Tired of listening to the news on TV? Exhausted from reading blogs against/for war with Iraq? Had enough with the Russian mafia and high gas prices?
Good, then — one, two, three, four, I declare computer war!
If you haven't already, go check out X vs. XP a nicely done independent website that compares both popular operating systems in every detail. You can guess who 'wins'.
And reports are already coming in on the next version of OS X. The news is good?
"Many have been curious about OS X 10.3, which is due out in September. Yes, it will be designed to pave the way for 64-bit IBM PowerPC 970 processors, will include a major new iChat release, will increase performance in several different ways, will include the final release of Safari, and will indeed carry with it a $129 price tag as a full yearly Apple OS X release."
It looks like this is truly the end of the multi-year operating system purchase. Now we can expect to pay an annual fee of $130 to get the latest batch of fixes. I think maybe it's time to go European and dig out the Amiga.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
I don't know who the winners are in the X vs XP *or* war with Iraq arguments.
...but I know who the losers are...
The funny thing about the $129 price tag is that although everybody complains about it, Apple still sees the money roll in. Every Mac user out there running 10.2 will want to upgrade to 10.3 because 10.2 will be outdated. I say wait another 6 months for 10.4. Microsoft couldn't pull something like that because Windows XP CD piracy is much higher than for OS X.
You simply have to weigh the pros and cons of upgrading. Do you really need the new version of iChat so bad that you'll pay $130? I don't know about that one. I've been so stingy recently that I'm still running Office 2000 even though my entire school is now on the Office XP platform. Call me frugal, I guess.
Omigod! Not Mac vs Win here, too?!? What is the world coming to?
There is a long, proud tradition of Macintosh vs. Windows here at Airbag. Thought it's mostly to bash Steve Jobs and his greed.
I paid $129 for Jag, and I had bought my iBook about 18 hours before jag was announced. Had I waited a single day, I'd have gotten the upgrade for $20. But, it was a must have upgrade. Quartz Extreme completely changed the responsiveness of the screen for me. I'll pony up $129 for Panther too. My name is Chris, and I have a problem. Hiiiii Chris!