
 Mac OS X market share surges 32% in one year - nickb
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=operating_systems&articleId=9106098&taxonomyId=89&intsrc=kc_top
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tx
Wow... Linux gained 18% - nice. The numbers still seem pretty low to me. A
close examination of Austin coffee shops would suggest that macs have at least
70% market share and Linux is at least 10% while bookstores have 80/20 split
of OSX/Linux with Windows laptops nowhere near.

Meanwhile nation-wide numbers for UNIX-derived systems are lower. Damn you,
Oklahoma and Midwest... :)

On a serious note, I wouldn't want Linux market share to grow above 10% and
OSX - above 25%. Anything above will lead to these systems losing their
essential properties: OSX will become bloated with shitty software, trojans
and malware, and Linux won't be geeky anymore.

I'd like Linux to stay within 3-5% to ensure that we'll continue getting a
decent hardware support, and Macs should stay around 10% to keep Apple hungry.
Maybe at some point they'll finally switch default setting to gamma 2.2 and
fix Finder, iPhoto, Mail, Aperture and other similarly dysfunctional
softwares: kind of hard to recommend a Mac to a Windows-based photo enthusiast
(especially Picasa user), he'll laugh to death after glancing at OSX which is
supposedly superior when it comes to photo work.

~~~
froo
I must say I'm enjoying OSX and am thinking of buying my first mac of some
form soon.

I purchased a copy of OSX off Apple's site and am duel booting it on my
notebook just to give the software a bit of a good test run before I commit a
couple of thousand dollars into a machine, and so far the experience hasn't
been half bad.

~~~
tx
Aim higher: at some point you may want to move a file in Finder or create an
email attachment that can be opened by a PC user! Soon you may want to attempt
to see photos online without distorted colors and reduced contrast!

Those things are something Apple users apparently don't really do, that's been
my impression so far. If you're into photography, try coming in with 4-6GB
worth of RAW photos and process them without leaving a million of copies all
over the file system in various idiotic "libraries", since Apple doesn't
believe their users are smart enough the grasp concepts of a filesystem,
folders and files.

And from a programmer's perspective try mounting an SSHFS via Finder's
"connect to server..." or try doing anything FTP... Or join the army of
hackers combating "acid blue" in Terminal, or meet your new habit: Alt-tabbing
through a giant list of running apps that don't even have a window open, like
Skype or Adium or always-stuck-in-there Preview.app

Or you could try something truly basic, like selecting multiple non-adjacent
files with a keyboard or resizing a window, or switching... ok I'll stop. My
list of OSX limitations and shortcomings is about 80% of Windows' issues. When
I'm on a Mac I just fire up Safari and hide inside of it, there is no point of
using anything else: it's like every consumer app bundled by default was
designed for a 4 year old: pretty but useless.

People tend to like bright beautiful objects, pretty looking women, brown
puppies and OSX, but watching them doing actual work on a Mac is like watching
a tortoise racing.

Some of the issues can be fixed/corrected through obscure or not
settings/tweaks or installing/purchasing non-Apple software, but not all. With
that in mind, check out Linux/Gnome if you're after getting shit done.

P.S. I'm on OSX right now, enjoying awesomeness of Safari's HTML rendering and
coolness of MBP's keyboard/screen combination: if nobody critiques, they won't
get better. :-P

------
mattmaroon
Website metrics != sales. Certainly can't be a bad sign for Apple though.

------
xlnt
yay for capitalism

