• Dialogue boxes: In windows you get things like Yes, No and Cancel - on a Mac you get Don’t Save, Cancel and Save – logical text information that is an improvement over Windows. This is just one really plain example, I could literally list loads. Open Recent dialogues easier to read than Windows

Absolutely agree here. One of the first things I noticed about MacOS X vs. Windows was the bits of polish like this that make is a better experience.

• Drag and Drop: Far, far better in OS X over Windows. Things like dragging files to a Printer Icon to print, dragging images from the web to the desktop, drag folders to e-mail, drag a picture or photo to you desktop picture control panel sets it up as the desktop background, dragging pictures to your login icon sets that as your login picture. You can also drag reorder items in any Window toolbar or sidebar.

This isn't really a fair comparison. First, drag and drop on Windows XP is pretty thorough. But more to the point, Windows, because it is based on a 2 button mouse, does a lot more with right click menus. I'd still give the edge to the Mac though.

• Exposé – Nothing more needs to be said

Agreed.

• Navigating the file system: A Mac does in 3 views what Microsoft does in 5.

Yes and no. For one thing, you can't just type in a path into some URL-like field in Finder. I find that very annoying and limiting. Not having the ability to simply type into finder where you want to go is a major restriction IMO.

• Colour labelling: excellent way of creating user defined groupings of items.
• Icons: Nothing Windows has right now can touch the specs of 128x128 pixels and 8-bit transparency. You can also change icons really easily in OS X compared to Windows.

Wrong wrong wrong.  First off, for the price of a Mac I think one can safely say you can pick up Object Desktop. Object Desktop has been giving Windows (and OS/2 before that) features long before they showed up on the Mac. First with Zooming icons on mouse over? Object Desktop. First with Alpha blended shadows under windows? Object Desktop.

And I can replace everything on my system with 128x128 icons/objects right now. First, most modern icon packages come with 128x128 icons and have for a long while. And secondly, ObjectDock and yZ Dock have helped popularize 128x128 (and larger) PNG files that you can download and use on programs like DesktopX, ObjectDock, or IconPackager.  All of which is either part of Object Desktop or in the case of ObjectDock, freeware.

The price difference between the mid range Mac and a high range PC is about $600 in favor of the PC and the PC includes a lot more software (such as Office, DVD authoring tools, etc.) that aren't being considered. But on top of that, $600 can buy you a lot more after market software too. Object Desktop is $50 for the whole thing and it addresses a good chunk of the issues Byron speaks of.

• Fonts: Better quality and quantity of fonts, various ways of previewing fonts, including the excellent and new Font Book. Overall a better Font Management now that Windows too. Better Anti-Aliasing of fonts.

Agreed.

• Find and Search: Massively better in OS X than Windows. As soon as you start to type OS X starts searching. Sherlock is there to let you search the internet for Pictures, Stock and more.

Agreed.

• Keyboard: Makes better use of Keyboard shortcuts, navigating the file system by the keyboard, application and document switching via the keyboard (Exposé), shutting down via a keyboard and more.

Once again, because a Windows system is less expensive, inexpensive extensions should be part of this comparison. Object Desktop, once again eliminates this advantage and then some.  Keyboard LaunchPad not only allows you to assign hot keys to any program or website but can even be assigned to control parts of individual programs and apply saved clipboards automatically.

• Installing Applications: You may think this is a strange one, but in my view, dragging a Mac OS X Package (applications behave like folders) to the applications folder is a much easier install than Microsoft offers us in Windows. Multiple versions of the same program can be kept on the computer this way, uninstall is simply a case of dragging the folder to the trash. Neither Windows nor OS X is perfect.

I don't think this is that clear cut. Most Windows programs behave as he describes. They just simply include a "install wizard" to walk the user through the process.

• Video editing: iMovie ships with OS X and works very well with improved editors, filters, audio editing, and transitions

And for the amount of money difference in cost, you can purchase some pretty impressive video editing packages on Windows. And as a Mac user myself, I can tell you that you need pretty good hardware for iMovie to be useful. For one thing, in 10.2 (I haven't tried this with 10.3) some actions with video files had to be done as the foreground app. iMovie would pause the action when it wasn't the active program which makes having a high end (read: expensive) machine key.

