The Road ahead: Leopard and Vista

Leopard or Vista, choose your future OS wisely

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year, or you don't follow technology, the decision between Leopard and Vista or staying with you current operating system has probably been made. (Sorry Linux devotees, I use lots of peripherals and Photoshop).


From just about every angle, Vista has been a disappointment. I've worked with and enjoyed PC's for the last nine years. A friend of mine bought a new desktop with Vista, and I was impressed with some of the features, but not compelled enough to go out and drop $220 on Newegg to get the retail version and install on a new computer I would have to buy. (My laptop runs great on XP, but I doubt it would meet my needs with Vista). Beyond all the eye candy, there are really minimal improvements at best. The "gadgets" Microsoft has added are essentially a clone of the widgets in Mac OS X. Vista was supposed to have extra features that were abandoned along the way. The aero interface is interesting, and maybe an attempt to one-up Exposé on the mac.



For Vista's 4-5 years of development, it has relatively little to show for it. The explorer interface is better, especially the folder paths being displayed. Vista's only real strength, however, are the new media center capabilities and the "reinvented" start menu.


Ironically enough, Leopard, "arguably" the most advanced operating system, sells for $130 MSRP, compared to a crippled and essentially worthless version of Vista; Home basic, which retails for around $200.

I had decided several months ago because of all potential upgrade hassles and very low adoption rates of Vista, that Leopard would be a much better solution. Even before this decision was made, Vista was out of the question until the first service pack would be released. I expect things to just work, I would never adopt Vista when things worked smoothly and perfectly in XP.

Apple is going to get a real shot in the arm from everyone that is avoiding Vista, not to mention average home users who are weary from spyware and virus problems.

Until Microsoft can bring Vista up to speed on hardware and peripheral compatibility, people will continue downgrading to Windows XP or switching to the Mac. Redmond had a good thing in Windows XP, but let's hope Microsoft won't become complacent with the billions they've already raked in with Vista.