MacOS Panther vs. Windows XP: A response

If you're going to do a platform comparison, compare platforms, not bundling

Published on November 2, 2003 By Draginol In Personal Computing

ActiveWin has an article that compares MacOS X to Windows XP. There are a lot of good points in the article and a lot of his findings are based on pretty solid and reasonable analysis.

But I take issue with an underlying "ground rule" with a lot of these comparisons -- he is comparing what comes with Windows XP with what comes with MacOS X. Considering that a Mac machine costs a great deal more than a comparable Windows machine, I think a more fair comparison is to look at what you can get for both as a platform. Especially since any OEM can always bundle whatever they want to with the machine.

Below are the points he considers to be in favor of the Mac. Most of these I agree with but I'll comment below in red.

Dialogue boxes: In windows you get things like Yes, No and Cancel - on a Mac you get Don’t Save, Cancel and Save – logical text information that is an improvement over Windows. This is just one really plain example, I could literally list loads. Open Recent dialogues easier to read than Windows

Absolutely agree here. One of the first things I noticed about MacOS X vs. Windows was the bits of polish like this that make is a better experience.

Drag and Drop: Far, far better in OS X over Windows. Things like dragging files to a Printer Icon to print, dragging images from the web to the desktop, drag folders to e-mail, drag a picture or photo to you desktop picture control panel sets it up as the desktop background, dragging pictures to your login icon sets that as your login picture. You can also drag reorder items in any Window toolbar or sidebar.

This isn't really a fair comparison. First, drag and drop on Windows XP is pretty thorough. But more to the point, Windows, because it is based on a 2 button mouse, does a lot more with right click menus. I'd still give the edge to the Mac though.

Exposé – Nothing more needs to be said

Agreed.

Navigating the file system: A Mac does in 3 views what Microsoft does in 5.

Yes and no. For one thing, you can't just type in a path into some URL-like field in Finder. I find that very annoying and limiting. Not having the ability to simply type into finder where you want to go is a major restriction IMO.

Colour labelling: excellent way of creating user defined groupings of items.
Icons: Nothing Windows has right now can touch the specs of 128x128 pixels and 8-bit transparency. You can also change icons really easily in OS X compared to Windows.

Wrong wrong wrong. First off, for the price of a Mac I think one can safely say you can pick up Object Desktop. Object Desktop has been giving Windows (and OS/2 before that) features long before they showed up on the Mac. First with Zooming icons on mouse over? Object Desktop. First with Alpha blended shadows under windows? Object Desktop.

And I can replace everything on my system with 128x128 icons/objects right now. First, most modern icon packages come with 128x128 icons and have for a long while. And secondly, ObjectDock and yZ Dock have helped popularize 128x128 (and larger) PNG files that you can download and use on programs like DesktopX, ObjectDock, or IconPackager. All of which is either part of Object Desktop or in the case of ObjectDock, freeware.

The price difference between the mid range Mac and a high range PC is about $600 in favor of the PC and the PC includes a lot more software (such as Office, DVD authoring tools, etc.) that aren't being considered. But on top of that, $600 can buy you a lot more after market software too. Object Desktop is $50 for the whole thing and it addresses a good chunk of the issues Byron speaks of.

Fonts: Better quality and quantity of fonts, various ways of previewing fonts, including the excellent and new Font Book. Overall a better Font Management now that Windows too. Better Anti-Aliasing of fonts.

Agreed.

Find and Search: Massively better in OS X than Windows. As soon as you start to type OS X starts searching. Sherlock is there to let you search the internet for Pictures, Stock and more.

Agreed.

Keyboard: Makes better use of Keyboard shortcuts, navigating the file system by the keyboard, application and document switching via the keyboard (Exposé), shutting down via a keyboard and more.

Once again, because a Windows system is less expensive, inexpensive extensions should be part of this comparison. Object Desktop, once again eliminates this advantage and then some. Keyboard LaunchPad not only allows you to assign hot keys to any program or website but can even be assigned to control parts of individual programs and apply saved clipboards automatically.

