101 reasons why OS X is better than Windows

Hamish

Hamish

Hamish

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Now that I have made the switch to Mac OS X I have no idea why it isn't more widespread, there are so many reasons why its better, for a start:

  • Unicode support at OS level
  • No Viruses
  • Built from the ground up as a networked OS
  • System Tray is used for what it's meant for (volume, time etc) rather than for minimised applications (MSN, Azureus, etc)

There are just so many reasons, feel free to add your own.
 
Hamish said:
Now that I have made the switch to Mac OS X I have no idea why it isn't more widespread, there are so many reasons why its better, for a start:

  • No Viruses
Click to expand...
I don't mean to be putting mac down, but saying there are absolutely no virus' for OSX isn't strictly true is it?

There are a few virus' on OSX. Sort of proves the point hate just made in this thread.

One example is the "Opener" program which disables the OSX firewall.
There have been reports of different auto installing widgets aswell.

But in comparison to windows, obviously it is more secure against virus' and malware
 
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isnt windows built as a networked os?
the icons in the task bar can be removed /hidden / disabled
personally i like the idea of small icons in the taskbar rather than full sized space hoggers on the main application section
 
mortals said:
I don't mean to be putting mac down, but saying there are absolutely no virus' for OSX isn't strictly true is it?

There are a few virus' on OSX. Sort of proves the point hate just made in this thread.

One example is the "Opener" program which disables the OSX firewall.
There have been reports of different auto installing widgets aswell.

But in comparison to windows, obviously it is more secure against virus' and malware
Click to expand...

In comparison to windows the amount of viruses is insignificant and unlike windows almost all the viruses require user interaction to install them.

binaryknight said:
isnt windows built as a networked os?
the icons in the task bar can be removed /hidden / disabled
personally i like the idea of small icons in the taskbar rather than full sized space hoggers on the main application section
Click to expand...

Windows was originally built as a standalone OS before the internet existed and this is one of the reasons why there are so many holes in it. OS X was relased in 2001 when the internet was known to be one of the main things people used their computers for.

My point about the System tray is that it was never designed to be a place to minimise all your programs, it was designed as a notification area. Wheras with the dock you can minimist programs like Adium into it and keep them out of the way while the System tray does the job it was desgined for.
 
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  • Lots of useful applications right out of the box, courtesy of iLife. GarageBand, iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie HD etc. are all top products. Compare to Windows where you get notepad, solitaire and a calculator :p
  • Spotlight is quite possibly one of the greatest things ever to happen to computing. Nice job on pinching the idea for Vista, Microsoft
  • The setup process is quick, painless and intuitive
  • You plug things in, and they work. Hook a digital camera up and iPhoto will do its business, a USB stick and it will automatically be mounted, an external CD/DVD drive and it will instantly work. Faffing about with driver CDs is a thing of the past
  • Exposé is not only beautiful, it is also one of the best workflow-enhancing applications I have ever seen
  • The whole user interface is so much prettier than Windows or KDE/GNOME
  • Quartz antialiasing is gorgeous

The list goes on and on... :)
 
mortals said:
yer :)

but there still are some.
Click to expand...
It would be more accurate to say that there were some. They weren't even real viruses either because they were about as sophisticated as the joke 'Irish Virus' because the user had to tell them to work. In real terms, there are no viruses or any other type of malware for OS X. It isn't about user numbers either, it is quite simply much more difficult to write viruses for OS X.
 
I tell you one of my most favourite features - installing applications. You can either sit there and watch the blue bar progress whilst underneath Windows is running amok in your registry, screwing up other programs and leaving behind a troublesome mess should you have the cheek to unistall it. Or, you can just drag the folder to Applications! Erm, I'll take the latter please. :)
 
No virus.
The whole feel of OSX - compared to Windows XP, OSX feels more intuitative.
Expose - I'm pretty sure Windows will copy it soon.
Dock - no need for third party software, OSX, The Original :)
 
I have got to agree with Expose, when I am working (yes, Macs can do real work as well! :eek: :) ) the productivity boost is noticeable plus it looks cool.
 
Al Vallario said:
  • Lots of useful applications right out of the box, courtesy of iLife. GarageBand, iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie HD etc. are all top products. Compare to Windows where you get notepad, solitaire and a calculator :p
Click to expand...


  • And Windows Movie Maker & Windows Media Player, though those are both down to personal preference as to whether you use them or not.

    [*]Spotlight is quite possibly one of the greatest things ever to happen to computing. Nice job on pinching the idea for Vista, Microsoft
    Click to expand...

    No idea what this is?

    [*]The setup process is quick, painless and intuitive
    Click to expand...

    And Windows isn't?

