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@Paul - "But the Apple ads lapse into outright lying."

They don't really lie so much. What they do, or fail to do as it is, is describe the product they are selling. I have not once seen a Mac TV advert that describes OS X, or any of its features. I find that tiresome...they were funny at first, but now-not so much. iPhone, yes...they show the product and even demo some of the features. They might stretch the facts about hte iPhone a bit, but that is normal advertising.

--tayme

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Bravo as well. I think this is a great move and I hope they figure out a way to get it into their advertising, soon.

Paul is right. Some of the Apple switcher ads do flat out lie. They are really funny, but not always truthful.

Why not point out the actual lies in Apple's ads, instead of attacking in generalities, shall we?  I love the windows apologist group think at work here. Stating something as if it's fact does not make it so.

This was a really smart memo, btw.

"Why not point out the actual lies in Apple's ads, instead of attacking in generalities, shall we?"

For one, I no longer have any compatibility problems - haven't had them for several months now. My computer's reliability rating is at an all-time high of 10 now and has been so for at least a couple of months. Can't remember the other "facts" stated in the switcher ads.

"Stating something as if it's fact does not make it so."

Exactly! Doesn't it mean you shouldn't take Apple's ads at face value either? Or does this not apply to Apple? :-)

wrong post about the memo.

"Why not point out the actual lies in Apple's ads, instead of attacking in generalities, shall we?"

how's about the ad where windows crashes, and needs to be rebooted all the time? sure, this can happen to faulty machines, but this also happens to macs. No system is immune.

or the one about all the peripherals like the new digital camera just working with the mac? I've never seen anything that will work on a mac, that doesn't on a pc. Quite the opposite in fact.

Or the generalisation of the PC doing "boring stuff", whereas the mac can do cool stuff like image and video editing etc? funny, last time I looked, video editing was dominated by Avid, running on PCs, Whilst Apple have the image editing market cornered, let's not forget that photoshop has always been available on PC as well, shall we? on a PC.

And gaming, anyone? The choice of games for a PC is vastly greater than for a mac.

Most of the Mac V PC was bullcrap. entertaining bullcrap, true, but neither system is truly "superior" in terms of what they can be used for.

"Stating something as if it's fact does not make it so."

Kind of like Apple's ads.

"Why not point out the actual lies in Apple's ads, instead of attacking in generalities, shall we?  I love the windows apologist group think at work here. Stating something as if it's fact does not make it so."

John, in one of these topics (I can't remember which one) I DID point out a direct lie (not a half-lie, not an ommission, but a blatant all out lie) ADDRESSED SPECIFICALLY AT YOU (caps not for yelling but for emphasis) since you have made these statements before.

They do lie.  This is deplorable, actually, and must be illegal.  I don't understand how there can be no legal action for direct untruthful negative advertising.

I am sorry, however, that at this moment I do not remember which post it was, and am not aware of a way to see all my coments across all posts.

Re: "Much of that perception, Microsoft belatedly acknowledges, stems from Apple's successful and unchallenged anti-Vista campaign."

I would agree this is a part of what contributes to this perception, but I think the Apple ads are just taking advantage of what already there: the poor brand equity of Windows and Microsoft. In other words, I tend to think that, generally speaking, people still don't trust the Windows/Microsoft brand.

Some questions: Why do people so easily believe the worst of Windows without empirical evidence? Why are people still so ready, it seems, to believe Microsoft makes buggy, unreliable software and want to see Windows/Microsoft fail? Has the public still not forgiven Microsoft for what they perceive as its mercenary and monopolistic behaviors in the late 1990's?

It is interesting how strong the buzz has been about Vista being bad.

I avoided Vista for a year for good reason--much of my hardware had unsupported drivers and wouldn't work. I pretty much hated it. But in January of this year, after SP1, everything works great (except my keyboard's multimedia functions which I just replaced, no biggie).

Still, I can't tell you how many friends and family have talked to me about getting a new computer and they say, "All I know is I don't want Vista, right? I hear it's awful." They don't know why, they don't know anything about it. But the perception is that it's bad. When I've then helped them set up a computer with Vista, they're always shocked at how "cool and easy" it is.

