Shuttleworth IS the Steve Jobs of Linux. Linus is the poster child for the technical guy, but Shuttleworth needs to lead the style. However I find him lacking in specific vision, he says these things are problems, we need to find solutions, but Ubuntu never provides a revolution. I feel like Ubuntu has found the annoyances of Linux and fixed many of them, but they aren't necessarily visionary changes.
Because Linux's problem isn't its bugs, or its glitchiness. Its problems revolve around the design theory that builds it.
That's where Apple wins big-time over the other two. It has a consistent theory of how to reduce clicks to get effects. From not having a lower bar to HAVING an upper menu to Spotlight to its Dock, everything is designed to make things faster for you.
Ubuntu won't ever have this. It can't. Nothing that's designed to be truly open can. You can't tweak things to the same level of control. You can't implement multitouch and make programs that RELY on multitouch. You can't put iTunes controls on the keyboard, or an Eject key. You can't make iChat integrate with Mail and your Address Book when not everybody will have each of those programs. It's not possible.
I've used both thoroughly. The level of polish on the one side is VASTLY superior. Look even at Adium versus Pidgin. They run the same library. But one takes up far less space, has better-designed themes, runs more smoothly... because Apple allows for that. It offers big screen resolutions and superior font support, so you can keep things tiny and out-of-the-way and still readable. It deals with a modern-day theme that means a focus on professionalism still works. It knows it can use Growl and the Dock for notifications, which keeps it much less in-your-face than anything FLASHING ever would.
You can't get keyboard shortcuts that are as good when you don't know the keyboard. You can't get software support when you don't know the hardware. You can't have a superior user interface when people use five hundred different displays and two thousand different methods of input. (Exaggeration.) Ubuntu can not win a battle when it can't control the tools used to fight. It can't control hardware, it can't control software, without betraying its design theories. Apple can, and so Apple will always win in a fight hands-down.
> You can't implement multitouch and make programs that RELY on multitouch.
Yes you can. Make the canvas widget support multitouch - bang, all apps support multitouch.
> You can't put iTunes controls on the keyboard, or an Eject key.
Multimedia keys and eject both work fine out of the box today.
> You can't make iChat integrate with Mail and your Address Book when not everybody will have each of those programs. It's not possible.
Yes it is, and it's used today. Pidgin uses the Evo address book, as do all Gnome programs. Ubuntu ensures that every desktop indeed has these programs, __because it controls the platform__.
Yeah, it has that, but at the same time this isn't a matter of pure functionality. This is a matter of getting a consistent polish. And having a hodge-podge set of applications doesn't do it.
I'm sorry if I misspoke earlier. I know that Gnome uses Evo to tie things together. It's just that it doesn't GIVE that impression when you use it. Evo seems, when you turn on the computer, to be a random program thrown in because it's free. Ditto Pidgin. Ditto OpenOffice and Firefox. It's because Linux has never had a consistent set of do-everything apps written by one person. And users notice this. I did. With iChat, I immediately understood the connection. I did because Address Book is a well-known application. Ditto iChat. Evo isn't. Pidgin is, but its integration with Evo isn't.
The eject key is supported, yes. But it's not the same as having a key on the keyboard that does it and NOT a button next to the CD slot. The Mac hardware is tight. And... no other hardware is. Linux can't copy that, because that introduces a matter of PAY into things.
You can implement multitouch, but you can't RELY on its being there. And for me, that's what made Leopard the OS that it is: powerful and tight multitouch.
No, but that means there's at LEAST a two-step program to beating Apple. First, you need to MAKE a set of applications that aren't hodge-podge; then, those apps have to be better than Apple's. And call me a fanboy (for some definitions that would be true), but Apple apps are top-notch and Apple is never stagnant.
There are already people preferring Linux over Apple, so at the most, it is a matter of taste. Not that some Linux apps could not be improved, but some Apple software sucks, too (what is up with the FileManager???).
