Firstly the Mac OS does not seem to have an effective application menu. The only options seem to be the search icon at the top right of the screen (works if you know the name of the app, I suppose) and the Applications folder within Finder (Finder is a sort of file manager cum various other things here).

There is no task bar. Open applications add themselves to the Dock. I think they get a sort of blue dot beneath if they are running. Surprisingly clicking the red “x” button on an application only seems to minimize it. Can’t really say.

Now that I’ve tried Windows, Mac and Linux, it is easy to see where a lot of “inspiration” for new features and look-and-feel items have come from. Apple is clearly the leader in many aspects. However, I think KDE with the Plasma desktop have managed to really out-innovate Apple in some areas. Notably on the widget / plasmoids space (and not to forget the Plasma Netbook).

Windows is really the poor cousin here, it seems. I haven’t used Windows 7 to comment on that, but KDE and Mac show up XP and Vista in a bad light. The fact that a default install of either a recent Linux distro also throws in several applications further demonstrates the head that open source / free software has made in making the operating system usable out of the box.

P.S. Firefox for mac seems to have problems in laying out the WordPress dashboard.