Perception plays a HUGE roll in the marketplace. I don't know if the damage is repairable with Vista, but Microsoft certainly needs to try something. If they made any mistake, it was rolling out Vista too soon, or at least not having all their vendors well enough on board at launch.

@roblind - "Some questions: Why do people so easily believe the worst of Windows without empirical evidence? Why are people still so ready, it seems, to believe Microsoft makes buggy, unreliable software and want to see Windows/Microsoft fail? Has the public still not forgiven Microsoft for what they perceive as its mercenary and monopolistic behaviors in the late 1990's?"

Actually, I think that most people don't have those beliefs...just the geeky crowd. If so, why do so many people still go out and purchase a Windows PC rather than a Mac. And if anybody tries to tell me that it is because they have no choice, they are wrong. It is obvious that there is choice. Apple makes that clear in their adverts. Choice exists...most people still choose Windows. Thought -- Does that mean that the Mac vs PC adverts failed in their mission???

--tayme

"Choice exists...most people still choose Windows. Thought -- Does that mean that the Mac vs PC adverts failed in their mission???"

Yes.  It just goes to show you what I've been saying for years now - "choice" is either an illusion, or just completely irrelevent.

Tayme, I think you're right about only the geeky crowd having these beliefs.

most of the non-IT folk I know aren't even aware of MS' dodgy past.

Hell, MS was voted one of the top most trusted companies in the UK only a year or two ago, apparently.

@Waethorn - "or just completely irrelevent"

Are you saying that because more people buy Windows PCs that the Mac and OS X is irrelevent? I beg to differ. If so irrelevent, why does Ballmer even address them in his memo that Paul blogged on in today's other posting? Obviously, they are not irrelevent.

--tayme

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You know how you can tell when an ad is working?  You get posts like the ones above.  

I particularly like Tayme's comment, "I have not once seen a Mac TV advert that describes OS X, or any of its features."  FYI Tayme ads are designed to get you to want to buy the product.  MS's ads put you to sleep with their long list of features, and boring explanations.  MS's adds ads made by geeks for wanna be geeks.  In short there are many types of ads, Each Mac ad promotes a single aspect of the Mac ecosystem.  Or and this irritates the snot out of winjihadists is each ad attacks a perceived  flaw in Windows or Vista.  

The ads show the power of Apple.  MS's approach for is to throw a ton of crap at the wall and hope some of it sticks.  Apple's approach is to do a few things really well.  The two companies ads reflect these respective personalities.

Regards

Joe Dokes

Well the truth Vista is a good looking OS. It's polished and nice but they didn't go far enough into the makeover. Once you go past the desktop and the regular windows, you recognize the properties-kind windows and multi-tab preferences windows that look just like they did in Win95 (albeit with a nicer border). But that's just minor cosmetic.

When people think awful they think in terms of experience I think. Most people who upgrade to Vista (that's the case around me) have a 3 yr. old+ PC (the majority of the people using a computer). They install a Vista upgrade on it and bamm! They have a computer that's slower than what they had before, longer to start and with a worse battery life for laptop. They habits are changed as prefs and docs are a bit more buried now. They don't care if it's more secure or more I don't know what compared to XP, Vista just leaves them a bitter taste in the mouth every time they use it. Then there are the people who get it via the purchase of a new PC and usually they are satisfied with it once the learning curve is passed. And then there are the power-user like me who always have a recent machine and who are not afraid to tweak the OS by removing useless services and time-consuming fading window effects and find Vista to be a zippy and very capable OS (and elegant too).

Problem is Vista has a pretty face but the popular perception stems from these average Joe users with old PCs that only see pain in Vista beyond its pretty face... And the solution is... buy a new computer and learn !!! but is it worth it when you have a decently working 3 yr old XP PC ??

daveinla:

"popular perception stems from these average Joe users with old PCs that only see pain in Vista beyond its pretty face... And the solution is... buy a new computer and learn"

Oh yeah?

My brother in law (who is an "average joe" computer user) xp laptop died. So he bought a new one that came with Vista.

After two months with it he sold it to me for $200 (to give to my son) and bought a MacBook. To quote him:

"Been using Windows forever and I just couldn't get Vista *at all*. Buy a Mac with an OS I've never used and I'm up and running and happy in under a week."

Go figure.

(and my son wanted the laptop formatted back to XP because it ran like crap).

