OSNews

In response to John Horvatic: "You forgot to mention that XP will cost more to buy." Not true of the home version, definitely true of the professional version. "You forgot to mention that XP copied OSX." How so, exactly? Sure, I can name a few ways, but OS X has copied things from Microsoft, too (toolbar, anyone?). The funny thing is that who-copied-who is irrelevant; what matters is which is the best product. "You forgot to mention XP will shutdown your system because of Microsofts protection scheme when you add software or hardware to the original configuration." This is so completely not true. Yes, XP has copy protection which could be annoying for some people, and I respect the opinions of those who don't want any part of it. However, what you wrote is just dishonest; it has nothing to do with adding software and only comes into effect when making major hardware changes. And even then, you have grace period in which to contact Microsoft. You took a valid complaint and made it invalid by completely misrepresenting it. "You forgot to mention Apple is only at the half way mark of it's total introduction of OSX." Worth mentioning, yes, but when you're talking about the quality of a currently-shipping product, it's irrelevant. "You should also mention that most IT professionals are going to avoid upgrading to XP for a lot of the reasons above." Is this fact or opinion? And, more importantly, how is this relevant to an examination of OS X's quality? "No java in XP either which is an internet standard!" It's easy to download Java freely, easily, and automatically when you come across it on a web page. You used to have to download iTunes, but I don't remember anyone saying, "No MP3s in OS X either which is an internet standard!" "What were they thinking!" That's easy; they're doing their part to kill Java. "It's only been out for 6 months and the performance has improved ten fold so wait another six months it's only going to get better." "Tenfold" is certainly an exaggeration, but you're right about the improvement. Now that the foundation has been laid, we can hopefully look forward to some amazing things in OS X's future. I for one and watching and waiting. In response to Millenium: "Given this, the usability advantage of having the menubar in a consistent location, particularly when Fitts' Law comes into play, far outweigh the disadvantages." I can't agree with this at all. Fitt's law is a good law to consider, but it doesn't necessarily override other factors. Quite simply, many Mac users are confused by the menu bar because of multitasking. When I used to tutor school teachers, one problem that always came up is they'd close the ClarisWorks document they were working on with the close button and then wonder why they couldn't find "Shut Down". Easy, right? The program is still running. But they couldn't figure it out--that's a problem with using one widget for all programs (and replacing its content when the current program is changed). Apple has recognized this problem and that's why they put the current application's name in the menubar in OS X. This helps a bit but certainly does not eliminate the problem. However, in the process, it destroys a lot of Fitt's law in its own accord; since the "File" and "Edit" menus are constantly moved slightly depending on the application name's length, the motor memory used for going to them is lost. A top-of-the-screen menu bar has other disadvantages, too. Say I like to leave my iTunes window in small form in the lower-right corner while I surf the web. To use its menu to say, get the song info or something, I have to move the mouse all the way down, click on the window to make it the active app, then move the mouse all the way back up to the top of the screen, use the menu, and then go back down to the iTunes window to change the volume or whatnot. Contextual menus, shortcut keys, and buttons help this problem, but they don't help the "the top menubar is better" argument in the slightest.