Security

Out-of-the box security is one of the biggest advantages Macs have over Windows PCs. Turn on OS X’s firewalls for even greater security. You can lock the screen when the Mac sleeps. You can encrypt the hard drive. No extra software required.

Patches to the OS are easily downloaded from Apple, in the background if you prefer.

There are so few malevolent applications written for Macs its almost a simple matter of dismissing them altogether. But it does merit some explaination as to how Apple addresses the threat.

OS X applications do not automatically inherit the privileges of the account in which they are run, even when the user is an admin. [The following is a more accurate explaination, courtesy SteveAx.] Applications that run in user space have the same privileges as the user that they run under. Essentially, they run as you. You can see this in the Activity Monitor. The main difference between a default OS X setup and a default Windows XP setup is that the root user isn’t enabled on OS X and an Administrator in Windows (NT, 2K, XP) has more priviledges (almost = to root in OS X) than an Administrator in OS X.

Exploits on any system can gain superuser priviledges by using a vulnerability in a process that runs as a superuser.

Translation: applications can’t wreak havoc if they succumb to malware (virii etc.) of some type. While Microsoft is working to incorporate this in the next version of windows, OS X has had it since 2001.

Like any operating system, if you use a WiFi connection at home, you should encrypt your transmissions with WEP protocol, or best yet, WPA.

Hardware

Mac hardware is durable and good looking. This is perhaps Apple’s biggest advantage over Windows PCs. By comparison, Dell equipment is plasticky and cheap. And Dell makes the good stuff.

I’m especially fond of a 2002 iBook G3 600Mhz laptop my wife and I use as a backup machine. I’m typing on it right now as a matter of fact. My normal Mac is a G5, and it’s been nothing if not dependable. It’s fast, once having performed a find-and-replace on a sentence in over 700 text documents in under 10 seconds.

Additionally, the G5s are very easy to upgrade because there is quite a bit of room inside in which to work, and the parts are built to pull out. I put in two hard drives (one of the two replacing the original 160GB with a 400GB), four RAM sticks, and even an internal Bluetooth module. The BT module was technically a dealer installation part, but I found it to be pretty simple anyway. That’s how well Macs are designed.

Interface

You’ve been hearing about it since 1984: the Mac interface, the paradigm that all other GUIs aspire to.

OS X (released in 2001) certainly took the fork in the road from the classic Mac GUI, but I wouldn’t say it’s a lesser GUI by any stretch. I think OS X may get beat up on by Classic fans because it has dozens more dialog boxes, settings and preferences than Classic had, but then again we’re asking a lot more from our OSes than we were ten years ago.

Examples of tasks our Macs have now that they didn’t a decade ago are:

• syncing information, music, photos and now video with PDAs, phones, iPods, and digital cameras
• downloading, formatting and delivering music and video to our stereos and televisions; connecting to Bluetooth and WiFi devices
• and delivering video chats with people far away
• store our music collection, and play it, and act as a conduit for purchasing it, organizing it, and even sharing it, ditto with photos
• connect to many many more peripherals

Oh, and we’re asking our Macs to withstand malicious code and hackers while being connected to the Internet at all times.

Put all that into Classic, to even the playing field, and I guarantee the notalgic sheen of Classic would wear off quickly.
OS X 10.4 Tiger is clean, efficient, and about ten miles past Windows in the GUI race. Apps look similar to each other, and most importantly act similarly to each other — a great thing to those who are always learning how to use new applications.