Yes, the Mac has some nice features, and there is no denying the allure of some of their hardware, although some of it is a little on the industrial side of “industrial design” for my tastes… yes I’m talking about you Mac Pro! But to say OSX is better than Windows (even Vista) is just crap.

I work in an office where more people use Macs than PCs… and yet more people use Windows than OSX. Sure, we’re a software development company and a Microsoft (.net) one at that but it’s still a telling fact that a large portion of of the Mac loving crowd simply can’t do what they need to do with a MAC alone… for this you only have to look at how popular products like Parallels, VMWare Fusion and BootCamp are. How many Windows users on the other hand run OSX for this reason? None? surely this can’t be!

I use Windows… I have used it since the days of Windows 95, having started out on a Mac, and while like ALL operating systems there are things I don’t like, I enjoy using Windows, especially Windows 7 which I have been using without issue since the early betas. The “Macs are better than PCs”articles are really startin’ to piss me off as they are so completely one eyed and completely ignore any negatives on the Mac side even going so far in some cases to raise the cost of upgrade as a negative for Windows! Seriously?!?!  How many times have Apple cut there users off at the knees in the last 10 years?

Window’s Vista had problems yes… most, after the first few months, were perception based however, helped and guided lovingly by Apple of course. Windows 7 is at a minimum the equal of anything in the OSX world and in my opinion a far superior OS. It’s stable, easy to use and has great features… Apple can try in their advertising to tie Windows 7 to the mis-guided perception issues that plagued Vista but it’s an argument they will ultimatly lose. They’ll have a much harder time convincing anybody to “Switch” when the OS they are already running is this good.

So it’s great to see articles like this occasionally that put some of the BS arguments used into some proper perspective.

A couple months ago during a two week period I’d really rather forget (that started with my car being stolen!) my 1st gen iPod Nano, that has served me faithfully for over 5 years, decided it was going to have a bit of a melt down. It still  “kinda” works but only 40% of the screen is visibible and it now has frequent memory loss issues, forgetting both where it was in podcasts and music tracks as well as sometime what it has stored in it’s memory.

Being pretty close to the expected September iPod announcements I figured it made sense to wait to replace it with a next generation model. So after struggling on with my disabled little friend for two more months I was, to say the least, pretty dissappointed with what Apple rolled out last week, and it seems I’m not the only one.

I am stunned that Apple would decided to roll out not one but two pieces of much anticipated and, in the case of FM radio, for me pretty desireable functionality in it’s now low-end Nano range and not make that same upgrade to the high-end iPod Touch.

Having been thinking that I would go for the mid-sized iTouch when the new models were announced my initial reaction was that this made that purchase decision much harder. Having thought about it over the past few days however I have actually come to the conclusion that it makes the choice easy. I’m not going to buy either… If, as has been suggested by numerous sources, the camera upgrade to the iPod Touch was held back for technical reasons one could also suggest that perhaps other functionality was also held back as part of that same upgrade, such as the FM radio feature, and that those features might be rolled out a few months down the road. Either way, as long as my trusty crippled iPod Nano continues to “Kinda” work I saw no compelling upgrade path with last weeks announcements so sorry Apple, “I’m not buyin’ it!”

Well anyway…

I’m in the market for a new laptop and as such I’ve been out on the interwebs diligently doing my research, trying to find that ideal (read: perfect) candidate. I have fairly simple criteria, needing a higher than average spec machine (cutting rather than bleeding edge), large fast hard drive, plenty of ram and a WSXGA screen… that’s 1680×1059, with a decent GFX card.

First up, you have no idea what a tough ask the screen seems to be! Most manufacturers, Apple included, seem to limit this resolution to the 17″ models which are, to put it mildly, rather less than portable and hardly “laptops”, anything in the 13″ – 15.4″ realm is generally limited to the lower 1280 x 800 WXGA resolution which just doesn’t cut it when you live in pallete intensive applications like Photoshop, Fireworks and Visual Studio. I would also like the exterior to be reasonably attractive… or at the very least not ugly!

