Aye, as for Apple's new operating system it's the most advanced in the world...PHEW! Because Microsoft was getting mighty close there with Windows XP (the name of which was announced AFTER Apple's OS's name was...but then Apple is the most copied computer maker on the planet so I shouldn't be surprised).
As to comments on Apple's market share I have this to say: Steve Jobs (on of the founders and the present CEO) seems to be pretty whacky, and not much interested in expanding the market share at the expense of the "coolness" factor. Read: Steve Jobs doesn't really WANT Macs to be used for Excel work, he want's them to be thought of as creative workstations, the realm of Video Editing and Sound Producing, graphics, etc. He wants it to be used by surfers and presidents and teachers and moms...just about everybody besides your "boring" (now I work in an office so don't get me wrong) office worker. At least thats my take
I think his Shareholders hold him in line to some extent. Plus, I've found that I work faster in the Macintosh operating system, because it is much more intuitive (at first) and because as an advanced user things are easier to get at, I shave microsectonds off my times doing repetetive jobs and end up saving almost an hour a day (you can tell I'm on the computer a lot
from doing the same thing on a windows machine. (and thats including the fact that the windows machines (Running XP) are a lot faster than my 400Mhz G3 with a 512k L2 cache)
Apples products are usually designed incredibly well...each little touch is carefully thought out. AND they're not that much more expensive...feature by feature I usually only find real savings in build-it-yourself PC's. (and that is the PC industries strength: decentralization. Centralization, however, is Apple's strenght: as Stevie Wonder says: "Apple makes the whole widget" They generally have better engineered systems with fewer and wider bottlenecks. Also note that Intel often announces new processors with key "new" technology that Motorola and IBM have been using for years, albeit at slower clock speeds. The move towards RISK processors is an example of what usually happens with technology connected with Apple. (Intels new chips with that double-thread ability thingy (I forgot what the advertised name is) are pretty spiffy though
)
Somewhat near the end; What really gets me about Apple products is their intuitiveness. I find it nowhere else in the computer world these days, I've seen three year olds figure out how to turn my iMac on and get to the game they want without even being able to read...and this was something they couldn't do with their PC. (HA! they couldn't even turn their PC on...and though thats such a tiny thing, but when you think about it it's pretty important) I can get a new Apple operating system, or application (which usually follow Apple's Human Interface Guidelines) that I've never used before and just get right into using it, relying on my cleverness to figure out how to do what I want. (I've been carefull to differentiate what I could figure out because the thing was intuitive, and what I could figure out because the thing was in the same pattern as something I'd already learned: ie: Apple's basic structure of things) That just isn't there with most Windows applications, and Windows itself.
Just add to this that Apple makes what is critically considered the best MP3 player on the market (iPod), the best consumer computer system on the market (new iMac), and the critically considered best Operating System on the market (Mac OS X) (I've read reviews from XP users who will continue to use XP, and counsel others to use XP, but say that Mac OS X is a better operating system) (all prior "bests" are from what I've read in magazines, other forums, and internet news sites. I feel they are pretty solid statements, the shakiest one would probably be the OS one, that's the one that depends most on your preference, the others are pretty much more black and white)
aight cheers, tell me where I'm wrong (and back it up of course