Apple brags while Microsoft lags.

So, I’ve just heard through the grapevine that Microsoft, while readying Windows Vista Service Pack 1, is also readying Windows XP Service Pack 3 in an attempt to breathe new life into good ol’ XP. Yes, that’s right, Vista sucks so bad that Microsoft sees the need to extend XP’s life to not lose customers.

That may be a bad sign. In fact, as an extremely-biased Cult of Mac member, I’ll go out on a limb and say that it’s an extremely bad sign for Bill & Co.

My reasoning stems from the fact that, in computing terms, a couple of years is an eternity. Obsolescence can happen in a week. By those standards, Windows XP (with a shiny new service pack or not) is an old, old, old horse waiting to be put out to pasture.

Personal computing is going through a paradigm shift. Quick searching, indexing and the like are making file hierarchies less important, and stable networking has become essential. Apple started it with Spotlight in 10.4, Microsoft copied it in Vista, but here’s the important part: only one of the aforementioned companies got it right. Here’s a hint: they’re not from Washington.

Vista, it seems, is gaining in unpopularity. Certainly, Microsoft’s numbers reflect nothing of the sort, but consider this: Microsoft’s sales numbers include PCs pre-loaded with Vista at the factory. I’ve spoken to a good number of people who have bought a PC with Vista and been immensely disappointed in its performance. A few have even formatted the HDD on their shiny new PC to replace Vista with its older brother.

Nothing about Vista seems to work properly, and, as we’re seeing now, it doesn’t matter how hard Microsoft tries to shove it down the public’s throat- it’s still a poorly conceived, poorly designed and poorly implemented operating system.

Enter Leopard (Mac OSX 10.5). Certainly, the Macintosh hasn’t had the PCs numbers since the ’80s (just before Microsoft copied it and sold Mac OS as their own system). However, one should take note that you can look at Microsoft’s list of Vista “innovations” and find that Apple had them in Tiger, OSX 10.4, over a year before Vista was released. This makes Leopard absolute gravy, in that it does more than Vista can, and it does everything better.

Not only that, but you don’t need a shiny new Mac to run Leopard. My old G4 tower is faster than ever after loading Leopard. Yes, you read that right: my old computer is faster with the new OS than it was with 10.4. Try that with Vista.

Couple that with the fact that Mac hardware is rock-solid, and that you can now run Windows apps from directly within OSX, without rebooting.

Windows’ days are numbered. The Mac shall inherit the earth.