I'm not rooting for Microsoft any more than I'm rooting for Apple, but I think this is a brilliant marketing campaign.  Using the people that 'hate' Vista to sell it is pretty darned smart.  

@Daveinla

I agree that upgraders have colored the perception of Windows Vista to an extent.  I also agree that three year old machines with 1 GB of RAM are not good upgrade candidates.

However, I think the bigger problem is that people tend to repeat the what they've heard from others.  Enough bloggers with loud bullhorns said Vista "sucked" and other bloggers picked that up and repeated it, which eventually seeped into the enthusiast community and then the mainstream media.  In other words, most of the "Vista sucks" stuff is due to the blog echo chamber, not because Vista is a bad product.

There is an interesting example of this going on right now.  When the Eee PC came out, Engadget hyped it as the best thing since round wheels and the Eee PC became a huge success.  I'm not saying that the success strictly because of Engadget, but they definitely helped.

The writers at Engadget have since turned on the Eee PC and the writing now is extremely negative.  The complaints are that there are too many models, it's too expensive, etc.  The coverage has seeped into the comments, which are now overwhelmingly negative.  I absolutely believe that the writers are leading the commenters.

It will be interesting to see if the Eee PC is being "Vista'd."  I'm interested to see if the ripple/echo effect of Engadget's negative coverage moves into the blogosphere and beyond, eventually affecting sales of these devices.

Paul Thurrott, May 2006

"With its new Get A Mac ad campaign, Apple is finally pushing the Mac again, in a way it hasn't since, well, the Switcher ads from a few years ago. Good for them. The ads are quirky, somewhat Switcher-like, funny, and pretty much dead-on, ....

.... I hope they keep up with this."

@runtimeerror:

Even I had several problems with Vista when I upgraded early last year. Right now, I really don't see much of a difference between XP and Vista in terms of performance. I've also noticed an improvement in the configuration of the laptops being sold at stores like Best Buy. Is Vista perfect? Obviously not. But right now, on new hardware, I would say it's a better value than XP. And it's not like OS X Leopard doesn't have problems. I've heard numerous complaints about it.

@MaryW, what was true in May 2006 needn't be true today, more than two years later. Two years is a long, long time. I guess you knew that, didn't you?

@shark

Absolutely. It's a lot easier to appreciate the cleverness and the wit of Apple's advertising when you don't expect it to have any effect.

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@MaryW,

Not really. While the initial ads were funny, at some point they started to resemble some of the political attack ads one sees on TV - they're not about what a candidate can provide, instead, they grossly exaggerate the opponent's negatives. And like with  the political attack ads, where the press turned a blind eye or praised them as long as they liked the candidate, the Pogues and the Mossbergs have largely played along in this case.

So, yes, what was funny two years ago needn't be anymore.

"If so irrelevent, why does Ballmer even address them in his memo that Paul blogged on in today's other posting?"

Microsoft already has end-to-end solutions for their business customers of all sizes, even if it is fairly spread out.  They'd rather tighten up their consumer end in the same way though.  Clearly, their business focus is where they have more, well, focus.  Looking at their new server/tools products such as Server 2008, SBS/EBS (which relates to WHS too), Expression, Office 2007, Sharepoint 3, PerformancePoint & Dynamics, deployment tools, etc., and how it all relates to the desktop, they have multiple avenues to excel in their successes.  

Although the Windows Live stuff is spread out, (and some would say that because corporate doesn't "talk" with them, they can focus on their own products), so far, it hasn't done a lot to help.  I kind of wonder if someone like Sinofsky could unify the WL experiences.  From the minimal info about Windows 7, WL experiences are supposed to be featured prominently in the OS, albeit still separate.  ....kind of confusing if you asked me.  

Integration is what garners support of new features in Windows, and done properly, it's a support dreamland.  An install of SBS 2003 R2 is an example of this.  Likewise with SBS 2008 (which I haven't personally tested yet).  In SBS 2008, you've got integrated versions of Exchange 2007, Sharepoint 3, Forefront for Exchange, & OneCare for Server all integrated in this incredibly easy-to-use management console.  An IT guy with fairly basic knowledge of networking can sit down in front of a machine and set up a fully managed AD domain network with corporate email, an intranet site, remote access, managed updates, and server backup in no time.  That's bloody brilliant!

