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• Raffi Saltman - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link

  I notice that some of you are arguing over the user experience of Windows and OS X. I suggest you guys visit a great site called
  
  xvsxp.com
  
  where you will find a very detailed shootout review of the two operating systems. It's very informative and useful and you may find yourself coming back to it again and again.

• joe - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link

  "I wished floppies would go away, or that we'd do away with parallel/serial ports on motherboards"
  
  AMEN - When they announced the BTX form factor last year, I was most dissapointed that they STILL included serial/parallel and PS/2 ports. I was hoping that with BTX they would go ahead and take the risk and drop those ports. I just got a Dell Inspiron 600m and the serial/parallel ports on the back are the biggest waste of space on the whole damn machine- there's just no need to take up that valuable space around the edges of a laptop.

• Euripedes - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link

  #24 "- no hibernate feature. this is very annoying if you have a laptop. "
  
  The jargon on the Mac side is Sleep and it works better than hibernate on windows. How? You just close the laptop lid. How do you wake? You just open it.
  
  You try regularly hibernating XP after a long session, with all your work open and five or six programs running... do that for a week and see if anything fails. In my experience Windows often can't start up successfullly the first time you try, let alone for a week!
  
  "- if you require the use of a program that is only available on windows but not mac, you will need to be switching between systems a lot. which basically means for me that i will have to carry around two"
  
  It is rare that there isn't a good Mac equivalent or Virtual PC won't run it. Don't forget that the reverse is also true and that Macs run many linux & Unix apps natively without restarting into another OS or using X Windows.
  
  "-ejecting a cd. i press the eject button on my powerbook cdrom drive and nothing happens,"
  
  Then get your hardware/install repaired because in four years of Mac OS X this has never happened to me.
  
  "- dragging stuff to trash. why can't i just press delete"
  
  Command Delete.
  
  "- double clicking the title bar of a window maximizes it in windows. in OS X it minimizes it. again, would it kill them to make it the same as windows? "
  
  Contrary to the desktop wasteful Windows OS, OS X is a multitasking OS that want's you to see other windows should you chose to. It manages windows by helping keep them as SMALL as practical... there is no need for maximising. Windows wastes 50% of every window forcing you to maximise and obscure everything else. YES, it would kill to copy windows because it's lousy.
  
  "- one button mouse comes standard on laptops (all of my systems are laptops). detracts from portability"
  
  So install SideTrack.
  
  "- mouse tracking did not work correctly when I plugged in two different usb mice, it was slow and overreacted to acceleration. maybe i could fiddle with the system preferences"
  
  So Apple's defaults can't suit everyone.
  
  "- most of the time to open an icon i double click it. but things in the system preferences are only single click. "
  
  Just like any Control Panel dialogue in Windows.
  
  -there is no "directory up" button in finder, just a keyboard shortcut
  
  What exactly do the arrow keys do in Column view?
  
  "-if the bottom of the window is near the dock, it is a hassle to resize it"
  
  Command D hides the dock OR move it to the left or right of your screen - but you have a point. Approaching the taskbar is easier if Magnification is set high while it is at the bottom of the screen... but would I swap it's flexibility for the taskbar? No. The taskbar is FAR more flawed - just try to multitask with it and it soon becomes useless.
  
  It also takes the same space while doing less, more poorly:
  Which apps are open - can you see at a glance? No.
  Launch apps - no.
  Permanent quick nestled folder access - No.
  Animated icon info (eg progress bars) - No.
  Quick keyboard activated hide? - you'll have to tell me.
  Location Trash not obscured? - No
  Show Original? Tell me
  Nestled folder access? I don't think so
  Visual simplicity? Most definitely not
  Simple customisation? No! Explain the registry hack for turning off MSN in XP!
  
  By the way, on the subject of deleting, do you know how many windows novices do not know that dropping something in the "recycle bin" (those MS programmers really have no facility for the English language, "Wallpaper"!) does not delete it? Why? Because the popup dialogue on doing so tells warns them that it is about to delete and then DOESN'T! The warning on the Mac is where it should be - on deleting.
  