• DVD Playback: OS X comes with a DVD player that plays the video without having to have a third parties software installed to run it, unlike Windows.

So?? What is this? Bundle wars?

Let's recap: In my view, the minimum spec'd Mac I'd purchase today is the 1.8 Ghz PowerMac G5 with 512MB of RAM (which I'd bump to 1 gig).  Add a 17 inch flat panel and your price is  $3,348.00. This right from the Mac store.

Then I go to the Dell store. Without even really working much to cut prices, a 3Ghz Dell machine with a gig of RAM and  21 inch flat panel display with a ton of software bundles is $2,700 (like Office for example which I'd have to add on to the price to the Mac).

My ThinkPad T40 comes with WinDVD.  Does Byron think that the Mac's DVD player remotely compares to WinDVD in features? 

• DVD creation: iDVD is bundled with all Macs that ship with Super Drives. Windows Movie Maker requires additional software if you want to burn DVD’s

See above. 

• E-mail: Mail is a much better free mail program than Outlook Express, especially for Junk Mail.

Agreed except my $2700 Dell with Office 2003 comes with full Outlook which is as good at junk blocking. But that's irrelevant anyway because I can use free programs like SpamPal for junk mail.

• Calendar: iCal comes free with OS X and can be synced with Palm or iPod devices. Windows has no free Calendar program.

How can you call iCal "free"?  It's figured into the price of the Mac.  Outlook 2003 comes with a similar scheduling program.

• Free developer tools: Apple offers a more complete set of free developer tools than Microsoft does for Windows XP.

Is he suggesting there aren't free developer tools for Windows?  I'll concede that developer tools should come with the OS though.

• Photos: iPhoto is far better at managing photos you have on your computer than Windows.

Again, this is bundle wars.

• Voice recognition: This has been around on the Mac since OS 7 and is built into the OS – if you want it in Windows, you need to buy Works or Office.

Voice recognition is not something that is very practical yet on either Mac or PC. And voice recognition on the PC - Dragon Speak Easy, IBM ViaVoice are both excellent if you need it.

• Speech Synthesis – OS X supports system wide voice synthesis and has various voices to choose from. OS X also has Talking Dialogues.

See above.

• Screen capture: 6 different types of screen grab shortcuts are available.

Print screen! In fact, I can't believe that he mentions this because when trying to take screenshots on the Mac I found this infuriatingly annoying.  On Windows, I can hit Ctrl-Printscreen to take a screenshot of a Windows or just Print Screen for the whole desktop and paste right into Front Page, Word, etc.  Maybe there's a trick I don't know of on the Mac but I find it much more cumbersome to get a screenshot on the Mac.  And I take a lot of screenshots, people like me are the target market for that bullet point.

• Scripting: Improved in OS X for workflow automation.

I'm not experienced enough here to comment.

• CD-R: Advanced options are far better in OS X. Add icons to CD’s you burn.
• Sticky Notes: Free and built into the OS

Bundling Bundling Bundling. For a $600 premium it should come with more stuff out of the box.

• Password Management: System wide password management through Keychain

I haven't used this enough to comment.

• Spell-check: Excellent system wide spell checking – While posting in a forum on the Internet, I can have it check my spellings on the fly.

Agreed.

• Crashes: So far I haven’t had one crash or needed a reboot (other than updates) with OS X – something that can’t be said of Windows XP.

Oh come now. Crashing on either is a non-issue. Windows XP is just as solid as MacOS.  I've had forced reboots with both on occasion but it's not statistically significant.

• No Viruses: This is a bitter point for a lot of Windows users, who usually then say it is because OS X has fewer users. Fact is – it is far more secure.

No, it's not a "fact", it's a matter of virus writers focusing on the market with 25 times more users.  This could just as easily be said about OS/2. Is OS/2 more "secure"? It doesn't even have security for it. But I've never seen a OS/2 virus or Worm and yet REXX on OS/2 allows the potential to create worms the likes no one has ever imagined. But none have happened?

My magic rock here prevents earth quakes from occurring in Michigan.  As proof I can show that there have been no earth quakes here. Would you like to buy my rock? $3348.