The biggest problem with Windows Live is that everything is too Linux-like.  There's very little integration between services and applications, and each dev team has their own set of goals and schedules.  If they want to get more people using Windows Live services, they need to come up with some kind of unifying console, application, or "launchpad" where all of them are listed.  Windows Live Home just doesn't cut it.  Sorry, but when half of the Windows Live stuff is still a client application, building a web-based front-end just feels tacked on.

The Zune/360 stuff each fits its own niche, but they don't particularly tie into any existing stuff on Windows, except for the fact that the Zune software runs on it, and the 360 does Media Center Extender.  If they really wanted to get users on the 360, they need to do something extreme - make games compatible with a Windows PC.  Dev teams can focus on making the games while maintaining a baseline level of quality for the console.  Meanwhile hardware makers can make clones of the console using PC hardware.  There are already rumours that a future platform may [possibly] be open to third-party hardware makers.  Whether or not that pans out is completely up in the air.

The Zune is another beast altogether.  Content providers hold all the cards here, but I think the biggest, most successful tactic they could offer is this:  integrate AmazonMP3 downloads into the software, and help push it out into international markets.  It would certainly bring more customers to the Zune hardware.  If the content providers won't let them feature all of their library in MP3 format, why couldn't they just contract out that part to someone that can?  It makes more sense that way anyway.

Apple lies:

•iLife

•Time Machine

•easy set-up

*anti-virus not required

*stability

•popular with university and college students

•works well with iPods

•lack of cryptic error messages

•doesn't crash or freeze as often

•can use Microsoft Office

•integration of hardware and software

•sells the steak not the sizzle

•well suited for home use

•one version for all

•great support

•lack of crapware

I would call these 'Apple Truths'.  

It would be a lot better if like Ed Bott you blamed Microsoft for the problems that Vista has run into.  It is their fault.

blogs.zdnet.com/Bott

Microsoft could start by saying "We are sorry" to Windows users.

Off topic....

Good podcast:

podcast.cbc.ca/.../20071031_fox.mp4

I like how he says "President Poutine".  :P

That's

en.wikipedia.org/.../Putin

NOT

en.wikipedia.org/.../Poutine

After all, I thought that was Chretien's nickname!....  ;)

@Avro:

Which on that list were featured in a PCvsMac ad? Have you used Vista lately? Or even XP? If so, how often does it crash for you?

You freaking iMuppets make me sick.

Forgot the icing on the cake:

youtube.com/watch

@ Raaj

Those are the themes of the ads... you havent even seen them? moron...

I use vista (with SP1). daily. Today it has crashed TWICE. This is a good day. ONLY TWICE.

BTW. I'm a windows sysadmin.

You freaking WinMuppets/PaulMuppets make ME sick.

"BTW. I'm a windows sysadmin."

A good one at that, I'm sure.

Like I mentioned earlier, even on outdated hardware, I don't have Vista failures. Yes, I've had applications crash, but not the OS. And I'm not even a system administrator. I'm sure you've found out it's the OS and not some incompatible hardware/software application before making accusatory statements.

"moron..."

Very mature there, bonchy!

"You freaking WinMuppets/PaulMuppets make ME sick."

Awww! Why do you subject yourself to it then? Just stop reading the comments. I'm sure you want to be healthy.

@arosiana: You're a windows sysadmin, and your Vista PC crashes more than twice a day, usually?

Dude, seriously: Time to change the job....

@raaj

"Which on that list were featured in a PCvsMac ad?"

If you wanted to convert Apple's campaign into bullet points .... then that would be Avro's list.!

Have you actually watched the ads Raaj? Or do you leave the room when you see that white background?

Unbelievable!

"Or do you leave the room when you see that white background?"

I leave the business onsite job when I see the white plastic.  ;)

"that's beautiful. "

As we know, Windows' users have no taste.

BTW, you can tell how obsessed this Windows fanboy site is with Apple by just looking at the tag cloud. Apple's just as large as Vista. This is SuperSite for "Windows"? Right?

@cgdams, good point.  I'm also a sysadmin, and on both my laptop and desktop I have a 10 reliability index.  I'd check for bad video drivers if that is what is happening.

img95.imageshack.us/my.php

Any crash I have had is an application crash for at least the last six months.