With the above said I can already hear the cries of “Buy a Mac!” coming from every corner. It seems most of my colleagues are indeed using Macs when not at work but I have long since accepted my fate as a Windows user, and to my surprise, with a few glaring exceptions Vista really isn’t as bad as I imagined it would be (No really!).

The unfortunate downside to looking for a Windows based machine however is the total lack of focus on the hardware design. When compared to the latest Apple hardware, with it clean sleek lines, beautifully beveled edges and spectacular attention to detail I find even the nicest looking PC’s are left desperately wanting.

Compaq‘s have been trying to copy the Apple design formula for a while now with absolutly no success, the HP and Toshiba lineups are, well, neat and tidy (read: boring!). Acer and Asus have both tried branding partnership with Farrari and Lambourghini respectively, the results of which are amusing if nothing else. Sony seem to be trying with their Vaio’s and as for Dell… lets just say if you put lipstick on a pig… it’s still just a pig. Dell have made one move in the right direction however, with their new XPS1330 but they seriously need to start applying that design thinking across their mainstream laptops and not just the ultra portables.

So what did I settle on you ask? I caved and I’m going with a Dell Vostro 1500. It’s not pretty, even among some of it’s competitors, but the bang for buck ratio is good, it meets most if not all of my other requirements and it was a more favourable option than its ugly step-sister the Inspiron 1520 with it’s clown makeup… I mean “colour faceplates”.

I’ll let you know how it works out!

So, is it really going to be an iPod killer? Well, Microsoft say that the player will be out in time for the holiday season, and based on their past efforts at meeting product deadlines it would be no surprise for them to miss this one too, or worse rush to market and deliver a half baked product. Apple also are rumored to be behind schedule with the next generation iPod so it is likely that both players will hit the market at around the same time and with the iPod's already strong position in that market it still doesn't look favourable for Microsoft.

Then there is the history. I own an iMate Jam Smartphone running Windows Mobile, I run a Windows Media Center in my home and I run a Windows XP desktop at work. These three devices all have something in common, other than being Microsoft products of course, they crash… with remarkable regularity, especially, and a little surprisingly, the phone! I also have an iPod Nano and not surprisingly it has never crashed… not once.

Finally there's the small issue of marketing. Apple with their slick, simple, well targeted advertising or Microsoft with their noisy, confusing and often misleading advertising (I just love this).

The bottom line? I think it's fair to say we won't be seeing any iPods killing frenzies anytime soon.

While I've used services like this before such as Yahoo's launch.com which is available as part of Yahoo Messenger but Pandora just "Feels" nicer and seems to have more smarts. The Flash based player has some very nice touches and is easy and intuative to use, and the quality of the music matches seems pretty reliable. Nic did mention however, that if your taste's are slightly more obscure (as his can be) the quality of matches offered up does degrade a little, but I guess as the project grows and matures that this will most probably be addressed.

One thing that is still going to prevent a Windows Mobile device competing with iPods is going to be the UI. iTunes is a great app and, done right, will beat the crap out of Media Player for Windows Mobile but the pda just lacks the simple user interaction that the iPod has.

I haven’t seen a copy of Windows Mobile 2005 so I can’t really comment on it, but I own an iMate JAM running Windows Mobile 2003 and it’s no iPod killer. I have tried (unsuccessfully) to use it as a player for podcasts and music and it is in a word “Hopeless” and I don’t believe that iTunes would change that.

If Microsoft want Windows Mobile devices to compete with Apple and the iPod they are going to have to fix a lot more than the just the software. For example, if you ‘soft off’ so the screen is inactive in your pocket it stops playing.

I would love nothing more than to be able to use my JAM as a music player. But right now I’d go for an iPod every time.

It will however KILL the piece-of-crap Motorola ROKR dead!