Leopard Roars, Vista’s Vile
I have yet to experience the newest Mac OS X release personally, but there have been (almost) nothing but good things said about the release of Leopard. Many of the over 300 new features are probably unnoticed, but what is the key to Mac’s success with these releases? Their attention to - or acceptance of - the most important factor in development: customer experience.
One of the constant battles that I have with true developers revolves around customer experience. Design and ease of use are often forgotten, and without keeping those in mind, it’s difficult to create an interface and experience that is obvious and intuitive, something that average users expect from their products. Complete overhauls that require the user to re-learn products are hit and miss, for example, Windows Vista and Office 2007.
Office 2007 was the type of upgrade that makes power users like myself need. It took a bit to adapt, but the good easily outweighs the bad when it comes to the new menu interface, making the gamble a good one. Vista, on the other hand, has nearly been a complete failure in my eyes. Having opted for the OS on my recent laptop purchase, I’m quickly regretting the decision to have adopted the new release. I’ve almost never had any problems with Windows operating systems, even as far back as 3.1. I experienced 95, 98, a bit of NT, loved XP, and recently was given a throw-away system with ME on it; out of the list, ME gave me the most problems, but none have compared with the constant crashes and frustrations given to me by Vista. I understand the need for increased security - using a phrase I (may or may not have) coined at a Sxip beta test: the average user is still the average user. Fine, we need to prevent them from inadvertantly installing pretty much everything. I can appreciate the need to prevent piracy; it will happen regardless, but hey, making it harder is fine. My gripe is that those force the user experience to take a bit of a backseat.
I like what Microsoft has TRIED to do, my only problem is they haven’t succeeded. Too many bugs, too many crashes, too many headaches. I’m looking at taking everything off my system and throwing on a copy of XP. Why? It works. I can handle the odd blue screen of death now and then, but daily problems with Windows Explorer that cause me to shut down and restart (thankfully I’m not one of those people who loses hours or days of work because of it) are unacceptable.