said by JohnInSJ:And the suggestion is that there is a drive to move the lumbering massive three year cycle to the more nimble "lets pick a new cat name every year" cycle employed by companies with fruit logos.
When it comes to personal computers and all about them I wouldn't be considered either an expert or advanced, especially with OS X. With OS X I've learned the past three years simply by playing with it. I've yet to read anything on how to run the thing.
I have both a PC and a Mac and have used every version of Windows extensively. My knowledge of Windows 95 and 98 would have been considered at level advanced in those days. (I'm not even remotely close to those levels now.)
The above being said it is my impression that as of now the way the totality of thought and code that make up Windows would not permit the type of changes that are made by OS X. It is my impression that overall the changes in OS X that result in a change in its label, (Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion) is simply to identify the differences between them---and those differences is simply an upgrade in features, function, technology to the same basic OS underneath. One prominent feature of that is upgrades are cheap and rarely a problem and they are also functionally often not a must have. (I still run Snow Leopard fine all though I will be upgrading to Mountain Lion soon. I suspect given my future and what we see in technology in the foreseeable future it will be some time before I change from Mountain Lion.)
IMO nothing demonstrates the myriad of diverse problems with the MS way and Windows as the switch from XP to Vista. The Vista OS was a colossal failure in terms of marketing, performance, and an OS advance from XP given the public objective of MS in creating a new OS to replace XP. It is simply hard to understand how given what MS poured five years and an unprecedented number of man hours and funds to end up with Vista. A PR, business and OS failure of epic proportion when compared to what it was supposed to be and when compared to what XP was following 98/Me and how successful XP grew to be.
I can't imagine Apple ever logistically stumbling or going down the specific type of road of failure as Vista.
If MS could improve in the manner different or newer versions of OS X I certainly would be happy for them. I really like Windows 7 and think that it is a good OS plus definitely the best OS Microsoft has ever put out. Yet in release of updates such as this past Tuesday, (and such releases or more are not rare), the one Tuesday update exceeds all of the updates by a factor of three or four that I have had to apply to OS X Snow Leopard in the past three years.
Again I point that out simply to point out the "problem" with MS OS not to tout Apple OS X. I for one root for MS to see the weakness or errors of their ingrained genetic ways given their dominance in the world of the personal computer, (generic.)
Windows 8 based upon my reading reports of others to be the same horse as Win 7 with just a fancier saddle to try and convince users that it's really a whole new and better horse. And they will prove it to you no matter how much it costs you.