Because most people's experience with Windows is through the cheapest keyboards, trackpads, motherboards, and displays Dell/HP could buy in bulk and deliver to Best Buy that week. When people talk about Windows, they're talking about 5-year-old beater Inspirons or 16-character HP one-of-three-hundred-identical-laptops-with-different-model-numbers-of-the-week, not EliteBooks, and almost certainly not ThinkPads. When people talk about Macs, they're talking about the Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, or maybe Mac Mini.
As far as software, as someone who supports Windows 7 on a daily basis: I have never spent more than 5 minutes on network printing with Macs. I have rarely spent less than three hours on network printing with Windows. Let's talk about the fact that it's 2012 and when I right-click a printer, I get to choose "printing preferences," "printer properties," and "properties." It may seem silly, but this stuff matters. You shouldn't have to hire the neighbor kid just to use your printer.
Additionally, manufacturers override Microsoft's decent (if clunky) WiFi interface and force you to use poorly designed taskbar-based apps, to the point where smart but non-tech-savvy people can't figure out how to connect to the Internet at a coffee shop. It's often impossible to avoid the concept of "location profiles," "networks" (Home? Business? Work? What the hell gives you the right to open a dialog over my work just because I plugged in an ethernet cable?). On my Mac I go to the Airport dropdown next to the volume control, pick from the available SSIDs, and it's done. Ethernet silently gets DHCP and connects. Details are there if I want them in ipconfig and System Preferences, but I hardly ever do. There certainly isn't crap in my taskbar running stupid 3fps animations and demanding my attention every few minutes. I have never been startled by the audio "Virus database has been updated" coming out of nowhere on a Mac, but this was a daily occurrence for Avast users.
How about "Windows is checking for a solution to the problem"? How about UAC dialogs that silently open behind my current window, so my Install Wizard appears to hang when it's actually just waiting for me to click ok?
Full screen is not basically like Maximize; Maximize is basically like Maximize. Full screen hides the chrome. I would compare it to F11 in Firefox. You don't have to use it; I do appreciate having Spotify and Mail full screen on alterate Spaces, so I can three-finger swipe to quickly read an email or change the song and then three-finger swipe back without altering my primary workpace, but I almost never fullscreen Chrome.
There are things I don't like. I hate that OSX reopens all my windows after I log back in; I don't use Xcode but I understand it's pretty buggy. Still, reports of Lion's transformation to iOS are vastly overblown.
Applause! You brought a tear to my eye. After living a luxuriant Apple-only lifestyle I've had to start supporting PCs again. Re-entering the Junkspace that is Windows has been punishing.
UI completely untouched since 1995. Thickets of new dialog boxes. Incredibly thick layers of shovelware. Grotesque artwork. Limitations that come out of nowhere that require Windows Pro Premium Whatever. IE toolbar/BHO hell. The printer thing alone, sweet Jesus. I literally gave up trying to share a single USB printer to two other workstations over the LAN. It's so unnecessarily difficult it's unreal.
The Mac-o-verse has the same volume of pain, punishment, and failure as the Windows platform, but it usually tends to cluster on the outside of the possibility space. Their failings aren't sitting there in plain view waiting for you to stub your toe.
I've done that quite a bit, but only to make printer discovery on the network actually happen. Are you saying you can use it to share out printers as well?
I think there is a lot to be sad about the anti-windows opinion being linked not necessarily to windows but to the hardware. I personally love windows. I think Vista got a lot more negativity than it deserved and I love Win7. However, My windows machine is an iMac.
I've been consistently disappointed with pretty much every major windows OEM HW maker (with the exception of Lenovo where I just don't like their look and feel). There is something to be said about making people feel good about the HW they're using. Heck, my 2006 white macbook works like a champ and still serves all of the wife's needs (I offered to get her a MBA but she is happy with what she has).
>Because most people's experience with Windows is through the cheapest keyboards...
That part is so true. Running Win7 on my MBA '11 has been the best laptop I've ever had by a large margin. I should say I was routinely buying $2K Windows laptops, not cheap junk, but junk none the less. Hopefully PC makers are serious about stepping up their game.
The only Windows users I need to support are me and my wife with only the newest peripherals, so my experience hasn't been the same. The manner in which the UAC pops up has gotten me a few time though!
As far as software, as someone who supports Windows 7 on a daily basis: I have never spent more than 5 minutes on network printing with Macs. I have rarely spent less than three hours on network printing with Windows. Let's talk about the fact that it's 2012 and when I right-click a printer, I get to choose "printing preferences," "printer properties," and "properties." It may seem silly, but this stuff matters. You shouldn't have to hire the neighbor kid just to use your printer.
Additionally, manufacturers override Microsoft's decent (if clunky) WiFi interface and force you to use poorly designed taskbar-based apps, to the point where smart but non-tech-savvy people can't figure out how to connect to the Internet at a coffee shop. It's often impossible to avoid the concept of "location profiles," "networks" (Home? Business? Work? What the hell gives you the right to open a dialog over my work just because I plugged in an ethernet cable?). On my Mac I go to the Airport dropdown next to the volume control, pick from the available SSIDs, and it's done. Ethernet silently gets DHCP and connects. Details are there if I want them in ipconfig and System Preferences, but I hardly ever do. There certainly isn't crap in my taskbar running stupid 3fps animations and demanding my attention every few minutes. I have never been startled by the audio "Virus database has been updated" coming out of nowhere on a Mac, but this was a daily occurrence for Avast users.
How about "Windows is checking for a solution to the problem"? How about UAC dialogs that silently open behind my current window, so my Install Wizard appears to hang when it's actually just waiting for me to click ok?
Full screen is not basically like Maximize; Maximize is basically like Maximize. Full screen hides the chrome. I would compare it to F11 in Firefox. You don't have to use it; I do appreciate having Spotify and Mail full screen on alterate Spaces, so I can three-finger swipe to quickly read an email or change the song and then three-finger swipe back without altering my primary workpace, but I almost never fullscreen Chrome.
There are things I don't like. I hate that OSX reopens all my windows after I log back in; I don't use Xcode but I understand it's pretty buggy. Still, reports of Lion's transformation to iOS are vastly overblown.