smackfoo.com | I find your lack of faith disturbing.

First things first, Paul I have attempted to spell your name correctly.

Now that we have that small matter laid to rest I’d like to make a quick critique of Paul’s latest masterpiece entitled “Apple Mac OS X Leopard Preview: Who’s the Copycat Now?” or rather, “I am a Microsoft stalwart, hear me roar”.

Before I go any further, it should be noted that I am not an Apple Mac owner, or Mac zealot, even though Paul assures us:

“I get a lot of flak from the Mac community and no doubt this article will start another round of name-calling. (See how Apple’s childish behavior rubs off on its fans?)”

Well, your going to get flak from a windows user who’s tired of the empty promises Redmond keeps making and breaking — not to mention the constant hawking from it’s stalwart quarter. The only childish behavior I see is the somewhat feeble attempt at goading Apple user’s into some kind of self deprecating flame war.

Windows Vista is but a pale shadow of the former grandiose beacon of light Microsoft would have us believe.. and it’s dates just keep slipping. More features are dropped than kept and it’s generally regarded as one of the single worst failures in keeping to a schedule in Redmond’s history.

And versions? How many bloody versions do we actually need? OS X has a singular desktop version. None of this hobbled in 300 distinct different ways per version bullshit.

Paul has quite some to say about how Leopard is merely an update with some new tricks, but then, is Vista any less of an ‘update’?

The difference that seems to be lost on Paul, is that OS X is an evolutionary product - and Leopard is the next generation. Windows is less evolutionary and more a mutated permutation of the same concept, rehashed over and over.

While Apple continues to try new things, continues to take a very solid OS and improve on it and adds features that users have asked for and will love, Microsoft continues to re-release the same product, with a new look, minus half the features they say make the version so amazing.

I do agree Job’s has a penchant for a little creative accounting regarding sales. However, they have nothing on Redmond who truly pioneered the art of under-delivering yet creatively accounting it to make it look otherwise.

There are a few points that, I’m sorry Paul, are a little bit of a joke:

1. That means that OS X will finally do what Windows XP x64 Edition did last year: Run 32-bit and 64-bit applications natively, side-by-side.

Oh Paul, please.. Even Microsoft caution against it’s use ‘just yet’. It has terrible driver support and many hardware devices will never run as their manufacturers will never provide updates for an unsupported operating system. It has many known issues and anyone with a 64bit processor steered clear of it long ago.

2. Gee, Spotlight still seems an awful lot like Windows Search.

Windows search is heavily reliant on the ‘indexing service’ to work reliably. I’d hardly call it a comparison. It’s also horribly slow unless indexing is enabled, which leads to underlying system performance issues — indeed many highly regarded xp and 2000 support sites recommend it be disabled due to such woeful performance.

3. The voice feature seems like a decent improvement, but didn’t sound any better than Vista’s voice synthesis to me (Jobs played both side-to-side during the keynote).

Please consider getting your hearing tested. The difference is quite substantive.

Thurrott did acknowledge a few improvements and declares he is a ‘fan’ of the platform, yet made one of the most ironic statements I’ve heard in a long time:

“I just want Leopard to be better–much better–than the OS that Steve Jobs and company described this week..”

I want Windows Vista to live up to it’s hype and be better — much better than the OS Microsoft have shown us so far. I want it to not suck — however it just plain does.

Apple has now transitioned it’s entire line across to Intel and has an OS that is continuing to improve, unlike Microsoft who have ramped up the eye candy and dropped most of what could have potentially made Vista rock.

Knock Apple’s OS X Panther all you like — but anyone with an open mind can see that OS X has a better future.