upload: The Window and the Apple

Fourteen years ago, Microsoft took the biggest gamble of its corporate history by releasing Windows 95, a revolutionary operating system and one that changed the way users interacted with their machines forever. Revolutionary only, of course, if you’d never used an Apple Macintosh, in which case it looked eerily similar. While that wasn’t the first duel between the two in Silicon Valley, it touched off what would prove to be years of fierce software combat.

This year is no different, but now, after a several years of Apple riding high on the iPhone and shiny aluminum MacBooks while Microsoft reeled from the PR backlash that was Windows Vista, the tables may finally be turning.

This month, Microsoft is poised to release Windows 7, which promises to be everything Vista should have been and more. A cleaned-up interface, clever toolbar, impressive media handling and streaming and even an absurdly diverse collection of desktop wallpapers all make for great eye-candy, but in this release, Microsoft have mended the functional issues as well. Improved networking, wifi handling, device handling, file structure, media indexing, and other features all make this one of the best-reviewed, most customisable and stable versions of Windows ever.

In addition, September saw the release of the new Zune HD which, while not entirely meant to compete with the iPod Touch, is shaping up to be one of the best personal media players on the market, able to pipe HD content to any TV you can get a cable into. While there’s no release date for the UK yet, it may finally earn a place for the Zune brand.

Apple, by contrast, has already released Snow Leopard, an update to the existing OS X system running on most Macs, and while it was never intended to be the big change Windows 7 was, suffers somewhat under the comparison by making few software tweaks, some program updates and very poor box art. That, coupled with a lacklustre event last month (an iPod with a camera, hooray), suggests that Cupertino might be running low on new ideas.

The next months won’t settle the argument once and for all, but as long as they keep competing for quality and price, techy consumers win.