Apple woos wobbly Windows users

Shortly after Linux creator Linus Torvalds arrived in the US recently he had a meeting with Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple. It was not a success.

Jobs, recalled Torvalds, ranted on about his plans for Mac OS X, apparently under the impression that the entire world was obsessed by where Apple was going.

Torvalds, in turn, was sniffy about the version of Unix on which the Mac OS was to be based.

Yet the two had a lot in common. Both were involved in projects to transform enterprise mainstay Unix into a serious competitor to Windows, although that was not in Torvalds's mind when he wrote Linux.

And both have succeeded; not to an extent that will cost Bill Gates any sleep, but not for want of trying on Jobs's part.

Jobs has just unveiled the latest Mac OS version 10.02, and launched a TV campaign to tempt PC users to switch to the Mac. And he is still ranting.

To hear him, you would think that each new Mac, every last new feature, even every Apple TV ad was a cosmic breakthrough eagerly anticipated by every user. And indeed the faithful at Macworld in New York last month cheered each of his announcements as if it were about to transform their lives.

They even cheered when Jobs announced that Apple was good enough to allow them to pay $99.95 (£63) per year for its iTools online service, which currently gives them email, storage space and web hosting and other features for free. At the end of September it will become .Mac, as if a name alone can challenge Microsoft's .Net.

In truth, there was very little new at the show: a 17in model of Apple's elegant iMac and a 20GB version of its iPod music player.

But prices have been cut to make Macs more competitive with PCs. And low-cost eMacs, previously sold only to schools, are now generally available.

Yet Jobs does have something to shout about. You can argue whether the Mac OS is friendlier than Windows, but the fact that it can stand the comparison at all is an achievement. Linux can't, at least not yet.

The Mac OS demonstrates that mainstream operating software does not begin and end with Microsoft. And it makes you wonder what might have happened if the meeting with Torvalds had gone better and brought the Linux and Mac worlds together.

Apple claims that the latest Mac OS has around 150 new features including:

• A junk mail filter that gets better the more it's used
• An instant messenger that lets you communicate in real time with others on Mac.com and AOL
• A new Address Book and software to sync with PDAs
• Quicktime 6 with support for mpeg4 for creating and viewing internet video.

It costs £99 including VAT, or a £14 'shipping and handling fee' for anyone who bought a Mac after 16 July.