Steve Jobs also killed the Mac "clone" industry when he first took over, and subsequently, Apple is the only maker of Mac-compatible computers. Then, Apple started bundling video editing software, MP3-playing software, photo-management software, and even now, full trial versions of a word processor and spreadsheet.

Needless to say, good third-party video editing software like Radius EditDV went the way of the dodo bird -- and sadly, too, because it was a much better program than iMovie ever was!! Third-party MP3 software like Audion and SoundjamMP, which were always better than iTunes, also disappeared. And as for photo-management programs, iPhoto sucks so bad that there's still a decent market for things like iView Media Pro, Adobe Bridge, and GraphicConverter... programs that don't rape your file libraries by composing them into incomprehensible nests of oddly numbered folders on your hard drive, filled with both thumbnails, originals, and edits in separate folders, tied to a proprietary "library" file that if corrupted or lost can ruin your entire structure rendering it impossible to ever find a picture again.

Apple's use of its Mac monopoly to force the "iTunes-ization" of everything not only flies in the face of everything that ever was truly "Mac," in the sense of the original Macintosh interface, but also flies in the face of the anti-Microsoftian attitude that once prevailed among Mac users. But then again, they also assemble their computers in China now, and trashed the wonderful Newton MessagePad 2100 (which still goes on eBay for $250!).

Apple needs to cough up some Kool-Aid and get back to true innovation.

Now I have made the leap to Intel. The latest issue I have had is with the overall performance and stability of Mac OS X, especially when running the 3D program, Second Life. The system crashes utterly, requiring a hardware reboot.

Also this led me to install Vista, which honestly runs faster and is more stable than the Mac. I never thought the day would come when I'd say this, but Windows runs better on my Mac, than the Mac OS itself.

I posted about it in these threads:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1749
http://forums.macnn.com/69/macbook-pro-and-powerbook/346958/vista-runs-faster-more-stable-macbook/#post3471019

And, I e-mailed Steve Jobs about it, since the bug reports to Apple I've been submitting have not resulted in any fixes.

I'd just like to say that there are still many things about the Mac OS that are far better than Vista: Expose, integrated spell-checking, Unix-based, Mail, System Preferences, Spotlight, and the Dock. I personally don't care much for the iApps, but that's mainly because I am more of a professional-type user, and I prefer things like Adobe Bridge to iPhoto; Final Cut Pro to iMovie.

And I hate the way the iApps "organize" things for you, leaving weird thumbnail files, renaming your files, moving stuff around from the logical places that you had put them into strange and oddly named folders, etc. Why does iPhoto need to rearrange all my files in order to function? Why can't it just browse what's already on my HD? I already had several thousand digital pictures when iPhoto came out, all meticulously organized and named. Why would I want to have them all reorganized? Same with my MP3s. Also I didn't like that the iApps (and even pro apps) killed certain third-party programs, but I guess that's just life.

Even still, I would never voluntarily switch to Vista. Yet here I am in Vista, writing this to you because OS X crashed while running Second Life and I had to reboot. Now excuse me, while I go get some actual work done on an OS that does not crash all the time, and actually runs like it was made for the hardware I own.

-JSG