I am impressed by OS X...

[GTaudiophile]

I was in Germany last week, but while on vacation, I helped a friend install his new Lacie external harddrive as well as install OS X.5. I must say, I haven't used an Apple for so long in years, but working with it was a pleasure. The 10.4 to 10.5 upgrade could not have been simpler. The funniest part was then trying to install WinXP through BootCamp. The instructions and thought put into BootCamp is just amazing. It could not be simpler. But installing WinXP is such a joke by comparison. WinXP just looks and feels so archaic by comparison, not to mention takes A LOT longer to install.

Anyway, kudos to Apple on all their outstanding products. Good stuff!

 

[MrChad]

To be fair, XP was released 6 years prior to OS X 10.5.

 

[alfa147x]

Originally posted by: MrChad
To be fair, XP was released 6 years prior to OS X 10.5.

wanna compare the 10.4 to xp

10.4 install wasn't that far different from 10.5

 

[Nothinman]

wanna compare the 10.4 to xp

10.4 install wasn't that far different from 10.5

10.4 was released in 2001?

 

[Miklebud]

I myself just updated from 10.4 to 10.5 and it was the easiest update ever in OS history lol

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

I was impressed with the RedHat installation compared to the Windows XP installation years ago.

 

[bearxor]

A lot of people seem to forget that Apple releases a new OS every year.

 

[umrigar]

Mac OS X release dates:

10.0 ("Cheetah", March 24, 2001)
10.1 ("Puma", September 29, 2001)
10.2 ("Jaguar", August 13, 2002)
10.3 ("Panther", October 24, 2003)
10.4 ("Tiger", April 29, 2005)
10.5 ("Leopard", October 26, 2007)

The last 3, 10.3 thru 10.5, are the most developed/stable/optimized, with 18 months between release dates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mac_OS_X

Compare to Windows OS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_operating_system

June 1998 Windows 98
May 1999 Windows 98 SE
February 2000 Windows 2000
September 2000 Windows Me
October 2001 Windows XP
March 2003 Windows XP 64-bit Edition 2003
April 2005 Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
January 2007 (retail) Windows Vista

 

[alfa147x]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

wanna compare the 10.4 to xp

10.4 install wasn't that far different from 10.5

10.4 was released in 2001?

Eh my bad
I dont remember the 10.1 install being that bad; i had a G3 back then ...

 

[Kadarin]

I don't recall any OS X install being bad, except possibly for a pre 10.0, pre Aqua developer version.

 

[bearxor]

umrigar, you're missing 10.4 Intel, released January 2006.

Even El Steveo considers it a full OS release.

http://www.macworld.com/articl.../2007/05/steveatd.html
"We?re also always improving our OS, generally have a release 18 months or so. And we had a big release we didn?t get much credit for, which is Mac OS X Tiger for Intel,?

You're also pretty misleading with your Windows release dates. You're listing server/workstation-class with desktop consumer OS's. In the PC world, there is a difference. Different teams with different timelines completely independent of each other. So for the Desktop it would look more like:

June 1998 - Windows 98
May 1999 - Windows 98SE
Feb 2000 - Windows ME
October 2001 - Windows XP
January 2007 - Windows Vista

Server would look like this:
Feb 2000 - Windows 2000
March 2003 - Server 2003

You're simply padding your numbers here with the x64 versions.

I don't count Windows 98 and 98SE or 10.0 and 10.1 as separate releases. These are merely incremental improvements on each other. 10.1 was also given to all 10.0 buyers for free.

Now I'm not here to say one approach is better/worse than another. You could look at it both ways. You could say that it shows Apple has a poor OS because of the need to release a new version every year. Or you could say that Apple has a commitment to perfection. Honestly, I don't care. I use both. I use OS X as my primary machine now that it's back from repair.

The fact remains that Apple has released a consumer desktop OS every year since 2001. Granted, since OS X's inception it had been compiled for Intel processors but the OS itself and applications therein were never fully debugged or prepared for retail release.

 

[bearxor]

Originally posted by: Kadarin
I don't recall any OS X install being bad, except possibly for a pre 10.0, pre Aqua developer version.

OS X was pretty bad until 10.3. I support a lot of Macs at my newspaper ranging from 7.0-10.4. The only pre-10.3 machines left in the building are some 10.2 servers that we could never afford the licensing for, but thankfully they're going to be moved to a pair of XServes running 10.4 soon. I might upgrade those to 10.5 server just for time machine with a 1.5TB external drive on each to match the storage drive. The files are backed up to tape every night but for the usual restoration purposes of recovering a couple of files very few weeks is sure a pain in the ass to do from tape and time machine would actually make that easier....

Maybe I can sneak it in the budget somewhere...

 

[Nothinman]

In the PC world, there is a difference. Different teams with different timelines completely independent of each other.

That distinction is completely arbitrary and not even very accurate. Sure some of the server stuff is worked on by different teams but most of it is shared. Do you really think the desktop team working on explorer, IE, control panels, etc has an analogous team on the server side duplicating all of their work?

You're simply padding your numbers here with the x64 versions.

Not really, XP64 was based on Win2K3 and released separately from XP32 so it's a valid, independent release.

You could say that it shows Apple has a poor OS because of the need to release a new version every year. Or you could say that Apple has a commitment to perfection.

Or that Apple sets a release date and sticks to it no matter how many bugs are left open. Or that MS has a commitment to perfection because they don't release a product until they really consider it finished no matter how long it takes.