    [*]You plug things in, and they work. Hook a digital camera up and iPhoto will do its business, a USB stick and it will automatically be mounted, an external CD/DVD drive and it will instantly work. Faffing about with driver CDs is a thing of the past
    Click to expand...

    Just like on Windows then, yeah? I plug my memory stick in and it mounts it & asks me what I want to do with the files, same with my digital camera, and if I plug my MP3 player in SonicStage loads up. Magic.

    [*]Exposé is not only beautiful, it is also one of the best workflow-enhancing applications I have ever seen
    Click to expand...

    No idea what this is either?

    [*]The whole user interface is so much prettier than Windows or KDE/GNOME
    [*]Quartz antialiasing is gorgeous
    Click to expand...

    Both down to personal preference really, you can make Windows look like a Mac and probably vice-versa.


    The list goes on and on... :)
    Click to expand...

    Continue with more than 3 Mac exclusive points then ;)

    I'm not deliberately trying to troll/mac bash/be a Windows fanboy, but a lot of reasons put forward for OSX being so much better can easily be done on Windows.

    Security is the main factor between the two I guess, which OSX wins hands down for ease of use, but it's still not that hard to keep a Windows install clean. Bit of a pain to sort it out when it does go wrong though :(

    What's the significance of the unicode support at OS level by the way, no idea what this is? :confused:
 
Phil99,

Here is Expose in action, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ05rFri82A FYI.

OS X is way easier to set up than WIndows, you can do an erase and install in under 10 minutes and not have to worry about drivers or network connections. There is just no way, unless you create a disk image, that Windows can compete with that.

Spotlight is a search function and then some. It is able to find things instantly anywhere on the computer, if you have ever watched Windows search it is painful in comparison. Not only that Spotlight is able to find individual words inside files, including pictures and PDFs, all instantly!

Windows XP does have excellent hardware support but OS X takes it one stage further. It has a lot of proprietry drivers included but it is also able to make things work without drivers. Everything you plug into a Mac will work, instantly. No, really, I am not kidding!

Interface - OS X is simply gorgeous right out the box and every program has the same consistent interface and familiar feel. Even Microsoft's own offerings don't have that let alone third party developers. :)

I have been a Windows user since 3.1 and before that a DOS user. Two years ago I switched to Mac and have never looked back. My old G5 iMac was restarted twice in 2 years (following updates) and during that time it never stuttered, crashed or locked up and not a single application ever crashed. Also, my productivity increased and I didn't spend a single minute on maintenance. It is so reliable that I have just moved my business over to the Mac platfrom, that's how impressed I was with them.

Once you've had Mac, you don't go back. :)
 
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Since most of the reasons are already listed i can only think of a few off the top of my head at the moment:

  • Reliability, I can happily leave any of my Macs on for days, weeks, even months on end without having to restart because of some pathetic freeze over and without them slowing down to a snails pace after a few days.
  • The ability to sync your mac's data with all your other macs, if you make any changes in your address book, calander, email or bookmarks your .Mac account will automatically sync that change with all your other macs.
  • Apple are (along with Google and a few others) at the leading forefront of technology. Microsoft don't even come close.

Phill99, this isn't a Windows bashing thread, if you want to learn about Macs then go to an Apple Store (or reseller) near you and ask for them to show you around, explain you use Windows and they'll happily show the benefits of OS X and Apple's hardware ... then you can start arguing the benefits of Windows over OS X.

Windows Movie Maker is a joke, I remember watching my dad spending literally hours on end creating a home movie, spending his entire weekend working on something when on Sunday night the entire thing crashed on him and his whole weekends work was lost. Luckily he owns a couple of Mac's now and has never, ever had this problems when video editing.

I can't believe you would even think of saying the Windows install process is quick, painless and intuitive. So if I walk into PC World and buy a Windows computer, i'll walk out with around 3 or 4 boxes worth of bulky components, a pre-installed version of Windows with a stack of crap software that I don't even want (Norton, AOL, Freeserve etc etc etc.) and have to spend the hour or so installing all my drivers for scanners, printers, web camera and mp3 player. If you walk into PC World and buy a Mac (which I actually did yesterday) you'll come out with 1 box, you'll get home, switch it home and spend the next 3 to 4 minutes going through the account creation process and that'll be it, no reformating in a months time , no installing drivers, everything just works.

Your personal preference can't be very good if you prefer inconsistent and ugly teletubby/boring work environments.

Oh, and those ^ are some more reasons I will always use OS X, and Apple in general over anything else.
 
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Almost all my mates were like,
Why in the fricking world did you buy a Mac!?

