Is OS X still important?

I get a little tired of Windoze flunkies saying that Apple is just a hardware company, its OS doesn't add value to the computer, blah blah. Why don't you actually learn a little about what you talk before doing said thing?

I have used all major operating systems in the course of work and play. Windoze, Unix/Linux/BSD, MacOS, OS X. I can definitively state that OS X is a superior operating system because it helps you get things done.

"Well that's fine for you because you're prejudiced."

Whatever. Should people who know nothing about wine attempt to elucidate the finer points of wine tasting to a critic? As a computer programmer and power user of computers, I have seen that anyone who says that Mac OS X isn't the real value of Apple Computer and not the hardware has:

A) Never used OS X in a work environment where things must get done.
B) Isn't familiar with OS X and Windows environments enough to speak authoritatively.

or
C) Would rather suck up to The Man and label afficionados "snobs" because we know more than they do.

By the way, most users of Apple and OS X are business power users. People who don't have time to muck around with something that doesn't fit their needs. If Windows was really that great an environment to work in, then the advertising and movie industries would overwhelmingly choose that platform instead of Apple. But they choose Apple. And not because they're snobs, but because it makes good business sense.

It also makes good business sense to have Apple hardware dual-boot Windows (although I would prefer to have it run inside OS X so I could cut and paste between Windows and OS X apps) because power users often need to move between the two environments, even though we'd rather not be saddled by that requirement.

And for what platform is the ENTIRE computer security industry grown up to support? Virus scanning? Email attachment scanning? Malicious software removal? Is that an example of the superiority of the Windows platform and a good business reason to "choose" that over OS X?

OS X is the most important part of the Apple computer. Sure, having 2MB of cache on the processor and being able to trounce any other hardware competitor in the processing tasks that take the most time is important, but in the end, it's OS X that makes using that hardware better than using something else.

[tags]macintosh, os x, apple computer, microsoft[/tags]