So now that Panther (MacOS X 10.3) is out the Mac users are out again trying to convince "pee-cee" users to "Switch". The problem is, Mac advocates have no credibility at this point. They've spent it long ago. People don't like being lied to and the most vocal of Mac fanatics regularly and massively crossed the line between exuberance and outright dishonesty.

Anyone who has debated in the OS wars long enough has seen what I'm talking about. Over the years argued that things like pre-emptive multitasking, SMP, multi-threading, memory protection, etc. were either things they didn't need or more ridiculously, bad things that they were better off not having.

Then, once MacOS X came out and finally brought Mac users into the 90s (Windows NT 3.1 in 1993 had all of he above and OS/2 2.0 in 1992 had all but SMP) Mac users not only began chanting the importance of these things but occasionally would even claim that they were exclusive to MacOS X. That Windows didn't have it.  Even Windows 95 had multithreading and some memory protection for crying out loud.

Today I read a Mac advocate claiming that Windows, even today, doesn't support SMP.  Windows XP Pro, Windows 2000, and Windows NT before it all supported SMP.  I also read one claiming that Windows programs aren't multithreaded and that was just another reason to switch to MacOS X.

But that wasn't the claim that sparked me to write this article.  I read a Mac user finally admit that MacOS X 10.2 "Jaguar" was "kind of beta quality".  No DUH.  After all the flames I got for my iMac experience review in which all my claims were trivialized by various Mac "advocates" who referred to me on public forums as an "idiot" for someone to finally fess up that hey, yea, Jaguar was actually kind of crappy in various corners.  And bear in mind, Jaguar was the first useable version of MacOS X in my opinion. Before that, MacOS X was so slow as to be unusable by anyone who actually needs to get work done (don't send letters about how you used 10.0 just fine, I'm about as interested in that as I am from hearing from OS/2 users today saying how OS/2 Warp 4.x is as good as Windows XP).

MacOS X 10.3 (Panther) is actually good. Very good in fact. It is what MacOS X should have been. But after all the..sorry LIES that the Mac community spread about previous versions, now that they actually have the goods, who's going to believe them? How can anyone take seriously someone who claimed that MacOS X (10.0 / 10.1) was better than Windows 2000 or Windows XP? Give me a break. And remember there were web articles that seriously tried to "compare" MacOS X 10.0 and 10.1 to Windows 2000 and Windows XP.  Remember how they always showed MacOS X 10.1 being better? Right... Not even close.

Ironically, Panther is that good. I must say that I could see how people would prefer Panther to Windows XP.  I still find it a big sluggish, and I don't like not being able to MAXIMIZE programs to use the whole screen easily (maybe there's a keyboard commend that does that). But it really is a solid operating system now. But Mac users can't, IMO, be trusted on their verdicts. Their biases go way beyond being helpful into being damaging to the Mac movement.  Windows users generally just don't care if you use Windows or not. So it's generally easier to find more balanced reporting on it. I have no particular love for Windows. But the alternatives haven't been promising both as a user and as a software developer. 

It will be interesting to see how things go with MacOS X now that it has finally delivered the goods. Pity though that the Mad advocates blew their wad before the OS was ready for prime time. Because it's now when credibility on their part would make a big difference.