In recent weeks, both Microsoft and Apple have pushed their new operating systems to enforce their own visions for the future of computing. With changes as big as the switch from Windows 3.x to 95, Microsoft’s new operating system has a completely new interface, support for new processors, vastly improved touch capabilities, and much more. Windows 8 seems to come with many advantages, but does it stand a chance against the might of the Lion?
On the hardware side, both Microsoft and Apple strive to win over average consumers, so their system requirements for each operating system are reasonably low, so Lion needs at least a Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM. and Windows 8 requires 1GHz x86. 64 and 2 GB of RAM for 64-bit system. For now, OS X is sticking to 64-bit Intel machines, but Microsoft has chosen to design Windows 8 so it can run on everything. The infamously added ARM support rounds out the long list of devices supported by Windows 8. Microsoft’s approach is philosophically different and doesn’t distinguish between desktops and mobile devices, while Apple seems to see them as distinct entities. At the moment it is impossible to say which idea is better. Perhaps both are useful in their own way, targeting different types of customers. However, one platform is likely to become the biggest muscle in the market. While I lean toward the Apple philosophy, I really like the radical decisions Microsoft has made in trying to outpace Apple’s growing presence. It’s all or nothing, and without radical changes Windows had no chance of survival.
I’m largely a multi-platformer: I work on a MacBook Pro, have a Samsung Galaxy S2 phone, use an Apple iPad, play games on PS3 and Xbox 360, code in Ubuntu, and even run a Windows 8 developer preview for fun. For the sake of competition and for the sake of a cool world that’s still cool, I hope all of these variations live on. I think either operating system has a good chance of convincing the ever-growing group of tech-conscious customers to choose it, and here you can find a brief comparison that in the end might just convince you to install both operating systems and decide for itself.
User interface experience
The Windows 8 interface immediately captivated me. I love Metro’s gorgeous user interface. The Start menu displays a tiled screen similar to the Windows Phone and Kinect interfaces, and applications can be run in full screen. The traditional desktop is also available, but Windows Explorer has an Office-like user interface that I don’t find particularly useful. Windows 8 is massively touch-oriented and is equipped with an on-screen keyboard and gesture recognition. Windows 8 offers much better handwriting recognition than its predecessor. But for it to work, you still need to type reasonably well; it’s something I would never do, the same as convincing myself to write on the screen with a stylus, even on a tablet.
While Lion bridges the gap between iOS and a traditional desktop operating system, it is still a desktop system. It seems that Apple has put a thin curtain between anything portable and the rest of the jungle, and beyond this curtain lives the mighty lion. Apple doesn’t even want to make touchscreen PCs, and its general stance against vertical touchscreens and previous comments made by the company show no sign of future movement in this area. I’ve used a touch screen PC myself, it’s extremely inconvenient and I appreciate Apple’s position much more. There’s nothing that can convince me to put down my nice, smooth, and functional trackpad and start tapping on a vertical screen.
Scroll bars have been omitted, and the iOS-style app launcher has been added. I use this quite often, but have heard people consider it completely useless. An upgraded iCal looks pretty ugly mainly because of the ugly looking skin, but otherwise a great product. Until the moment you start tapping on the trackpad, Lion looks and feels very similar to SnowLeopard. It works great with the trackpad and I can’t stress enough how much I love the trackpad on my MacBook. You can easily open mission control, swipe between full screen apps, zoom, rotate and take full control of your screen. In a strange move, the trackpad scrolling is reversed and more iOS-like, meaning the opposite direction to Snow Leopard. You can reverse that if you want; made me happy when i did!
A cloudy world full of apps
It’s a little late, but Windows will finally have an app store! It’s still cooking, but traditional and Metro-style apps will be available in the store. Metro apps are small things and will take full advantage of the new capabilities of the touch interface; It’s really up to the developers to show their magic. Windows 8 is also a cloudy operating system. If you buy an app, you can use it on all your PCs, you can sync your preferences and settings, and SkyDrive will allow the user to remotely access a PC and allow apps to share data.
Apple introduced its App Store in Snow Leopard. It makes the user experience very nice by using LaunchPad which offers easy installation, uninstallation and updates similar to iOS. Lion is even cloudier than Windows 8. iCloud is now available for developers and will give users 5GB of free storage to sync purchases, contacts, calendars, emails, photos and iTunes documents between their OS X and iOS devices .
Security and Stability
It seems that antivirus producers need to make major changes to the business. Windows 8 comes with built-in antivirus and Internet Explorer uses a database of known corrupt files to better protect the user in a world full of malware. Metro applications are protected by security and cannot access areas of the system that they shouldn’t. You can easily reset your system to factory settings without a long and annoying full installation. Microsoft has also made it much easier for you to save your information by introducing a new option to restore system files without damaging the rest of the system. Also, Windows 8 will have the File History feature that backs up and can save user profile folders to any external storage device.
Overall, Apple’s tight integration of hardware and software and its incredibly robust ecosystem, which is not open in any sense, make Apple products much more stable than alternatives. It’s not to say that Lion comes bug free: I think we all remember the nasty bugs that came with Lion initially but were later fixed. Time Machine backups along with auto-save and file versioning make disaster recovery a breeze. Also for now, it seems that OS X has remained a virus-free environment. Perhaps this will change as Macs make more of the headlines. Being the center of attention means being in the spotlight of many genius hackers.
an unpredictable future
On Windows, the lines between mobile and desktop will blur. I admire the ambition behind the sweeping changes Microsoft has made to Windows 8, though I like the distinction Apple makes. Windows 8 is still evolving, but it has made enough changes to get some of us excited. Although I think Metro UI is overrated, I find it very beautiful and comfortable to use. Apple seems to have the advantage of having focused on mobile for the longest time with a proven track record and an army of excellent and loyal developers. Apple seems to have won over the hearts and minds of consumers and it would be too hard to beat them, at least for now.