Installing Applications: You may think this is a strange one, but in my view, dragging a Mac OS X Package (applications behave like folders) to the applications folder is a much easier install than Microsoft offers us in Windows. Multiple versions of the same program can be kept on the computer this way, uninstall is simply a case of dragging the folder to the trash. Neither Windows nor OS X is perfect.

I don't think this is that clear cut. Most Windows programs behave as he describes. They just simply include a "install wizard" to walk the user through the process.

Video editing: iMovie ships with OS X and works very well with improved editors, filters, audio editing, and transitions

And for the amount of money difference in cost, you can purchase some pretty impressive video editing packages on Windows. And as a Mac user myself, I can tell you that you need pretty good hardware for iMovie to be useful. For one thing, in 10.2 (I haven't tried this with 10.3) some actions with video files had to be done as the foreground app. iMovie would pause the action when it wasn't the active program which makes having a high end (read: expensive) machine key.

DVD Playback: OS X comes with a DVD player that plays the video without having to have a third parties software installed to run it, unlike Windows.

So?? What is this? Bundle wars?

Let's recap: In my view, the minimum spec'd Mac I'd purchase today is the 1.8 Ghz PowerMac G5 with 512MB of RAM (which I'd bump to 1 gig). Add a 17 inch flat panel and your price is $3,348.00. This right from the Mac store.

Then I go to the Dell store. Without even really working much to cut prices, a 3Ghz Dell machine with a gig of RAM and 21 inch flat panel display with a ton of software bundles is $2,700 (like Office for example which I'd have to add on to the price to the Mac).

My ThinkPad T40 comes with WinDVD. Does Byron think that the Mac's DVD player remotely compares to WinDVD in features?

DVD creation: iDVD is bundled with all Macs that ship with Super Drives. Windows Movie Maker requires additional software if you want to burn DVD’s

See above.

E-mail: Mail is a much better free mail program than Outlook Express, especially for Junk Mail.

Agreed except my $2700 Dell with Office 2003 comes with full Outlook which is as good at junk blocking. But that's irrelevant anyway because I can use free programs like SpamPal for junk mail.

Calendar: iCal comes free with OS X and can be synced with Palm or iPod devices. Windows has no free Calendar program.

How can you call iCal "free"? It's figured into the price of the Mac. Outlook 2003 comes with a similar scheduling program.

Free developer tools: Apple offers a more complete set of free developer tools than Microsoft does for Windows XP.

Is he suggesting there aren't free developer tools for Windows? I'll concede that developer tools should come with the OS though.

Photos: iPhoto is far better at managing photos you have on your computer than Windows.

Again, this is bundle wars.

Voice recognition: This has been around on the Mac since OS 7 and is built into the OS – if you want it in Windows, you need to buy Works or Office.

Voice recognition is not something that is very practical yet on either Mac or PC. And voice recognition on the PC - Dragon Speak Easy, IBM ViaVoice are both excellent if you need it.

Speech Synthesis – OS X supports system wide voice synthesis and has various voices to choose from. OS X also has Talking Dialogues.

See above.

Screen capture: 6 different types of screen grab shortcuts are available.

Print screen! In fact, I can't believe that he mentions this because when trying to take screenshots on the Mac I found this infuriatingly annoying. On Windows, I can hit Ctrl-Printscreen to take a screenshot of a Windows or just Print Screen for the whole desktop and paste right into Front Page, Word, etc. Maybe there's a trick I don't know of on the Mac but I find it much more cumbersome to get a screenshot on the Mac. And I take a lot of screenshots, people like me are the target market for that bullet point.

Scripting: Improved in OS X for workflow automation.

I'm not experienced enough here to comment.

CD-R: Advanced options are far better in OS X. Add icons to CD’s you burn.
Sticky Notes: Free and built into the OS

Bundling Bundling Bundling. For a $600 premium it should come with more stuff out of the box.

Password Management: System wide password management through Keychain

I haven't used this enough to comment.

Spell-check: Excellent system wide spell checking – While posting in a forum on the Internet, I can have it check my spellings on the fly.

Agreed.

