I'll tell you, MACOS and MACOSX are nice clean OS's - The only drawback is lack of available Programs, but even with that limitation, it's relatively easy to get around. There are hundreds of thousands or more available programs for PC and most of them work from Windows 2000 through Windows 8.1.
Basically the rule is "Anything that could run on Windows XP can run on 8 and possibly 8.1 as well"- There are a few exceptions. I do not count Windows 8/8.1 "Apps" as valid Programs. At this point, they are a curiosity, a novelty: some of them useful, but mostly not. As I said before, Angry Birds for Windows 8 is GREAT- I think it is the best "App" there is, it is made well, it runs well, and it looks really good.
In contrast to the lack of Programs available to the MAC Desktop user, the "i-Rony" is this: It's that iPhones have the largest amount of useful "Apps" of the "App" class, although I don't put iOS or Android Apps in the same class as Windows 8 Apps. The most popular iOS apps have been ported to Droid as well. But they were all made for iPhone first, so when Droid reared it's head, there was an instant market for these apps.
[rant and reflection]
When I got my first iPhone 1st Gen it was a curiosity, but it had this little thing you could do that was potentially very powerful: You could connect it to your LAN with a decent built in WiFi adapter.
I had a Palm Treo 650 and then 700 for almost 6 years, and I thought it was a great Mobile Phone, it had a little Web Browser, Albeit slow and hard to use, but I could post on BBS's and even pay bills and such. I could even take some decent pics and Videos, the sound was not too good, and I had a great Music player app and I could plug it into my Car Stereo and it sounded great. I even had a Money program I used to keep track of my bills.
But that 1st Gen iPhone, it was MORE than just a Mobile Phone, it was a whole computer in my pocket. It had a better camera, it could take GREAT videos, and it had a better browser in it and I could use Mobile Safari as well as I could use IE in my PC. And I didn't even have it Jailbroken, I discovered a cheap 3 dollar app called 'SkyJos File Explorer" which little did I know later would become the very HEART of my Home LAN: Even when I first got it, I could add my networked PC's to it and have it remember the connections, and I could pull up documents and even Movies and MP3 files out of my PCs and view/play them in FileExplorer's native viewer. And shortly after that, I discovered another app called "VLC Remote" and it took me 3 seconds to hook it up to any running instance of VLC running on my PCs. Then, I discovered "VLC Streamer" and "Plex" and I was suddenly able to stream my Movies right into the device, and using Plex I could do it through the Carrier- It was Low Res back then, but it worked!
And although it had only 8gb of storage and there was no way to connect it to an SD card, I really didn't need it, cos I had the WiFi adapter and I could connect to my LAN. But then my cat puked on it, and killed it, while I was waiting for a replacement, my brothers' wife gave me hers, but I could not activate it- So I took it to a Phone Store and they Jailbroke it for me for 30 bucks.
This was way back when Jailbreaking was a complex 74-step procedure, so I didn't mind burning 30 bucks for a JB. So for my birthday, my brother bought me a whopping 32 GB iPhone 4 - And then a month later, there was this website called "Jailbreakme.com" which was a huge innovation - You no longer had to do those 74 steps, it used the Mobile Safari in the device, through a PDF exploit, and it was jailbroken in seconds.
When I had that 4 I realized exactly how powerful the device was especially after it was Jailbroken, it wasn't just Theming, I could Tether my Laptop to it through the WiFi using a Tethering app, and although it was a slow 3G connection, it was still good enough to do any emergency browsing while I was away from home and needed to use my Laptop.
I left that 4 with iOS 5.1.1 on it, Jailbroken with Absinthe and I sold it for 400 bucks, and I bought a 4S, with that Dual Core A5 it is faster than some PCs of mine from the 90's-2000's running Windows 98 or 2000/XP. The only drawback is that it only has 512mb of Ram, the new ones all have at least a GB.
It worked best when I had iOS 6 on it- By the time I got the 4S, Apple did this crappy thing to it's users: They started SIGNING the Operating Systems, so you could no longer install any iOS that was not the current one. I had never heard of such a thing being done, but it was clear evidence of the war between the Jailbreakers and Apple. There used to be ways we could save our SHSH blobs, stitch an old version of IOS and put it back in, but then apple added a new level of security to block that even.
I've had iOS 7 in my devices since Christmas, when the eVasi0n7 Jailbreak was released, but now iOS 7.1 blocks that, so I am stuck at 7.0.6 for another year. I refuse to be forced to update if i don't want to.
Despite all of this, I like the iPhone iOS much more than Droid Jellybean or KitKat (IS that the right name of 4.4?) - I just think overall, even without a Jailbreak, iOS looks better and runs better. Even without a Jailbreak, I can still do a lot of stuff I wasn't able to do 5 years ago. I keep my Repair Tools in my iPhone, I connect it up to any LANs where I am working, and I drag out ISO images I have in there, through a Jailbreak app called iFile which has a WebDav server in it. But once again, even if I did not have a JB device, I can still use the Webdav built into File Explorer, all you need is the Phone's IP address on the Lan and you can log into it using the port, and download what you need.
So when it comes down to it, Mac, PC, Droid, iPhone, they are all valid parts of any toolkit for Business, I can even Print using Non-Air Printers if I have certain apps that support certain Printer Brands. These Mobile Devices, they are no longer only phones, they are Offices.
All except for Windows RT devices, It's been a year since Windows 8 has been out, really fully out in public, and I still don't see that much improvement with the quality of the apps available, there HAS been an increase in quantity - From Chinese developers selling VLC clones for 10 bucks, that you can't try out.
And I have said this all along, I don't HATE the Metro aspect of Windows 8 0 In some ways it is really cool and interesting. It's just that I don't think Microsoft is picky enough about what they let into their store. Apple is really finicky about any app, because it cannot break out of the "Sandbox" - If any app shows that it accesses, the rootFS of iOS and gives that access to the user, they refuse to approve it.
So I just don't think Microsoft has set up it's own standards for store apps, not even after a year. I wish it was not this way, but it is. And because of this, there is a Superfluity of really bad Metro Apps that you can NOT "try". Because of this superfluity of mundane apps, it is very difficult to find anything real useful, so I depend on Word of Mouth.
Now with Apple, if you do not like an app, you can ask for your money back, I've done this. Can you do it with the MS Store? I've always thought that Windows 8 is great and has great possibilities, but there has to be a better store environment.
[/rant and reflection]
