The other day after reading about the ease of installing the recently leaked OS X x86 Developer build, I decided I would give it a try. Once I finally got the image copied, OS X started up without a hitch. The only problem was, my mouse wasn't working correctly.
Long story short I would eventually get OS X functioning correctly, and it was quite rewarding. I've always liked Apple's UI although I admitedly have very little experience using it. The computer was running quite fast, percievably faster then when I run XP, but I didn't really know where to go from there. Sure, I had the thing running, and it was pretty cool, but what's the point? What benefit does OS X yield? After a few hours of searching I can say I couldn't find any compelling reason to switch to the Apple camp.
Sure OS X has the cool task bar thing on the bottom of the screen and has...well, I don't even know what else it has. (That's not entirely true, I do know that it has a command line which is based on Unix which gives the OS some appeal over MS, but I couldn't find out where it was) The problem I had with my experience was that it seemed to simplified. I felt like the interface was catering to the lowest common denominator of computer users. I may have felt this way due to the lack of software pre-installed on the machine, or maybe it's the fact that I have no real experience with Apple's products (any of them). Either way, it felt too empty.
A few days after my OS X debacle, I started thinking about the next major endeavor from the Microsoft camp, and decided I'd like to give it a try - though, it is still in beta. I installed it rather painlessly - fired up the disc and went off to class, only to return to a strange looking background with transparent everything, and I mean EVERYTHING.
The Beta build didn't include drivers for some of the components of my system (SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Pro, HP 1510 Printer, and I think my GeForce FX5700), but it seems to manage just fine. Much like Tiger, Vista is fast. It felt much faster then my XP machine even without drivers for some of the hardware - which is what I suspect is crippling the performance in XP. Installing software was very easy however, in about two seconds flat I was using Trillian and downloading things from usenet. It was a pretty painless experience.
I definitely like some of the things about this early new interface. The new start menu is pretty nice because it doesn't build out onto the desktop, it's contained within itself. In other words, space is perceivably saved. It also has a built in search bar on the bottom, which is very accessible. The Control Panel has received a face life and seems to be slightly more user friendly, providing links to the common task in the topics underneath the topic button. Internet Explorer 7 beta is pretty slick too, it supports tabbed browsing. I don't like the position of the control bar though - it is placed underneath the tabs, unlike almost every other browser (which supports tabs) that I have seen.
Although Vista and OS X were nice diversions, I have to stay with XP (If not just because it's legal). If Vista was final then I'm sure I would switch, but there's a lot of work that needs to be done to get the functionality and support up to where it needs to be. Maybe if OS X didn't make me feel like a 2nd grader in a computer lab I would stick with Tiger, but it definitely does, and I definitely won't. I'm looking forward to Vista, even if the majority of the internet is not.
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