Ooops.  New Coke???

Mary Jo Foley reports:

>>Forrester Research issued new study results today claiming that 18 months after release, “Vista is still struggling to gain a foothold in large companies.” Forrester called Vista the “new Coke.”

Forrester said that Vista use remains in the single digits (”just under nine percent according to Forrester’s month-by-month desk-top analysis of 50,000 of our enterprise clients across 2,300 companies. That’s up from six percent in January of this year, but far short of the 87 percent penetration for Windows XP.”)<<

@Raaj

All of those featured on the Apple adverts.

I use OS X 80% of the time, Ubuntu 10% and Windows XP 10%.  The Apple stability adverts refer to XP.  90% of the app crashes and freezes I have had are on Windows but  I must admit since switching from various Toshibas and Dells to running Windows my Mac Pro,  they seldom happen now.  It has given me a better opinion of Windows and a rather worse opinion of certain PC brands.

OS X is very well behaved except for mS Word and Entourage.

Your post confirms to me that many of the MS whingers here have never watched the switcher adverts and this fact accounts for much of the hyberbole.

"but  I must admit since switching from various Toshibas and Dells to running Windows my Mac Pro,  they seldom happen now.  It has given me a better opinion of Windows and a rather worse opinion of certain PC brands."

hear hear.

there is definitely a case to be made that apple's hardware is among the best put together.

However, I wouldn't discount all Toshibas an Dells either.

Or, ahem, Asus :D

Anecdote (true story): I was in a meeting a month or so ago, and the guy next to me was complaining about his new PC with Vista (qualifier: He's a sales representative for a major U.S. company). "You know those Mac commercials?" he said. "It's exactly like that. 'Do you really want to do this? Do you really want to do that?'. I hate it". To which the guy across the table from him replied, "Yeah, I had them reinstall XP on mine. My printer wouldn't work and everything was slow. What a piece of crap."

The Apple ads only get under your skin because they have the ring of truth. Period.

"The subjects were put on video, asked about their Vista impressions, and then shown a "new" operating system, code-named Mojave. More than 90 percent gave positive feedback on what they saw. Then they were told that "Mojave" was actually Windows Vista."

Just like this, no doubt:

myteacher.net/.../demo.txt

@Avro,

I use a Mac about 30% of time, and use Vista the rest of the time.. I've used Tiger and Leopard. I have had as many crashes with Leopard in the past 3-4 months as I've had with Vista.

The chief culprit on the Mac side is iWork 08 and Pages 08 - ironically both products of Apple. My MacBook and PowerBook get scaldingly hot due to poor industrial design, and the Macs don't work with our Xirrus wirless AP, and since 10.5.2, and whatever the last update to Tiger was, Macs can't see our file server on the network. I can't use our Shoretel VoIP call manager with the Mac.

These are the sorts of things that make mockery of "It just works" tagline of Apple, and the typical "Mac ecosystem is all peaches and roses" attitude of the iMuppets. You don't hear as much whinging because there are simply fewer people using Macs than the Windows machines. Every time I see a PCvsMac ad that pretends as if the Mac never has any issues, it makes me want to reach out and knock the heads of the two stooges together.

I am more productive on a Vista PC than I am on a Mac, but the Pages 08 application gives us a low cost alternative to achieve a press-caliber 3-column layout document without forking out an arm and a leg for other DTP software from Quark or Adobe.

You gotta wonder if some of these problems are related to mediocre hardware. The cheaper laptops or PC's have low end hardware that may mot be able to handle VIsta as well as higher end products. Vista runs great on many Macs, which use better components than the bargain PC's that cost half as much. It makes me wonder if they should just ship with Vista Basic or Vista's eye candy turned off. The soft crashes that I get from XP is usually from the apps that I use at work, namely GE Centricity. It works very well, but reall buggy and a resource hog, but the shipped HP Workstations are meant for one thing, Centricity and that's all. My home PC's have very few crashes, but I don't use many apps. Our groups biggest problem with PC's is malware, almost all due to younger family members [or so they tell me. Some doubt of their claim points that it may be the doc's surfing behavior is from one of our HP Workstations having something like 36 Trojans and some other malware, a few months ago. It's password protected so that the docs and a handful of admins can logon. However, it's in a location where no admins use it, so it must have been from a doc user. I was more upset than IT. Since then, protection was upgraded. I checked the virus def's, which were over a year old! That was fix as well as some other solutions.

