A friend of mine asked me why I got a Mac. I've had a MBA now for ~8 months, and it's a pretty decent machine.
I told him that I was really wanting to try out OS X as I have heard so many great things about it. After using it somewhat extensively, I can say for sure two things:
Apple laptops are built far better than Windows laptops.
There is really nothing in OS X you can do that you can't do in Windows or Linux.
Before people get all out of control, stop and think. IMO a lot of people switched to a Mac back in the days of Windows 98 or early XP. Now that Windows 7 is out, it is a much better OS. I actually prefer using Ubuntu as I find I can do pretty much anything I want.
Windows gets a bad rep from manufacturers loading massive amounts of trial crapware on a pre-built PC. A clean install and careful computing will keep this under control
I have found out that not everything "just works" on a Mac. If you stay in the Apple ecosystem, then everything will just work.
Here is my take on operating systems.
Windows 7 - Everything out there you can imagine is well, out there.
OS X - Well made, well thought out, lots of great software for pay.
Linux - If you want to tailor your OS to do exactly what you want.
Well, I have used Windows since the days of Windows 3.1. I used every version of Windows that came out, except for Windows Me. Now I am a user of Windows 8 and I can testify that the operating system evolved a lot in the last two decades. Windows 95 was pure crap, it crashed a lot, and it just could not be compared to IBM OS/2 Warp, which was as stable as unpopular. OS/2 went on to disappear, and Windows dominated the scene. But then Windows XP was a landmark, as it brought Windows NT-level of quality to consumers. Since the release of Windows XP back in 2001, Windows has turned out to be a pretty good operating system, and to prefer other operating systems over it became just a matter of personal preference over anything else.
I have also used OS X since 2008, when I bought my first (and so far only) Mac. I've been through Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. I have not installed OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion simply because it is not supported by my current Mac. OS X is a great operating system, and it runs smooth. It certainly has its own qualities and issues. I would not say it is any better than Windows, but different in its own ways.
First, OS X boots very quickly, and it has always done so. Windows 8 is also very fast to boot, but previous versions of Windows were not. I also noticed that I can run OS X for more time without formatting the whole system. I can install a lot of software on it, and it will not slow down much. Windows, on the other hand, may become very slow once I install and uninstall a lot of software on it. Registry entries and DLLs may get messed up, and, despite some programs claiming that they may fix it, the best way to solve the problem is a clean install. I have not yet had this problem with Windows 8, but I guess it is still too early to tell. Macs do not have this kind of issue, as far as I am concerned.
OS X is very good at managing battery life too. Windows 8 seems to have improved a lot on that, but OS X is still the champion on this regard.
But Windows has its advantages too. I can do more in Windows, and more advanced stuff. Software from big companies - the so-called industry standards - are almost always available for Windows. Sometimes they are also available for Mac, but the Windows version usually comes first and is better.
And Windows has Microsoft Office. Office is probably the best-selling piece of software in the world (apart from operating systems), and it is a de facto standard. Everybody else uses Office, and you are always supposed to send your files in a format that Microsoft Office can read and write. But Office is a Microsoft product, and the Windows version always come much earlier and is much better than the similar version for Mac. It should come as no surprise that Microsoft makes the best version of Office for its own platform.
There is good software available for Mac too. As big companies sometimes neglect the Mac platform, I see that lots of small companies see some room to flourish. There appears to be more quality software written by small companies for Mac than for Windows. Windows tend to have the big boys (such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop) and then free versions (such as LibreOffice and Paint.NET). The paid software by small companies end up getting crashed in the middle, and tend to disappear in the Windows platform.
Anyway, both Windows and OS X are great platforms. OS X provides a better dumbed-down experience, but you manage to do more under Windows.
As for Linux, well, I have tried it several times, and I have used some of its flavors (os "distros", as people like to call it). I have used Ubuntu (and variations), Mint, Debian, openSUSE, Fedora and Mandriva. None of them appealed to me (though I guess I prefer openSUSE over the others). Yes, it is very customizable. But it does not provide a great user experience, no matter how much I manage to customize it.
In addition, most commercial software is not available to it. I just cannot rely on open source alternatives. I am not a hobbyist, and open source software is not always the best. Sometimes they are very crappy. I understand it should be very hard to make software with a so tight budget, and without having full-time teams that rely on it to get its payday. But that is why I choose to buy my software and pay companies such as Apple or Microsoft to keep developing quality products.
Linux is, indeed, very customizable. But it is customizable to the point it get useless and pointless for me. I cannot afford to write my own software - and that would be the ultimate level of customization, which Linux would embrace more than Windows or OS X.