  "- the bouncing icon when an application needs your attention is annoying. the flashing blue in windows is much easier to tolerate. "
  
  You have a point, the Mac animation is a little more urgent... and I agree. I'd like it toned down too.
  
  "- once you get outside the mainstream of microsoft and adobe, you have to try harder to find mac software than windows software. "
  
  No, you know where to shop - just like Windows users. One doesn't need a million poorly written apps - 23,000 good ones is a bit of overkill too: http://guide.apple.com/index.lasso
  
  "- often times i will click the mouse on what appears to be the menu bar, but i will accidentally position it too low and OS X will think i am clicking on the desktop. the menu switches to finder, and to return the the application's menu i must go all the way down to the dock or use expose..."
  
  or hit Command Tab, or click on the app window, or leave your windows in their default location butted up against the menu bar.
  
  By the way, open any app in Windows... click on the desktop "Wallpaper" (they paper their desks)... what happened?
  
  "- for a completely new user choosing a windows pc will allow them to use pc's at friends..."
  
  No change is good? Competition is bad? New things are bad? Learning is bad?
  
  For a completely new user choosing a windows pc will also allow them to:
  
  ... experience regular crashes (MS own research on a million corporate PCs: NT 3% of sessions; 2000 4%; XP 12% - http://solutions.journaldunet.com/0409/040915_etud...
  
  ... enjoy trojans, spyware, virii, worms, browser hijacks
  ... experience system unexplained slowdowns
  ... try out MS hardware authentication again and again
  ... pay for high hardware depreciation
  ... enjoy the popularity that comes with pestering your more experienced relatives/friends for help
  
  "- itunes takes up just as much screen real estate as media player, and it does not play movies "
  
  I can hear Gates now:
  "Quality does not result in sales. Functionality is what customers buy. Releasing more and more buggy features over a product lifetime ties consumers into the upgrade cycle. Remember QUALITY KILLS the UPGRADE CYCLE."
  
  "- no paint program. I use paint a lot in windows for basic image editing. "
  
  Yeah, and the graphic arts don't run on Macs! If you mean that there isn't a bundled paint app - Appleworks. If you mean there isn't a Pro one - Corel.
  
  "- in safari, the stop button and the refresh button are in the same position. if you click it to stop and then accidentally click it again to refresh, it is annoying. "
  
  It is called uncluttered design - not something you will not have come across in the timewarp stuck PC world - where they can't leave a 1970s Japanese car stereo inspired design blackhole. It is sort of fitting that the UI for most PC apps seems to be based on the most cluttered unintuitive piece of hardware of all time. It's gone from killing motorists to killing time.
  
  "-in sherlock i have to press enter to begin my search. In itunes it just starts searching without pressing enter, even though otherwise it looks exactly the same as sherlock. this is inconsistent."
  
  No it does not look the same - one is an internal browse function and the other a command to search the internet. The internet search technically must wait for an enter - why limit an internal browse unnecessarily? Perhaps because MS haven't implemented it yet - and they've just ripped it out of the first version of Longhorn which is one to two years away.
  
  "-holding down the one mouse button pops up a context menu on some things, others you must control click. this is inconsistent. "
  
  Point number three - you've found an inconsistency... but you need to understand, most Mac users rarely if ever use contextual menus - they are by definition inconsistent... look at Windows!
  
  As for nit-picking inconsistency in OS X while lauding Windows! Windows confuses: apps with windows in the taskbar; quitting with closing windows; starting with shutting down; OK with Apply; the file system with the internet browser; the internet browser with the OS; MSN with the OS; corporate needs with those of the consumer who actually paid for the OS: WMA files with spyware; installing an app with hacking the entire system; uninstalling with brain surgery; it's customers with retards who'll be impressed with Teletubby styling and being pestered by a paperclip and a badly drawn needy yellow dog.
  
