Looking forward - looking back

There are some fundamental differences in how Microsoft and Apple does things. If you haven’t been aware of them before switching from a Windows based computer to a Mac, you’ll probably notice some of them pretty fast.

One of the first things I discovered is that things are more “binary” in the Mac world. If you have an external device it either works with the Mac or it doesn’t. There isn’t that middle ground from the windows world where it almost works, but not quite - or worse it works in even week numbers but not when the sun shine.

Another thing I fear I’ll discover after the next Apple World Wide Developer Conference s their will to leave things behind. Microsoft has an impressive - maybe even amazing - record of backwards compatibility. Almost no matter how they move forward, they never really break anything backwards. Apple on the other hand is pretty hard on legacy - if you can’t keep up, you’re left behind. They were among the first to drop the disk drive, and they been much more efficient in moving their user base to the current version of their OSX (not quite like Microsoft, which seem to have a hard time getting their users on to Vista). a I’m afraid they’ll announce that the next version of OS X - the 10.6 - is Intel-only - leaving my PowerG5 behind. It doesn’t feel like an old nor slow machine, but once Apple decided it’s too old - it really doesn’t matter - and I better start saving some cash for a new Mac.