Piestar

Personally I blame Gizmodo for inciting this whole pointless debate.  I was originally going to talk about the idiots talking about it, but now I realise I’d rather talk about the idiots at Gizmodo who caused the idiots to talk about it.  Personally when someone asks me ‘Should I get an Apple or a PC’, I advise them to get whatever they like the best as for 99% of people it doesn’t matter.  I did the whole Mac vs PC fanboy thing 15 years ago when it was new and fresh.  Now it’s pointless and boring – use whatever you please, nobody is really losing out anything much by not having the others platform.

But that being said looking for quotes on Gizmodo makes the whole site seem suspiciously biased, if not then the writers really need to grow out of their platform fanboy stage as it’s embarassing.  For example take these two quotes:

Quote 1: From an article entitled “Why Microsoft Should Give Windows 7 Away“:

“Windows 7 is shaping up to be an awesome OS. It’s everything people wanted Vista to be and more.”

“Word-of-mouth sentiment for Windows 7 has been overwhelmingly positive, even from Mossberg, a dude who spent half of his Sprint Instinct review pre-reviewing the iPhone 3G. Windows 7 is slimmed down when it needs to be, running fantastically on netbooks.”

Now aside from the obvious answer to this retarded statement “Because they want to stay in business” if you search Gizmodo to see what they thought about Apple charging users of the iPod Touch for software updates of what it should have launched with in the first place? “Worth It” is the scathing verdict.

So with that in mind lets look at the lastest “Windows 7 vs Snow Leopard” article (Quote 2):

“It’s easier than ever to pit Windows 7 and OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard head-to-head: They’re launching soon, both within a month of each other—and both are basically glorified service packs of the current OS.”

So despite the fact that just about everybody who has used Windows 7 has raved about how much better than Vista it is, about the fact that it runs really well even on low-spec netbooks and the UI has been given the biggest overhaul since the Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 transition, it is now a ‘glorified service pack’, on par with Snow Leopard in its abilities.  Right.  But the bone of contention is here:

“Snow Leopard socks Windows 7 on both counts here: It’s shipping in September for just $29. Windows 7 doesn’t hit until Oct. 22″

Socks it indeed.  Those Apple users are so lucky, getting new versions of OSX for only $29 each time it comes out … wait … hang on …

OSX (original) – $129
Jaguar – $129
Panther – $129
Tiger – $129
Leopard – $129

Which asks the question – Why is Snow Leopard only $29 quid, a negligible sum when newer versions of OSX have been pretty consistantly priced.  I can only think of two reasons:

1: Apple does not consider the changes significant enough to charge full retain for.  From what I have heard it is largely behind-the-scenes speed improvements and bug fixes with little in the way of new features or interface work.  More than service pack but less than a full version.

2: A childish spoiler attempt to try and mock the Windows 7 release by acting like Windows is so overpriced (glass houses much?).

I hope it’s not two – I doubt it is, and if not, why is Snow Leopard such a fantastic deal?  And is the next release ‘Cougar’ (will it run on old hardware?) going to be $29 rather than $129 and if not why not?

Anyway Gizmodo are hopeless Apple fanboys who should be ignored because their opinion is fundamentally biased, simply because:

1: They seem to have forgotten that every previous OSX release is $129 and present no compelling reason why this one is $29 except for the goodness of Apples heart (despite them charging for firmware for MP3 players) and seem to have mysteriously forgotten the historical $129 price point.

2: They think that completely redoing the UI, large portions of the included apps, graphics, sound and basically making the system requirements 1/3 of what they were previously is a ‘service pack’.

Ultimatley if you swapped the company names on the top of the software and told them to review them again, they’d be whining that MS was trying to nickle and dime you for a service pack while Apple was pushing the boundaries of usability and performance.  And that’s the truth.