  "- in windows, you can right click in my computer and sort the files by whatever criteria you'd like. it is not immediately obvious how to do this in finder. "
  
  You go to the menu bar - where the menus are - and you choose the one called View. It's sitting right in front of you saying "I'm the view menu - I control how things look". That is less intuitive than NOTHING at all? Just right click and hope something pops up?
  
  "- no add/remove programs in system preferences. sometimes i want to uninstall a program but i forget where the folder is."
  
  You seriously think even fanbois are going to be impressed with the meal Windows makes of installing and uninstalling versus dragging and dropping into the Apps folder?
  
  "- i got used to its eye candy and anti-aliased fonts very quickly, now they are actually somewhat unpleasant as compared to the more minimal design scheme of windows."
  
  So you turn off system anti-aliasing in Windows too? Not a fan of MS Cleartype technology? I happen to think it is better than the Mac anti-aliasing on an LCD because it emphasises clarity over accuracy.
  
  "- certain programs are not installed by dragging the applications folder, you must run a package file instead. this is inconsistent"
  
  No, you are wrong here - but in good company this time. Anand also thought dragging to the Apps folder was the install. In fact the apps do not install the files they need (eg prefs) until they are opened. Do you really believe that even the tiniest app should run an installer? Most PC users I've seen watch a Mac install for the first time are shocked by how easy it is - while you try to paint simplicity as a vice.
  
  "- it has it's own version of the blue screen of death, called a kernel panic"
  
  Can't say - never seen one in four years.
  
  "- overall sherlock is much faster and easier to get to than windows search "
  
  Command F is easier still for file searching the HDD

• msva124 - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link

  >I agree that polls and surveys would work, but the question of what a statistically meaningful
  >>survey size comes up. Is it enough with 10 people? 100 people? 1,000 people? Actually, now that I >think about it, I think no number of people would be enough, because there are so many diverse >populations.
  
  Right now we are using a sample size of one person (Anand). It does not make sense to imply that his opinion is a better predictor of the average user's opinion than a poll of 10 average users. You need to learn more about statistics.
  
  You are correct about one thing, though, that it is best for people to test drive. That is more accurate than any poll. Unfortunately when a test drive costs $499, that is not a viable option for most. A poll is a good compromise.
  
  >So if Anand is recommending OS X, I think it is valid for readers (just like a movie critic!) who >>happen to agree with him on other things. IE, if a person is aligned in thought with Anand, then >>recommending OS X isn't bad.
  
  This tells me nothing about whether Anand's opinion aligns with the opinion of the average user. That is all I am concerned with.
  
  >Then there's another technique: Recommending OS X on it's strengths for people who value those >strengths. If a person has problems with viruses, worms, exploits, and trojans, on their PC, don't >.use it for anything more than email, browsing, uploading pictures, and playing solitaire, then I feel >no qualm about recommending OS X.
  
  This is a good idea for someone plagued by spyware, who thinks running ad-aware on a regular basis is a hassle. I think it is a hassle, but I rarely need to do it.
  
  >I'm curious why you think OS X is inferior. We've clashed before, but I've never found out why you >think so. Is it only because the cost of entry is (slightly) higher than in Windows? Is there >>fundamental design issues that make the OS problematic? Perhaps it's something you can write an> article for, because I've never met someone who can tell me why OS X sucks, only that it does.
  
  Above all, it is a subjective thing like a t-shirt - I can't pinpoint the reason why I don't like it, but I know that I don't. You've already said that was a valid criteria for liking the OS, certainly it should be for not liking it as well? There are some other lesser reasons I have for disliking it:
  
  - i greatly prefer the taskbar over expose. considering that multitasking is the one of the few times I spend dealing with the operating system as opposed to individual programs, this is a big deal for me. I could make the decision based on this alone.
  
  - no hibernate feature. this is very annoying if you have a laptop.
  
  - if you require the use of a program that is only available on windows but not mac, you will need to be switching between systems a lot. which basically means for me that i will have to carry around two laptops all the time if i want to have the mac for everyday use. on the other hand, there are mac programs not available for windows, but they are much fewer.
  
