasn’t an Apple, it wouldn’t work. This severely restricts a market. It does however guarantee a better control on the behaviour of the entire solution in terms of bugs.
In my opinion, Windows choose the open market, Apple choose the elitist market. Both choices are smart, it just makes the distribution avenue of one larger than the other. It also provides more potential for growth for MS’ market shares. The obvious downside is that since everyone has an MS solution, mischief intent people will go where the pain will be felt by more people: Windows. It’s a simple rule to ’15 minutes of fame’. Anyone remember “Mafiaboy”? Anyone have a commonly known name of a hacker that worked on a Mac (yeah I could find one on the net but that’s cheating)?
I still think Mac’s are better and more stable than Windows. Every new version outdoes its predecessor, whereas with Windows, everyone remembers the ultimate replacement to Windows 98Se: ME (Multiple Errors) or Windows 2000 (I can’t do anything on my computer now!), and the latest one, Vista (I want to be a Mac on steroids, but I got the cheap stuff from my dealer).
Ultimately, in my mind, it’s a price thing. If I can afford 2 computers, one for the adults and 1 for the kids, for the same price as a Mac, I hate to say this, but I’m sticking with Windows.
Next time: why the heck did they go 16:9?!?