The things you can do on it of course. If you can have an operating system, with the flexibility to satisfy all your personal and work needs and give you the ability to run any program you want, then that is the best operating system.
Currently, the biggest percentage of software programmers, are creating applications for Microsoft Windows. That statement alone makes Microsoft Windows the best operating system in the world. Yes, you can endlessly talk about instability, and viruses and crashes and all the flaming that we’ve all been hearing and experiencing with Microsoft products all these years. That’s changing though. The latest Microsoft Windows operating system, Windows 7, is extremely stable and fast. But that’s another discussion.
The point is, that even though other operating system creators, are extremely eager, trying to earn their piece of action in the operating system world, they are still missing the biggest operating system strength: Programmers creating applications for their operating systems. Sure, there’s always alternative software that can get the job done on these operating systems, but you’ll always have the feeling, that you’ve got second (or third) best. You could never be 100% productive.
Another part that’s missing from non-mainstream operating systems, is gaming. All the best games can only be played on Windows. Which is really strange, because one would think that the creators of other operating systems would have enough time until now, to make their operating systems compatible with these games, or even better, create their own great games. But they didn’t. This supports my first point. Not enough programmers creating applications for these operating systems.
What makes the best Smartphone?
The same thing that makes the best operating system! The things you can do on it! This is why the iPhone is today the best Smartphone in the world. There are currently 180,000 applications on the App Store, and the number is increasing rapidly. Apple, for the iPhone, has what non-mainstream computer operating systems are missing: Programmers creating applications for their operating system.
When Apple created the App store, thousands and thousands or programmers saw an opportunity to make money, and even become famous. Now, Apple has thousands of programmers, creating hundreds of thousands of applications, practically begging Apple to approve them. All these applications give to the iPhone the single most important ability a successful device and operating system need: Flexibility!
The iPhone also has what Windows Smart phones don’t. Consistency! When an Apple programmer is creating an application for the iPhone, he knows exactly what the iPhone hardware can and can’t do. He knows the strength and weaknesses of the device, and can work with or around them.
When a Microsoft programmer is creating an application or game for Windows Mobile, he has to create it for a specific device running a modified version of Windows Mobile. So the thousand other devices running Windows Mobile cannot run that application or game, and if they can run it, they won’t have the same experience as the person running it on the device it was designed for.
Conclusion
In both of the above cases, people using Linux distributions, Leopard, Solaris, Windows Mobile or any other non-mainstream operating system on their desktop or mobile devices, can argue endlessly as to why the operating system they are using is the best, or simply a better desktop, or mobile operating system, than the iPhone OS or Windows 7. And up to a point I can understand why. I have used Solaris, Leopard and various Linux distributions and I have found them to be far more efficient than Windows 7 at performing specific tasks. But that’s just it! Specific tasks! These operating systems simply cannot be used as the choice of operating system for the corporate environment, and in most cases neither as an operating system at home. A curious person will experiment, and then go back to Windows. And if not, they will always wonder if they could have been more productive if they were using Windows.