  -ejecting a cd. i press the eject button on my powerbook cdrom drive and nothing happens, i have to drag it to the trash. even though pressing the eject button is the way you do it on pretty much every cd and dvd player available. and sometimes when i have all programs closed and drag the cd to the trash, it says it cant eject because it is being used by a program.
  
  - dragging stuff to trash. why can't i just press delete? if apple afraid people will delete things by accident, just give them a confirmation dialog. even if that fails they can always remove it from the trash or recycle bin, no harm done.
  
  - one button mouse comes standard on laptops (all of my systems are laptops). detracts from portability if i need to always carry a mouse around. my thinkpad has two mouse buttons and a scroll button built in.
  
  - mouse tracking did not work correctly when I plugged in two different usb mice, it was slow and overreacted to acceleration. maybe i could fiddle with the system preferences, but on windows it just works.
  
  - most of the time to open an icon i double click it. but things in the system preferences are only single click.
  
  -there is no "directory up" button in finder, just a keyboard shortcut
  
  -if the bottom of the window is near the dock, it is a hassle to resize it because the icons will pop up. i have learned to turn off animation, but it should be off by default.
  
  - development tools are poor in comparison to delphi and VS .NET on windows. Not to mention there is no vmware like program to simulate testing on more than one OS X machine. Maybe this is just a pet cause of mine, but if apple wants to win influence over technical users they need to start paying more attention to them.
  
  - windows feels more responsive to me. I can drag a scroll bar and it doesnt lag behind the mouse.
  
  - the cost of entry is slightly higher, buying yearly $129 upgrades to the OS is higher, the cost of mac compatible peripherals is often times higher, if you already have a windows PC with microsoft office you will have to buy the mac version. And if you wish to keep a windows PC around for gaming and what not, you will have to upgrade or purchase new computers for both platforms every few years, instead of buying only a new windows pc.
  
  - why cant i use the cut command in finder? i want to cut and paste files very often, is dragging the only way?
  
  - many of the keyboard shortcuts have these weird symbols that I don't understand and are not shown on any of the keyboard keys. This is unintuitive.
  
  - behavior of maximize button is inconsistent between programs, for instance safari and finder. in windows you always know what it will do, make the window fill the screen.
  
  - there is no documents item in the go menu in finder, yet there are items for network and idisk. don't most people use documents a lot more frequently?
  
  - you have to explicitly drag something into the dock after you install it. in windows pretty much everything that you install goes into the start menu.
  
  - in windows i can close applications in one click with the X button, in OS X i need to go to the menu or learn the keyboard shortcuts. actually in some applications clicking X does close it, this is inconsistent.
  
  - dragging a file onto a different hard drive copies it. dragging it somehwere on the same hard drive cuts and pastes it. this is unintuitive, and i know of no way to cut and paste a file onto a different hard drive in one step.
  
  - the keyboard shortcuts are different from windows, every time i copy and paste i try to use the control key on my powerbook. they could very easily be made the same, by doing away with the apple key, with no discernible disadvantage.
  
  - double clicking the title bar of a window maximizes it in windows. in OS X it minimizes it. again, would it kill them to make it the same as windows?
  
  - the bouncing icon when an application needs your attention is annoying. the flashing blue in windows is much easier to tolerate.
  
  - once you get outside the mainstream of microsoft and adobe, you have to try harder to find mac software than windows software.
  
  - often times i will click the mouse on what appears to be the menu bar, but i will accidentally position it too low and OS X will think i am clicking on the desktop. the menu switches to finder, and to return the the application's menu i must go all the way down to the dock or use expose, rather than just trying again to click on the menu.
  
  - for a completely new user choosing a windows pc will allow them to use pc's at friends houses, libraries, and most kiosks with ease. a mac user would be unfamiliar. this would also help if you were a new user and you went from a job that required no computer use, to one that did. they would most likely have windows pcs at your job.
  