Crashes: So far I haven’t had one crash or needed a reboot (other than updates) with OS X – something that can’t be said of Windows XP.

Oh come now. Crashing on either is a non-issue. Windows XP is just as solid as MacOS. I've had forced reboots with both on occasion but it's not statistically significant.

No Viruses: This is a bitter point for a lot of Windows users, who usually then say it is because OS X has fewer users. Fact is – it is far more secure.

No, it's not a "fact", it's a matter of virus writers focusing on the market with 25 times more users. This could just as easily be said about OS/2. Is OS/2 more "secure"? It doesn't even have security for it. But I've never seen a OS/2 virus or Worm and yet REXX on OS/2 allows the potential to create worms the likes no one has ever imagined. But none have happened?

My magic rock here prevents earth quakes from occurring in Michigan. As proof I can show that there have been no earth quakes here. Would you like to buy my rock? $3348.

As soon as I get a chance, I'd like to do a video demo of both. Does anyone know of a freeware screen video capture program along the lines of CamStudio for Windows but for the Mac?

Anyway, I don't want it to sound like I'm bashing the Mac. I consider myself a realist on OS wars these days having been an OS warrior during the OS/2 era. But I don't like strawman arguments. And comparing what comes bundled with the OS is just that. Not only that, but it only encourages business practices that, in the long term, harm consumers. If OS vendors are to be judged purely on what they happen to bundle with the OS, you're going to get more and more bloated OSes with fewer and fewer healthy third parties to write software. And it's third parties that help drive innovation in technology.

Comments (Page 4)

chris p

on Dec 04, 2003

All I have to say is ... google for FINK ... this is a lot nicer than using Cygwin or MinGW ...

John

on Dec 26, 2003

"Bzzz! Wrong: http://www.thinksecret.com/news/appleq2idc.html"

Talk about wrong...AND ignorant.

Guess people just don't learn in junion high anymore about reading quarterly reports.

As a former employee, I can tell you that their sales are down more than 45% over the past two years. Their major source of revenue right now are sales of stock and selling music. Not hardware or software (other than music, since this is technically software).

Steve Wozniak had the brains. Jobs is a moron who has taken Apple further down the hole. Look at it....it is the only major tech-related player that is worth LESS today than it was in 1990!!!!

There is an excellent book called "the Stock Market for Idiots."

Might give you a better perspective on market analysis.

JD

Dale

on Dec 27, 2003

Reading this post I noticed you made it to be a bundle war, not the other guy. In my honest opinion, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and they really don't amount to crap.

Dan Pouliot

on Jan 04, 2004

The ActiveMac article bears a striking resemblance to a much more thorough X vs XP shootout site: http://www.xvsxp.com/

This site strikes down most of Joe user's rebuttals.

Brian

on Jan 06, 2004

You know, Brad does make some interesting points in his article. I am actually a technician in a store that does hardware and software repairs on both Windows and Mac machines.

It is, which Brad points out, conceivable that someone can download enough add-on programs for Windows that will allow it to do the many things that most OS X machines do out of the box. That's great for someone who has extensive knowledge of all of the millions of third-party programs that are out there for Windows, and can get them to seamlessly operate with the OS without the installation of Spyware, adware, or any other harmful files.

But, for the common computer user who wants to be able to:
a) Walk into a store

Buy a machine
c) Get it up and running in as few steps as possible
d) Use videoconferencing, digital camera import, video editing, contact and calender synchronization with palm/ipod, music syncing to ipod, etc... all out of the box AND with manufacturer support (do you think Microsoft will support the third party programs? I don't!)

Then the Mac is the way to go by far. If you have time to research and spend days downloading third party programs and configuring them so that they don't interfere with your daily work, go for it. I'll spend a few extra bucks and get it all in one package with a better looking OS and better support.

video steve

on Jan 11, 2004

I have read most of your comments and believe that you are missing the point with the Mac system.
I run a video production business based in the UK, when i first used computers to edit video it was a windows 98 machine running a Miro card and it was rubbish.
I now use a windows xp machine for my office work and it is a very good OS. But if you edit video for a living forget using a PC.
Using Final cut pro to edit video is the only way to go it can handle DVC-PRO DIGITAL BETACAM and HDCAM a windows machine running Premier cannot cope with these formats without loads of add on boards which most of the time dont work.
The other point i would like to make is this price thing once you have loaded your PC with capture cards and fast hard drives it costs more than a simliar Mac.
If you want to edit your holiday videos with your mini dv camera then buy a PC if you want to make professional videos buy a Mac.

