Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual

Apple's announcements at last Monday's WWDC generated a lot of press about OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and Vista, and which one was better. I thought David Pogue's article in the NY Times times ("Getting Hung Up on the Apple-Microsoft War") did a good job summarizing the key points.
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"Followers of both camps, in other words, can save themselves a lot of ulcers if they just acknowledge a few facts:

  • Microsoft gets a lot of ideas from Apple; Apple also gets ideas from Microsoft. It doesn't matter; the most expensive lawyers in Silicon Valley have established that it's all perfectly legal.

  • Microsoft has won the market-share war, because it dominates in corporations.

  • Both companies are profitable and have very long futures ahead of them.

  • If market share were measured by individual buying decisions (rather than quantity of computers), Apple's rank would be much higher.

  • Even if the grand prize for the "war" is individuals, families and small businesses, the perception of a much bigger war is useful; Windows Vista and Mac OS X Leopard may in fact be on completely different playing fields, but they're both looking like the best versions ever."

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I'm a Windows XP user and have never used a Mac but after all the security issues I see on Windows I see myself thinking about the Mac more and more. I'm getting more into media and I know the Mac OS handles that must better than Windows.

At lunch today I went to the bookstore and picked up a copy of "Switching to the Mac" so ... Stay tuned.