  - itunes takes up just as much screen real estate as media player, and it does not play movies
  
  - no paint program. i use paint a lot in windows for basic image editing.
  
  - in safari, the stop button and the refresh button are in the same position. if you click it to stop and then accidentally click it again to refresh, it is annoying.
  
  -in sherlock i have to press enter to begin my search. In itunes it just starts searching without pressing enter, even though otherwise it looks exactly the same as sherlock. this is inconsistent.
  
  -holding down the one mouse button pops up a context menu on some things, others you must control click. this is inconsistent.
  
  - in windows, you can right click in my computer and sort the files by whatever criteria you'd like. it is not immediately obvious how to do this in finder.
  
  - no add/remove programs in system preferences. sometimes i want to uninstall a program but i forget where the folder is.
  
  - i got used to its eye candy and anti-aliased fonts very quickly, now they are actually somewhat unpleasant as compared to the more minimal design scheme of windows.
  
  - certain programs are not installed by dragging the applications folder, you must run a package file instead. this is inconsistent
  
  - it has it's own version of the blue screen of death, called a kernel panic
  
  I know you are going to argue that I am wrong on each one of these points, and that is fine. But keep in mind that 75% of my preference is based on the way I feel about it intuitively, like with picking up the shirt. Except for the taskbar vs. expose issue, all of the criteria listed above are minor things. I'm sure you could point out just as many problems with windows, but it simply feels right to me. Not to mention I am not a fan of windows by any means, I hate it only slightly less than OS X.
  
  Here are some things I like about OS X:
  
  - installing applications is overall much simpler than on windows
  
  - colors are more vibrant
  
  - it is easier to launch applications from the dock than the quick launch bar in windows, because the icons are bigger. also many people don't know how to use the quick launch bar
  
  - no spyware or viruses. this is a huge draw for people who can't or don't want to use ad-aware on a regular basis. however, this could have the unforseen effects of gathering all of the least experienced users into one place, making os x and .mac email addresses the ideal target for spyware writers and phishing scams
  
  - one click on dock to get to finder vs. two + some mouse moving to get to "my computer" in windows
  
  - kernels panics happen much less frequently than windows xp hangs. but even for windows they are infrequent enough to factor very little into my decision
  
  - no home edition and professional, just one single version of the OS
  
  - you can always print to a pdf from practically any application, on windows you must install a pdf driver
  
  - print preview is in every application, WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get)
  
  - overall sherlock is much faster and easier to get to than windows search
  
  - itunes is much better than winamp for finding the song you want to play
  
  - when it starts up, you can use it. with windows it is usually still loading programs for a minute or so, which is very annoying.
  
  - i like the way dmgs are handled in os x better than how zips are handled in windows. they are obviously not the same thing, but often times used for similar reasons.
  
  - iLife, if you take digital photos or edit home movies
  
  

• hopejr - Sunday, January 30, 2005 - link

  #19, I'm not so sure a poll or survey would be reasonable in this instance unless you only picked a sample from a population of dual-users. The reason for this is that the majority of the world's population is not exposed to OS X, and are told that macs are only for the artsy type. Now the people that say that have been told that, and never really properly investigated it for themselves. I was once one of those people, but in 2003 I noticed more and more techies and sys admin ppl getting macs, and in 2004 I decided to try it. Now I know what OS I prefer, and it's OS X.

• Jon - Sunday, January 30, 2005 - link

  Anand: Send the document that can't be imported to Apple, either through their general feedback system or to someone you know there. If it contains sensitive data, just do a find/replace on singe letters until it's gook and then send it in. I'm sure they'd want to find out why Pages can't open the file while TextEdit can.

• brichpmr - Sunday, January 30, 2005 - link

  msva124, when all is said and done, the only opin ion that holds water for me in choosing an OS is personal daily hands-on usage...anything else is just apocryphal and useful to a lesser degree. I admire Anand's openness to invest in and become familiar with OSX. FPS and other stats will never give you the full picture of the user experience and whether it's one you will like. You need to do the legwork. For me and others who use OSX and XP every day, that's the ticket to informed preference.

