A few days from now Apple fanboys world wide (myself included) will be installing Leopard on their Macs and basking in the glory that is OS X Leopard. Some people were looking forward to the day that OS X and Vista would compete on a side by side basis. I hate to be blunt, but at this stage in the game: OS X Leopard has won and Vista has proven to be a subtle disappointment.

From what I’ve heard, PC users aren’t installing Vista in droves. Sales haven’t been stellar. Business users aren’t upgrading. Vista is not a “must have”. Meanwhile, Mac sales are up and their market share is on the rise. This is even more embarrassing for Microsoft because they had a huge opportunity to upstage Mac OS X Leopard. Vista has been out for several months now, and OS X was delayed from the summer until now.

If you’re a PC user, I recommend you take a little time out of your day and watch the Leopard promo video. Just bask in the promotional reality-distortion field bending of the calm guy in the black shirt demonstrating the new version. Just note some of the tiny touches like the drifting stars in the Time Machine program or the way the Stack icons fold out. Microsoft hasn’t pushed Vista to this level of Pixar-like refinement. Then check out the extensive list of 300+ new features Apple has so elegantly provided to help sell Leopard.

Meanwhile, we have the promo videos of Vista over at the Microsoft website in comparison. Microsoft gives me bullet points, and I can’t figure out the benefits of Vista let alone how it will enhance my life. I found the videos essentially meaningless marketing with zooming windows and a vapid voice over.

The list of features asks that you drill down into different sections, essentially making me feel like I have to decide what I want the feature to be before I know what it is. Then there’s the whole confusion of having to decide which version of Vista I might want to purchase, which is another reason to procrastinate - or wait until buying a new PC that has Vista pre-installed.

Apple’s attention to quality and detail isn’t limited to just marketing - it seeps into the operating systems themselves. When using an Apple product, you get the sense they really, really, really care about the product they’re creating and try to make the experience the best it can be to help you get what you need to get done.

I don’t get that sense from Microsoft anymore - except for the XBox. Maybe they should put those guys in charge of the Windows 7 interface?

Disclosure: I own a tiny amount of Apple stock.

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