Matt

on Mar 25, 2004

I LOVE this forum. I have read ALL the COMMENTS. I use WIN XP. I have been using my new laptop for about 2 months now and only an extremely minor hipcup has occured that only a mire restart was needed to fix. As a matter of a fact. The other occasional problem is my touch pad playing up, but if I had a mouse plugged in it wouldn't be a problem!

On the other side, I must have been 6 or 7 messages in my inbox with an attachment, and a few were VERY supicious, and it is most likely none of those "viruses" would have effected a mac. Again, I havn't bagged Macs OS yet becuase the only time I've used one is when I tried to shut down those old all in one macs.

Round up: XP works fine and I wish people would stop bagging it for supposeively being prone to crash alot (well SOME mac people think so anyway)

MonkeyPie

on Apr 03, 2004

I have read this forum just a little late, but I still have my 2 cents to add. I too am someone who uses both PPC and x86 based PCs. And yes an Apple computer IS a pc. (Stands for personal computer) First off I do prefer OSX over Xp. It comes with almost everything you could want in a pc, it looks nice, and when you uninstall something you just delete the folder 9 out of 10 times. Sure you can delete the program folder in Windows like someone on here mentioned, but you didnt unistall it, you still have registry keys, start menu items, dll's, and whatever else is left on your system. Often times this causes trouble.

Now about the comment on Dell. Dell computers dont come standard with MS Office, they come standard with Word Perfect. You have to "upgrade" to Office, in which case you pay an extra $149 for the Basic Edition.

Anyway, I use Windows Xp for games and that is pretty much it. The rest of the time I am on my Mac and love it (writing this in Safari at this very moment.) Besides Panther actually runs BETTER on my old G3 than the first OSX! So forget about it being slower on older systems!

Dean

on Aug 19, 2004

I wonder if you simply tried dragging the icon of the screen grab (capture) to the application I don't use MS Office ( I like Open Office )but it seems to work in all the other applications provided they have an open window.
Also have you considered that many Apple/MacIntosh computers don't cost an arm and a leg? iBooks are pretty cheap and compared to OS overhead they perform rather well. $800.00 is not a lot to pay for a laptop of any type unless of course it is used and older than 2 years PC and 3 years Mac.
Did you also factor in the hidden cost? it is conceivable to spend that much in security software if one doesn't break any software laws Virus Scanners and Firewalls can be on the expensive side.
I used PCs for years I would never be without a virus scanner though I only get updates about every 4 months on the Macs that I own where as the PCs need constant update.
As far as entering an Url to get to a particular folders content try the Terminal it is sort of like DOS but the commands are a bit different still it gives you a great way to do things faster keyboard shortcuts also help you navigate your computer easier. If their is a particular folder or application that you need to get to by all means make and Alias/Shortcut to it even put it on your quick launch or Dock.
As for the Mouse thing I use a five button mouse with Panther Yes Apple Computers come with a one button mouse but the OS and it's applications are made to all fit a 3 button mouse. CTRL and One Button Mouse give you the left click. I find that hard to do as I am a lefty when it comes to the mouse and my left is the hand I feel more comfortable to press CTRL.
I agree with thebundling thing it is better to actually purchase software that is made by 3rd parties as they do that alone yet it is nice to just plug someone's camera that uses windows and I don't need any second party software to upload their DV video or their still pictures.
I don't dislike MS nor do I worship apple the problem I see with either is that people will settle for bundled material hence less chance for software makers to succeed financially.
Thank You for your most inspiring article, Dean

on Oct 19, 2004

I think this article exposes just how biased Dan Pouliot's original comparison really is.
http://www.criticalessays.org/macvwindows.html

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