• Michael2k - Sunday, January 30, 2005 - link

  You're quite the conscientious critic then. I'm thinking of movie reviewers who recommend and pan movies based on personal criteria without concern of their readers.
  
  I agree that polls and surveys would work, but the question of what a statistically meaningful survey size comes up. Is it enough with 10 people? 100 people? 1,000 people? Actually, now that I think about it, I think no number of people would be enough, because there are so many diverse populations. I think it's more useful for people to actually 'test drive', just like cars, the OS, or listen to recommendations of people you know.
  
  So if Anand is recommending OS X, I think it is valid for readers (just like a movie critic!) who happen to agree with him on other things. IE, if a person is aligned in thought with Anand, then recommending OS X isn't bad.
  
  Then there's another technique: Recommending OS X on it's strengths for people who value those strengths. If a person has problems with viruses, worms, exploits, and trojans, on their PC, don't use it for anything more than email, browsing, uploading pictures, and playing solitaire, then I feel no qualm about recommending OS X.
  
  It's one thing to recommend the 'best', but I think it's quite acceptable to recommend something 'good enough' if it has some stellar qualities to match. OS X may not be 'the best', and you believe that it is 'inferior', but I think it is 'the best'. However I am willing to believe that for other people, OS X is 'good enough', but because it is currently free of all viruses, malware, and exploits, and it is immune to all of Windows viruses and stuff, I think it's perfectly acceptable to recommend it.
  
  And why OS X over Debian or Fedora Core? Because, using those OSes, I don't think they are 'good enough', unless you buy an iBook or PowerBook to install them on! They, like Windows, don't have (can't have) reasonable startup screen resolutions, changing screen resolutions isn't immediately obvious (or easy), the installation process requires you to know enough to ignore the information on logical volumes, and plugging in a USB key requires you to know dmesg, mount, and /dev. There are probably lots of little things I work around without consciously thinking about it, that I don't believe the average, or even above average, user can do on a daily basis without considerable stress.
  
  I'm curious why you think OS X is inferior. We've clashed before, but I've never found out why you think so. Is it only because the cost of entry is (slightly) higher than in Windows? Is there fundamental design issues that make the OS problematic? Perhaps it's something you can write an article for, because I've never met someone who can tell me why OS X sucks, only that it does.

• msva124 - Sunday, January 30, 2005 - link

  >Myself, I DO think it is a more valid alternative to Windows than KDE, and I DON'T think it's a
  >problem to influence people to favor OS X.
  
  Yes, but that's merely your opinion. There is little reason for me to trust your opinion above someone else who gives the opposite argument, i.e. that KDE is a more valid alternative and that it is a problem to influence people to favor OS X. Nor is there any reason to trust Anand's opinion on this matter. His credibility is based upon doing benchmarks as fairly as possible, not giving his opinion on operating systems. Until he has proven that he has a talent in this area, that his opinions align with those of the average user who he wants us to influence, I will have qualms about recommending OS X to anyone.
  
  >I would suppose it would be as if Anand intuitively 'knew' OS X was better, in general, but didn't >.know how to show it. Take a shirt: Hold two plain t-shirts and you can say the better one is >'softer', 'heavier', 'smoother', 'more tightly woven', and 'more flexible' because you can compare >them physically.
  
  Okay, so now we know that Anand liked the shirt. But unless I am his identical twin, that tells me very little about whether I would like it, much less whether I should recommend it to my friends and relatives. If I had some statistics on what the typical consumer thought of the shirt, I would be better able to make a decision. So, you should give the shirt to a bunch of different people and do a survey. If 75% of people express a solid preference for one shirt over the other, I would not think twice about recommending that shirt. You don't even need to give the thing to a hundred people. Maybe just ten of them, ten average shoppers selected at random. Anything is better than taking only one shopper's opinion, which is what we are doing for Anand's.
  
