Linked by David Adams on Mon 15th Oct 2001 02:23 UTC
OS News' review of Mac OS X last week certainly stirred up controversy, partially because some die hard Mac fans perceived that it was improper for an outsider (someone who is not an everyday Mac user) to me making broad criticisms after only a superficial introduction to the New operating system. Well, folks, that's why they call it a review. We thought that Apple's major new OS also deserved a road test, and there were two very important events in Mac OS X history just a few days ago that toppled the last major obstacle to making it ready for millions of Mac users to start using it as their everyday OS: the 10.1 release and the release of Microsoft Office X. Last week, I made the switch and started using Mac OS X as my everyday OS. Here's how it went:
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"Surely you don't want me to believe that Windows 2000 is a fast OS?" This statement pretty much proves that you've never used Windows 2000. At least, not on any remotely decent hardware. My two-year-old-now-worth-about-$500 Pentium2 400mHz system ran Windows 2000 very nicely. Menus drew instantaneous (unless it had to load program icons, which were well-cached after loading once), windows dragged quickly, and pretty much everything ran very nicely. "If anyone calls Mac OS X.1 slow and calls Windows 2000/XP fast, you must be on crack." I will happily say this. (Somehow, it seems weird that a "CS professor" would say something this immature, but that's a different topic) I run a G4 400 with 384 megs of RAM right next to a Celeron 566 overclocked to 850 and my PC runs much, much faster with respect to interface (I haven't tested Seti@Home or pure processor tests; just using the system for day-to-day things). Have you never scrolled in 10.1? Never resized windows? These are basic things that are still very slow. Load the Windows calculator and it pops up instantly. Load the OS X one; it takes a few seconds. Terminal vs. Command Prompt? How about dragging icons and playing movies? Yes, I know all about why OS X's interface runs slowly, and I think in the long run Quartz will be a good thing. However, that doesn't change the fact that it is still much slower today. You very clearly haven't ever used Windows 2000/XP. "Hierarchical menus draw very slowly in Windows for the little information" They draw absolutely instantly here, except once in a blue moon when the icons have to be re-read. "when the Windows UI is compared to any pre-Mac OS X Apple operating system, Windows feels downright poky" I would strongly disagree with this statement, but the two systems are about equivalent in terms of speed. Of course, in terms of your hierarchical menu example, Windows shows icons for each level of hierarchy, while the Mac OS only shows them for the root level of the Apple menu. This clearly gives the Mac the edge in terms of speed, because the icons don't have to be read. Of course, Windows still draws it instantaneously for me, and my hardware certainly isn't even close to top-of-the-line. "What's Microsoft's excuse? They had 7 years!" Windows' UI has been rather snappy for quite a few years, now. I'm presuming, since you "teach computer science," that you've used Windows and are thus just exaggerating/lying about your experience with it.