And another thing...

One more area where win > mac: Google maps. On Windows Firefox, you can right click on the map to create new destinations or change a route's start point. I dunno how that's done in macland, but after 10 minutes of looking for it, I just switched to my x61 and was done.

Speaking of Apple's Secrecy...

Is it really just a coincidence that the world's most secretive consumer electronics company is also the company that just drove an employee to suicide over a lost prototype? Oh sure, the young man didn't work directly for Apple, only indirectly. Oh sure, it happened in China where employee protection isn't a priority. But I'm guessing that Apple will be changing their vendor relations policies as a result of this incident.

Chrome

My dream of a Google operating system has been announced. I thought it was too much to hope for. I thought Google grew up too late to bother with an OS at this point. With everything moving into the clouds, who would start a new OS today?

When Andriod came along, I thought, well, there's one avenue to compete with MS and Apple that could expand into a desktop OS. Then, when the Chrome browser came out, I thought it might be the Google alternative to developing an OS. So, I was quite surprised to learn that Chrome is the stepping stone towards a complete desktop OS.

I love the idea of a Google OS for several reasons:

1. COMPUTING POWER: Let's face it, unless you are working at CERN or Pixar, the vast majority of computational power that you are consuming today is happening on Google processors. It doesn't matter whether you are accessing your university's library or kicking back and watching Jacko's head on fire, the vast majority of the high-value math that is going on to bring you what you want is coming from Google. So, it might make sense that the people doing most of the process have a greater say in how the process components are fitting together.
2. GREAT APPS: While not every Google Labs graduate knocks it out of the park, the batting average at Google is extremely high. Google Earth, Google Maps, Picasa, Google Desktop Search - these are all category killers. Remember MapQuest? Remember Adobe Photo Album? These applications were quite dominant and Google shoveled dirt on them. And it wasn't power that brought them to the fore, it was simply that they were better applications. Google Earth is practically miraculous considering the volume of data and processing that it must require, yet it runs more smoothly than iTunes.
3. OPEN AND INNOVATIVE. Apple is the undisputed king of innovation when it comes to user experience, but its legendary secrecy kinda creeps me out. I have a hard time believing that it can be sustainable once Jobs leaves. Linux is the undisputed king of open, but I've never seen a single innovation come from Open Source. It's great at replicating, terrible at innovating. And MS spent the last 20 years trying to hold and fortify whatever area of computing it considered a chokepoint. It's worked well for investors, but it's a very unpleasant starting point. Google is the only one that seems to optimize for all. It's very open, very innovative and it always seems to find business models that optimize value for all.

I'm looking forward to the Chrome OS.