There have been a few times in computer history where the Mac vs. Windows (or Windows vs. Mac or whatever) has been at the forefront of technology news.
When Windows 95 was released, all the Macheads went nuts because they instantly pegged the interface as a direct rip-off of MacOS. One of the most popular phrases was "Win 95 = Mac 85" in reference to year of release.
When Windows Vista was introduced to retail in 2007, the Macheads were all sure – very sure – that it was the end of Windows. Well, obviously it wasn’t as Microsoft released Windows 7 to retail in 2009, which many call "fixed Vista" because it’s what Vista should have been in the first place.
Nobody really talks about Mac vs. PC, or to be more specific, OS X vs. Windows because they both basically have the same game plan. OS X Lion is going with a very iOS-style interface, and the upcoming Windows 8 will also do the same with its "Metro".
The real Mac vs. PC isn’t with desktops anymore, it’s with smartphones – and there are three competitors. iOS vs. Windows Phone vs. Android. Put into desktop terms, this would literally translate to Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux.
What’s the same and what’s changed?
What’s changed is obviously the hardware platform. Instead of an open (or mostly-open) desktop architecture we now have proprietary handsets, and there’s not really much in the way of hardware upgrades you can do with them. Yes, you can add in storage with microSD and connect peripherals, but it’s not like you can crack the thing open and, say, upgrade the RAM or CPU.
What’s the same are the things geeks argued about back then that are still relevant now. Namely, "X OS can do things Y OS can’t." There are certain things you can do with Android that you can’t do with iOS and vice versa. And in 6 days Nokia is introducing new Windows 7 phones into the fray. Will they do well? We’ll find out on launch.
The biggest change overall is that we’re not so much debating things like CPU and RAM but rather what the software can do. And yes this basically means we’re debating Mac/Windows/Linux pros and cons all over again.
But is this a good thing? I personally think it is. We all want smartphones that will work and allow us to install anything we want without restriction. And there’s more than a few of us who would truly not mind having a phone as our only computer because heck, that would be convenient.
Given the strong possibility that phones will be our future PCs, yes we should debate iOS vs. Android vs. Windows Phone. We should talk about what’s great and what sucks about those OSes. We should share user experiences. We should be talking about all of that.
The single largest advantage you as a user have now compared to then is that the companies who make mobile OSes and apps actually read user reviews and debates. Did you have access to chat directly with an app developer on a forum in 1995? Probably not. Could you post a tweet to the OS development team in 1995? Absolutely not. But we can do all that now. Take advantage of it.
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