Productivity

Depending on which side of the isle you land on, people tend to say that “their” OS is more conducive to productivity than the other. Here is my experience and my thoughts with both Mac and Windows platforms.

Out of the box both Windows 8 and Mac OS X are about equally productive in regards to the basics. Web browsing, text editing (a basic text editor is included on both systems -  though I find that Word Pad on MS is slightly more robust than Text Edit on the Mac with one exception – Text Edit will allow you to save as a .doc or .docx while neither Word Pad or Note Pad offer that function).

If you play around with photos a little bit, you’re going to be tearing your hair out on a Windows machine out of the box as Windows 8 only offers viewing capabilities and Apple offers iPhoto which is a fairly robust photo editor/enhancer. It’s not Photoshop, by any means, but you can adjust saturation, fix redeye, remove blemishes, desaturate into a B&W image and more. Windows 8.1 offers some editing functionality, but it’s still behind iPhoto.

If you want anywhere near the functionality of iPhoto, you have to hunt for and download Windows Live Essentials 2012 – which also comes with a movie editor to answer iMovie on the Mac. Only Movie editor is very difficult to use and not at all integrated into other pieces of software the way iMovie is integrated into iTunes, Garage Band, iPhoto and iTunes. Also, once you’ve made you movie, trying to export it to a DVD can be tricky, where Apple has iDVD which allows you to create chapters, setup menus and more.

For the professional or semi-professional photographer, they will be purchasing their own photo software with Lightroom or Aperture.

In terms of straight Modern UI apps to match up with some of these ideas, there are no Modern UI word processors that are any good and no Modern UI spreadsheet software titles that are any good.

If the Start Screen is the eventuality of Windows (and it appears that is the direction that MS is heading in, then they need to allow 3rd parties to develop apps that will work. Are developers afraid of writing a powerful Word Processor that will work with the Modern UI because they think MS will smack their hands? Would Microsoft really say “No, you can’t put an alternative to Word on the store”?

And if that is the case, then Microsoft is in a ton of trouble.

Here’s where Microsoft has failed, and continues to fail: Consumers.

Gamers they still have a hold on, though that’s becoming less of an issue recently, and business have been where they’ve succeeded in the past. But with a fraction of the content available through the Apple App Store, and none of them good alternatives to what Microsoft produces in house, it’s not at all appealing for people.

Why are people jumping ship for Apple? Apple provides a better experience simply through their selection of apps and the quality of their developers. The lack of virus infections is also a big plus.

Could Microsoft change its track? Yes, but it would need to seriously button down and make developing for the Modern UI far more enticing.