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The latest version of Mac OS X Snow Leopard version 10.6.1 had released on August 28, 2009. In its latest version Apple had not added new features but introduced enhancements in the interface like better file and folder viewing in stacks, restructures QuickTime X for cleaner interface and recording tools. Further, it has much-anticipated Exchange support across Mail, the Address Book and iCal.

On October 22nd, Microsoft had launched its much anticipated operating system, Windows 7. The new operating system is a more focused and augmented upgrade in the company’s Windows line unlike its predecessor Vista, which introduced a large number of new features, but received critics for its hardware requirements and slow speed. The new Windows 7 features a virtual “XP mode” for running legacy programs and runs faster than its predecessor. It has various tools and shortcuts that assist users to work efficiently.

Now, the question is which OS is superior and will lure the customers globally?

General Applications

The new Mac OS based on 64-bit technology supports the multi-core processors. For everyday tasks including e-mail, instant messaging, Web surfing, blogging, creating and editing Office documents, Web page creation, and audio, video, and photo editing; it surely enjoys an edge over other operating systems. However, Windows 7 is not that bad, but Mac OS still offers the best overall user experience, analysts said.

Exploration of Files and Folders

It is reported that both operating systems work on the same basic script for allowing users to find files. However, Windows 7 features options at the top of its window, while Snow Leopard places its options under buttons. But, the library functions included in Windows 7 will help users to work on virtual folders and even collect files from different disks; a major improvement that helps it to enjoy the edge.

Task Bar

The new Mac OS has not made any significant changes to the dock, whereas Windows 7 has brought updates in its Windows task bar. However, analysts suggest that Windows 7 improves the task bar on the Mac model by permitting you to pin folders to the task bar, as well.

Managing Desktop

The new Windows 7 features Aero Shake, Aero Peek and Snap that provide the “glass” view of the desktop and make the open windows translucent to check the desktop. The similar application from Mac OS comes when user click and hold the dock icon that represents a running application. Further, Snow Leopard permits its users to view all of the running applications in small, side-by-side windows, so that they can easily pick the required application.

Search options

The Mac OS’s Spotlight provides a powerful way to begin a new search string for getting desired results list. Windows 7 also brings desired results for programs, control panel items, documents, and media files, which is similar to Spotlight approach.

Conclusion

At the concluding point, Windows 7 is pitched in as the best ever operating system by Microsoft that can surely give Snow leopard a run. The competition between the two operating systems is very close and various features like usability, security, and speed are very similar.

Apple on Thursday made a subtle-yet-major revision to its App Store policy, enabling extra content to be sold through free iPhone apps. It’s a move that immediately impacts the publishing industry, and it could pay even bigger dividends if the Cupertino, California, company indeed delivers its highly anticipated touchscreen tablet.

While the most obvious beneficiaries would be app developers, a market segment that can also benefit from the new in-app commerce model are people and companies that create content and need to set up shop in a way that doesn’t, in effect, charge someone for just walking in — like media publishers.

Newspapers and magazines are reportedly in talks with Apple about repurposing their content onto a “new device,” presumably the rumored touchscreen tablet Apple will deliver in early 2010. Numerous reports suggest an Apple tablet would have a strong focus on redefining print media. Enabling in-app commerce through free apps was a crucial move to help make this goal a reality.

Apple’s earlier in-app sales model wasn’t ideal for publishers. Previously, in-app commerce was a feature exclusive to paid apps; free apps were not permitted to sell content. Newspapers and magazines already struggle to sway readers to pay for content to begin with, and charging for apps cuts off potential customers. By allowing commerce within free apps, Apple creates the opportunity for a free media app to serve as a gateway for readers to get hooked on a newspaper’s or magazine’s content, which could help lure them into paying for exclusive premium content.

CNN is an exception: Its recently-released iPhone app costs $2. The Wall Street Journal will later this month begin charging for most of the content it delivers through its free app, and the Financial Times has an app that only offers up to 10 free stories a month without a subscription to the newspaper. But for the most part, publishers have loathed charging for an app, even if it then enabled them to try to charge for content within that point of sale. Reducing the cost barrier of that business model to zero changes things considerably. At least one small publisher, Scarab Magazine, has already taken advantage of the change.

Picture a free magazine app that offers one sample issue and the ability to purchase future issues afterward. Or a newspaper app that only displays text articles with pictures, but paying a fee within the app unlocks an entire new digital experience packed with music and video. This is an example of the “freemium” model that Wired magazine’s Chris Anderson explains in his book Free. It’s a model that some publishers, including Wired’s parent company Condé Nast, are already experimenting with on their websites. (Our sister publication Ars Technica, for example, offers its general content for free, as well as a “Premier” subscription option for readers to access exclusive content.)

If Apple does indeed deliver a tablet, the key for publishers is to create a convenient experience that readers will pay for, as opposed to the content itself. A free app would be the first step toward offering that experience. (And then the publisher will have to figure out what to do about ads, but let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.)

It’s plausible to imagine that a freemium strategy would be much more effective through a tablet app than a website. If the tablet is indeed designed like a 10-inch iPod Touch or iPhone, as insiders have described it, then publishers developing apps will be able to take advantage of features such as the accelerometer, GPS, live video streaming and multitouch to innovate the way they engage with their audience — and, ultimately, persuade them to pay.

Only now is the relevance of a touchscreen tablet becoming more clear. Scores of tablet devices have come and gone in years past, and many analysts and tech enthusiasts wondered why Apple would enter what is considered a failed product category. Clearly, Apple sees a gaping hole — the publishing industry’s lack of vision for a working digital model — and a touchscreen tablet, combined with the App Store and this new in-app sales model, would seek to fill it.

What’s in it for Apple? Primarily, squashing Amazon’s Kindle. Who would wish to read a digital newspaper or magazine on the Kindle’s drab e-ink screen if Apple delivers a multimedia-centric tablet? Wired’s Steven Levy shares my view in his assessment of the Kindle’s newspaper experience: “[The Kindle DX's] plodding menu-based interface still made navigating newspapers difficult, and the rich graphic quality that makes magazines such an indulgence is totally missing. Even the flashiest print publication looks like The New England Journal of Medicine.”

Can Apple redefine print media to save the publishing industry? It probably has a higher chance than any other tech company out there. Apple is a market-shaper, and that’s the kind of a company the publishing industry needs to resuscitate it as the traditional advertising model continues to collapse. Daily Beast editor Tina Brown believes that, thanks to the powers of the internet and technology, we’re entering the “golden age” of journalism in the next three years. Perhaps Apple’s tablet will be a crucial part of it.