tygerland.net

John Gruber has an excellent piece on the continuing march of the Apple Mac. Via.

I wonder how many long-time Mac users will get turned off by the popularity of the brand. There has always been something of a “secret club” of Mac users. Personally I’m happy for the platform to go mainstream, as it’ll result in more hardware support and better apps. Microsoft has abused its position for long enough - the *completely* lame Vista was the final straw.

I have no doubt that Leopard will get some criticism too. Mac OS 10.5 is nowhere near as revolutionary as Tiger - at least to the average user. Supposedly the major improvements are under the hood, allowing for much better applications and laying the foundations for future iPod/iPhone enhancements.

Will I upgrade straight away? I have a feeling a more powerful, compact (11.1″?) MacBook Pro is in the offing next year (the vine has been buzzing for over a year). A smaller notebook, with a bit more graphical oomph (than the 13.33″ MacBook), would be perfectly placed for tech-savvy professionals who are on the road more than they’re in the office. Until then, I’ll be sticking with my Tiger-powered iBook.

The truth is, competition from Apple and Linux distributors (and believe me, Redmond takes the Linux threat very seriously) is healthy for the industry. It’ll force Microsoft to innovate and hopefully drive down the price of Windows. Vista reeks of arrogance and corporate rot, competition will ensure this’ll change.