"The Apple ads only get under your skin because they have the ring of truth. Period."

Frankly speaking, no software is perfect. If someone made ads claiming iTunes was buggy and horrible on Windows, it would have a ring of truth. Windows Vista is, in my opinion, better than XP, but the ads and the articles by the Pogues etc. have changed people's perception about it. Now, everytime an application crashes or Windows slows down due to crapware or the UAC prompt comes up, people remember the Apple ads. That's just human nature.  Microsoft was swiftboated and it was amazingly well orchestrated.  

@Raaj

Our MacBook run fine.  Are you sure that the problem is not with your network set-up?

I am active in a number of Mac forums and at university the Windows users are about 80% of the student population but have about 100% of the IT problems.

This is not to say that I have never had a Mac problem with hardware or software.  I would avoid any newly introduced Mac until the 2nd Gen.  Leopard started to get okay at 10.5.2.   But I do believe that Macs are more robust and give less trouble than Windows systems (may be due to HW not SW) and the approval ratings indicate this.  Macs come out at 87% here while Windows PCs start at 64% and decline rapidly.  I think Acer is almost down to single figures.

"Microsoft was swiftboated and it was amazingly well orchestrated."

And I'm not saying it wasn't Microsoft's fault. There were significant compatibility problems and the OS was clearly released a couple of months before it should've been. But XP had even more serious problems when it was first released. I remember XP being extremely slow on my laptops purchased in 1999 and 2000. The same thing is happening now. It's only a matter of time before the cheap $500 laptops will be able to handle Vista.

I will say that I think for my Mac Pro configuration, Leopard has been less stable that Tiger.  And what that means for me is that the UI has on multiple occasions become unresponsive, usually starting with one app than cascading to the whole UI.  The core of the OS is still running, but without a UI it might as well be a BSOD.  This seems to relate in part to Spaces crashes but inparticular to IO issues.  I do have TONS of drives.

My Macbook Pro on the other hand has been largely rock solid in Leopard, which is another reason I suspect disk IO issues are to blame.  Maybe I have a corrupt volume that's causing the system to get hung up.  i don't know.  I do know that the "spin dump" seems to kick in after some of these hang events.

My point is that, as a reasonable person, I will totally admit that the Mac experience is not always crash free.  

However...

I recently brought a firewire drive to a very meticulously administered edit facility running PC Avids.  The drive was formated for windows, mounted perfectly on my mac.  Initially the PC saw it.  Then it errored and crashed (bsod).  Then it didn't see it at all, ever again.  Other machines saw it fine. This was an XP system that was totally up to date.  There was nothing the admin could do.  There was no information to even begin trouble shooting.  She was very frustrated and said that this was pretty common.  Her opinion was that Macs were simply more resilient to real-world diverse use and peripherals.  Windows could work great, but was frail and when it broke, it broke horribly.  

I agree with that conclusion as a former custom-pc builder.  When Windows works, you wonder what the mac fuss is about... until it doesn't and there's nobody willing to help or take responsibility.  I've had multiple family friends given horrible run-arounds by Dell and HP when their scanners or printers wouldn't work.  Nobody takes the blame.  Nobody really tries to help.  Most of the calls are taken in India.

Is this Microsoft's fault?  Is it the result of bad Windows code?  Bad drivers?  Faulty hardware?  It doesn't matter for the end user.

On the other hand, my wife's Macbook has been a lemon.  It's spent most of it's time operational, but has gone through fits of failure.  Battery stopped charging.  iSight stopped working.  DVD drive died.  A month ago, we took it to the apple store for the battery issue.  They said "wow, this machine has really been a problem for you guys!  We're so sorry.  Here's a new one".  Done.  We sold the new machine on ebay for near it's retail cost and I bought my wife and Air... which she loves.  

