GenTechReview

This is a quick smack down of the leading operating systems in the market. I will look at price, performance, tools, and compatibility for each and declare the winner.

Vista Business Editon

Price: A bit on the high side, but considering the distance between major upgrades, and there willingness to release major upgrades as free service packs it becomes more reasonable

Performance: The interface is great eye candy, and works well over all. There are some sluggish moments, and everything does not neccsarily work as advertised

The announcement from Apple that they were reducing the price of the iPhone brought a mix of emotions. The happiness of those considering the iPhone is obvious, they can now get a great product for a reasonable cost.  The surprising reaction to me is the rage from those customers who have already purchased the popular iPhone.  They made comments to the effect that they were getting screwed by Apple because someone else was getting a better deal.  In reality this is a huge shift for Apple, and I can understand the shock that the customers had.  Apple has never really reduced the prices of their technology as it becomes outdated.  There production costs go down, as technology becomes cheaper, they make a greater profit, and the customers are happy because at least every body is paying the same price.  Rather than reducing the price on older models they quite making them and move on to the next product, at the same price.  This is very unique technology hardware industry. Just look at VCR’s, DVD Players, and Blueray Players.  No one is screaming about the fact that these technologies become easier and cheaper to produce and therefore the price went down.  I can not figure out why people are upset because for the first time in recent history Apple decided to pass the savings on to the customer.  How dare they give the customer a fair price? But I guess all of the complaints have paid off for these early adopters.  Apple is giving them a $100 Rebate on apple products.  I personally think the  early adopters of the iPhone that are complaining about the price drop are idiots, but Apple is a very touchy feely kind of a company, so I would expect a move like this to keep there customers happy.  Can’t you feel the love?  I guess they have to keep that feeing going, how else will they keep the customers paying 2-3X what they would for equivalent  PC hardware?

Unfortunately when it comes to Mac Products and software you get reviews from wither Mac Haters, or Mac Lovers, and the reviews are biased as such. Hopefully this review will be a little fairer, and approach it from one who jumps between Macs and PC’s with the grace of a ballet dancer. On my first impression I like the new I Work 08 suite. The suite is made up of three different applications to meet your office needs. The first is a presentation program that has been around for a few years. Keynote is a well polished application that has few rivals on the market. It is far more adept than Power Point in many aspects. If I were a Professional Presenter, or doing presentations was a major part of my workday this application is very powerful. Early versions of the program were a little more difficult to get going, but in the 08 version of the program it is just as easy to use as power point, except with keynote your end result looks a lot better and you have more options. Pages is a very good and intuitive word processor and layout application. I like that these two great tools are tied together seamlessly in this program. It is very easy to get the layout you want quickly. If you are putting the word processor alone head to head with Microsoft Word, Word wins out with expanded features and ease of finding advanced features. When you combine the layout capabilities with Pages 08 it becomes a very powerful product that most users will be very happy with. If you are a Microsoft Word, or even Apple Works power user, you will likely be disappointed Pages 08. The newest addition to the I Work family is Numbers. I personally like Numbers for laying out documents that need basic spreadsheets for presentations. It is easy to lay out a page that looks great and makes your data stand out. When it comes to serious calculation, or data processing though numbers falls short. In my opinion it is a totally different tool than Excell. Excell is a serious tool that assists you in tracking vast amounts of data and performing complex calculations. Numbers at this stage of development does not meet that need at all. When it comes time to taking that data and presenting it in a clear and good looking way Excell does not hold a candle to numbers. I personally keep all of my data in Excell and export the data I need to numbers to create documents to present to people.

For most people the Apple IWork 08 suite is a great tool that will meet your needs, and wants very well. You can create great looking documents with little effort. For power office application users, at this point this product is not for you. It simply does not have the advanced features needed, with the exception of Keynote, which in my opinion is the best product in it’s field.