If you’ve been following the news feed on Mac DevCenter lately, then you’ve seen stories like Dell to sell iPods , PCWorld rates Apple customer support the best, PCMag says Xserve is an impressive server at a truly reasonable price, and Fortune Magazine says Jaguar is the most impressive new software of the year in its Fall Technology Guide.
PCWorld, PCMag, Fortune? Dell?! These are not traditional Apple fans.
It appears that we’re seeing the begrudging acceptance of Apple in the traditional PC universe, and the Mac seems to be evolving from a niche platform for artists, educators, and scientists to a serious business tool for just about anyone.
Why do I say “begrudging” in reference to this acknowledgement? Well, Windows XP did edge out Mac OS X in PCMag’s annual technology awards …
Begrudging ain't half-bad
"Begrudging" is better than "beleaguered" any day. :-)
Acceptance of Apple
As a user of both OS X and XP, I'm "surprised" that any reasonably unbiased observer could pick XP over X. While Windows has improved greatly, X still "feels" better. Worst case would be a virtual tie. Apple's weak point, more and more, is hardware. Excellent quality, beautiful aesthetics, ho-hum technically. Form trumps function at Apple which risks losing the few remaining hardware geeks left. Even MacAddict has pretty much given up trying to publish hardware geek articles as there is so little to talk about. And this ignores the Megahertz myth, as my G4/867 outpaces my AMD 2200+ 98% of the time. The TiBook is gorgeous, but technically, I can beat it feature-for-feature in the Wintel world for much less money. The new dual G4's are pretty and do Photoshop real fast, but I couldn't care less about Photoshop. Feature-for-feature, I can do better in the Wintel world. It's very hard at present to be a hardware geek and a Mac aficiando. After nineteen years, the temptation to switch is getting irresistible and I'm deeply saddened.
Begrudging ain't half-bad -- Indeed!
Absolutely, and in fact ... I'm sort of enjoying this begrudging acceptance.
PCMag Article
It's realy nice to see the XServe being mentioned in a PCMag article, but what they write about the XServer making a perfect Videoconference Server is pure bullshit in my eyes. See my comment on the "Discuss" Forum attached to the PCMag Article.