Same thing happened with my iPhone.  It was out of warrantee actually.  It had a dent from a drop.  But it was acting up.  Took it to the SoHo store one weeks ago (there was still a 4 hour line for the 3G at this point).  The genius bar guy was awesome.  He simply gave me a new first gen right on the spot.  I figured I was screwed and that they'd be very leery of first gen iPhone problems near the 3G launch due to fraud.  Nope.  I was out in under an hour with a brand new Phone.  That iPhone is on ebay right now and has been bid to $300, 100% paying for my new 16GB 3G.

Am I an Apple fan?  Hell yeah.  These are just some of the reasons why.  Final Cut Studio is the main reason for me.

Is the Vista image problem Apple's fault?  Of course not.  False claims would ring false.  Effective advertising appeals to what people are already thinking.  Microsoft has admitted to issues with the Vista roll out.  I'm not sure why WinZealots can't.

Again... I'm not bashing MS or even blaming them.  As Ballmer pointed out... they chose their model and it's all about hardware choice at the expense of a smooth integrated experience.  Closing the gap isn't going to be possible, unless Microsoft ships their own PCs.  And considering the reliability of the Xbox 360... I wouldn't be first in line for one of those.  

Windows can work just as well as the Mac.  But in aggregate, for the end user... it simply doesn't.  That's why the Apple ads work.

And to those that think Vista looks great.  Try resizing a window.

"And to those that think Vista looks great.  Try resizing a window. "

erm.... care to explain?

The effect of perception:

On one hand:

"My PC is slow. But it cannot be my fault. Yes, I've downloaded a lot of suspicious files from the internet, but, like I said, it cannot be my fault. It has to be Windows. Windows sucks!"

On the other hand:

"My Mac seems to crash frequently. It has to be my fault, though. I've heard that a Mac is extremely reliable, so it has to be me."

PCs still outsell Macs 30:1 so you obviously hear about problems with PCs more. Calling a PC frail and less resilient to real-world diverse use and peripherals when one PC refuses to recognize a hard disk is just a result of biases that I've pointed out.

Strangely all Mac owners have these stories about Windows admins calling PCs crappy and not knowing how to fix them. Why don't they look for alternate professions then?

" Her opinion was that Macs were simply more resilient to real-world diverse use and peripherals.  Windows could work great, but was frail and when it broke, it broke horribly. "

I don't really know what you mean by "real-world" here. Macs, until now were restricted to a niche market and still have a negligible presence in the "real-world" as far as I know.

30:1 in a world market where Apple doesn't for many reasons choose to compete.  21 of those 30 are corporate sales where Macs are not even considered and margins are wafer thin.  I can hear the footprint of T Rex in the background.

So we get down to the battle zone, in NA, Europe and Australasia all of a sudden it becomes 5:1 and with laptops about 3:1.  No doubt Apple is behind, but they are gaining in crucial markets which will lead the world.  Ballmer is a bright guy and he knows if 'you snooze you lose'.  Consumers looking at Macs, Enterprise at Linux.

The Vista marketing fiasco will be forgiven, but MS cannot afford to flub the next time.  They need to get it right.

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@ Avro

"So we get down to the battle zone, in NA, Europe and Australasia all of a sudden it becomes 5:1 and with laptops about 3:1.  No doubt Apple is behind, but they are gaining in crucial markets which will lead the world"

hahahaha!! holy crap, are you really suggesting that 1 in 5 computers in Europe are Macs?

bloody hell! I want what you're smoking!

@gorath,

Window resizing is a artifact-laden, page-flipping, slow performing mess on every Vista PC i've used.  The WPF compositor works great, but the engine that draws the window contents appears no better than XP.  Meanwhile, OSX has never had this.  Resizing started off very slow in 10.0, but was always drawn off-screen and provided a very "solid" feel to the OS.  No tearing or page flipping.  No delayed drawing artifacts.  Since Panther,  it's been quite fast and in Tiger and Leopard, "teh snappy" is in full effect.

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@ Johnpapola

Sorry, but I've never witnessed aero do any tearing. it can happen if aero is turned off, as I believe you're then using the same old XP technology.

One thing to note though, did you have vertical sync turned off for some reason? I know a lot of gamers swear by turning off V-sync "to get higher frame rates" but on an LCD display, the results are horrendous.

Unfortunately, I've seen Graphics drivers default to having V-sync OFF as a result of this, which is frankly, idiotic these days.

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