I did that after testing it at Toys R Us - weird but hey, they left them on the display for "messing about". I used it for 2 hours. :D

I decided to buy it also because I get HE discount, under £800 for an all in system that can run both OSX and Windows (legit, if you've got Retail Windows) and coupled with excellent set of softwares - which I use e.g. Garageband, iMovie e.t.c. and hardware such as webcam, bluetooth and airport.

Anyway, all I'm saying is now that Apple items have an option to use Windows, why not give them a try? I can game on windows and boot back to OSX - because I like working on there more than XP.

Only after installing XP on my macbook then realised how tedious it is, because after installing XP pro, I had to install Norton AV and anti-Spyware programs before I am "safe" to get online. My macbook turns on, after loggin to my router, I'm online with no worries. I install my HP PSC1300 driver for my printer and viola, all ready done.

(As pointed out by many) If i don't like any application, just drag it to the trash, and gone. No need to worry if it'll mess up with my registry.

I'm not siding OSX/Apple, I believe it's rather presumptuous that nothing is compatible with OSX because it's not mainstream. Things have improved and right now, Apple is playing its cards right.
 
Just about everything, in one form or another is compatible with OS X these days though, theres only a few annoying ones i've encountered.

Finally enough the only 3 things I can think of is software my dad uses, Act (Contact Management), Slingbox (Internet TV) and the Motorola Home Security System. Luckily he has Parallels installed for when he needs to use them :)

I guess thats another reason Dr Jones pointed out, with a mac you have the choice to use both OS X and Windows ... with Windows you can only use Windows.
 
A few things from various sections of the thread:

Windows is a networked OS. Since NT, in which saw Windows completely, and I do mean completely, recompiled from scratch to fit such a description.

Expose - was 'stolen' from other, open source, projects. Apple are not as innocent as they make out.. MS we all know are not.

My reasons why Windows < *:

The first: Assumptions. I 100% ****ing hate Microsofts assumptions that I actually WANT the crap that automatically installs itself on my machine. I'm talking about 'Clever Text Functions' and similar. (Tell me, what is so clever about it shifting focus randomly, or having a text box pop-up asking me about sticky keys, even though I already said no the last time? Also calling something 'clever' in the technology world is the complete opposite.. much like NT [New Technology] is/was ridiculed.) or IE, or WMP.

DX. Since Microsoft bought DX, it has wormed it's way further and further into the kernel of the Windows OS. This is of course monopolisation on a global scale, aka Vista, but the courts are too busy taking bungs to pull out a law suit.

Major Differences from all other OS's.. You can tell that Bill (or whomever it was who actually kicked it off; Xerox created 'Windows' but it wasn't dissimilar to other OS's at the time, then sold it to Bill+Co. - for bugger all too!) just wanted to be different. They couldn't settle with making something for a task, that does it how everyone else has been doing for years, but better, No.. they have to completey re-invent the wheel every damn time, plus you can only use 'it' on Windows.. blah blah more monopolisation crap.

Finally; Bloat (see first). Windows XP takes around 26 days to compile from source. That's how much crap is installed. As for how I know this.. well I can only say someone who I am familiar with in the industry has first hand experience.
 
AJUK said:
It would be more accurate to say that there were some. They weren't even real viruses either because they were about as sophisticated as the joke 'Irish Virus' because the user had to tell them to work.
Click to expand...
This applies to the worm virus' and the auto installing widgets then :confused:


I like OSX because:
  • it's fast and easy to install and setup
  • it doesn't feel sluggish with all the pretty stuff enabled
  • you rarely have problems with device drivers
  • it seems (so far for me) more stable than windows
  • the dock is pretty cool
  • spotlight is very cool and also fast
  • it is more secure than windows
  • it has very few virus'
  • Interface

I've even made windows and linux look as much like osx as I can :)
 
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Pirates of Silicon Valley - a movie that should be made compulsory watching for any tech fan :)

The truth that is portrayed in that film is that Xerox were the geniuses of GUI environment, as well as the mouse and unfortunately the executives of the company just didn't get it when the designers showed it to them. So ... when Steve Jobs saw this concept he managed to convince the executives to go and see this new technology, and ofcourse all the people at Apple adored it and soon scurred off into hiding (literally) to create the radical, amazing and also spectacularly flawed Macintosh which changed the world forever :)

During the design of the Mac, Bill Gates and Co. would visit the Apple head quarters to convince Steve to let them produce some an office suite for people to use on the Mac. Bill eventually convinced Steve and soon recieved some prototypes of first Macintosh at the Microsoft offices which they soon started ripping off to create the first GUI Microsoft Windows environment.

Soon after Steve was sacked from Apple for, supposibly, being to radical within the company and the company spiraled out of control because they didn't have any fresh ideas or enthusiasm to over the world, which is why Microsoft became so popular and successful ... as soon as Steve came back everything magically started to come back together over at Apple :)
 
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