  It is the same for music and movies. Do you usually listen to the opinion of only one critic in your local paper before making a viewing/listening decision, or do you go online to see what other critics and users thought of the work? Probably the second, especially if the one critic from your paper just recently started reviewing movies and you don't know whether you agree with their tastes yet.
  
  >How do you do this for an OS?
  >OS X is... 'more responsive'? How do you measure that? From my experience it is, though. >>>>Perhaps you can make a list of 'experiments' and say, "These things define responsiveness, and >fail on Windows and pass on OS X"?''
  
  No, just do surveys. People intuitively know whether their computer is responsive, you should gather their opinions.
  
  >Or, "iMovie is more powerful than Movie Maker", and how do you explain that? That it's >>functionality was exposed in a more internally self consistent manner? That it's learning curve was >more internally self consistent? That it had more of the features I wanted, and less of the >features I didn't? That it's workflow was more similar to my workflow than Movie Maker?
  
  Again, do polls/surveys, preferably of as many people as possible.
  
  I could just recommend based on my opinion, informed by several months of use, that OS X is inferior to Windows. But how do I know that the majority of average users would feel the same? I want to do what is right for them, not just push what I personally think is the better platform.

• Michael2k - Sunday, January 30, 2005 - link

  I've been wondering lately if perhaps Anand was slowly being seduced by OS X.
  
  Myself, I DO think it is a more valid alternative to Windows than KDE, and I DON'T think it's a problem to influence people to favor OS X.
  
  I would suppose it would be as if Anand intuitively 'knew' OS X was better, in general, but didn't know how to show it. Take a shirt: Hold two plain t-shirts and you can say the better one is 'softer', 'heavier', 'smoother', 'more tightly woven', and 'more flexible' because you can compare them physically.
  
  How do you do this for an OS?
  
  OS X is... 'more responsive'? How do you measure that? From my experience it is, though. Perhaps you can make a list of 'experiments' and say, "These things define responsiveness, and fail on Windows and pass on OS X"?
  
  Or, "iMovie is more powerful than Movie Maker", and how do you explain that? That it's functionality was exposed in a more internally self consistent manner? That it's learning curve was more internally self consistent? That it had more of the features I wanted, and less of the features I didn't? That it's workflow was more similar to my workflow than Movie Maker?
  
  All I can tell, when I use a Mac vs when I use a Windows PC (at work) is that it feels like more time was spent on designing the Mac than was spent on designing the PC.
  
  Here is a silly example: Finding the Desktop on my computer.
  
  Your Desktop on both systems live in your 'home' directory. On a PC it lives inside 'Documents and Settings', on normally your C: drive.
  
  But you first have to know it's not on your A: drive, which is your floppy, or your D: drive, which is your CD-ROM. You also have to know to look in Documents and Settings. And then there is the problem of there are three (at least) folders to choose from; Administrator, All users, default user, and most likely a Named folder (like Martin).
  
  On the Mac there is no other drive. There is the Network, but no Floppy or CD-ROM (unless you insert the media, but it's there because you told it to be there), so you look on your Hard Drive. You don't have to know it's in Documents and Settings, you only have to know, "Hey, I'm a User" and look in Users, and then in your User account. There are only two folders: Your named account and a Shared account, and by default the Shared account is empty!
  
  On a PC it feels like your User account is hidden, where on a Mac it's exposed on the root level of the hard drive; and there are no additional drives on the system to mislead you unless you put them there.
  
  And there is a similar kind of effect for programs. Finding iTunes on my Mac is /Applications/iTunes, while finding Office on my PC is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Winword.exe
  
  Okay, so that looks reasonable. The hard part is that inside each level of folder on my PC there are multiple files I have to scan through to find the right one. In /Applications there isn't. Yes, some programs do violate that convention, and yes, I can see where if you have hundreds of Applications on a Mac you will want to organize them... but if you bring the analogy of the Mac to the PC, you'd have C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Winword.exe (and there would only be 4 things in the Microsoft Office folder, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access)