I love my little Macbook.  It’s so cute.  And this coming from a guy who has Windows experience back to 3.1, and whose primary job responsibility is to support and manage a Windows domain and hundreds of clients.  So why is my Macbook so nice?

For one main reason: it’s polished. That critical “step-back” after everything is done to say “what can we improve now?”  This is something that Microsoft and companies who build Intel PCs are seriously lacking.

The first thing you notice about a brand new Macbook is the clean look.  The keys are not smashed on the keyboard just to fit them on all, there are no random air slots for fan exhaust, ports aren’t strewn all around the device in any place they would fit.  MagSafe, most people’s favorite feature, makes sure your clumsy oaf of a friend doesn’t rip your laptop out of your hands after he trips on the power cord; being lightly magnetic, it simply pops off.

Secondly, the Operating System is clearly polished. The fades, the slides, the transitions; that is what makes polish.  Quicktime’s movie player window elegantly slides up to fill fullscreen on a Mac.  Windows Media Player forcefully takes over the full screen.  OSX NEVER changes resolution from boot up to shutdown including screensaver mode.  Windows manages to violently switch resolutions over 3 times at a MINIMUM. Don’t even attempt to count if you send your video to a projector or run a screensaver that doesn’t run in your resolution.

So why do I have a Mac if the only programs I use are Firefox, Pidgin, iTunes, and tons of cross-platform or open source freeware that populate the rest of my Applications folder?  Because of the polish.  Because of three simple programs that nobody has managed to duplicate successfully in Windows:  Dashboard, Spaces, and Expose.

You might be laughing right now at my choices, and I would agree.  But if I can get the same programs and function from any of the three main OSes (Windows, Linux, OSX), I’ll choose the one that spent time to make me a customer by prettying it up.  Much like dating, if given a choice of siblings, the winner is often the one who spent a little more time tarting his or herself up for the showroom floor.