Our own Kyle DiAddario, the assistant editor of this site, pointed out something interesting: How good the web looked in the OmniWeb browser for OS X by the good people at The Omni Group. OmniWeb is an independent browser being developed by The Omni Group especially for Mac OS X.
This is a site seen through OmniWeb on OS X. Look at the text:
This is the same page shown in Internet Explorer for OS X:
Interesting, eh?
I asked The Omni Group how come the difference, and they told me: "We are taking full advantage of the Quartz graphics engine in OS X."
Now, this is not a plug for OmniWeb as such. (At least not without plugging Greg Landweberis Smoothtype shareware utility for Mac OS 9, which also makes text look very good.) Rather, what I am trying to say is:
1: The overall quality difference (apart from the stability) when you upgrade to OS X will not be a quantum leap. Rather, since it depends on software developers taking advantage of all the aspects of the different layer engines of OS X, it will come gradually over a couple of years.
2: Also, it is beginning to look like there will be many advantages which we are not imagining, being used to an inferior system. So even though it will take some getting used to, and some time, it is surely going to be worth it.
Yours, Eolake
Eolake Stobblehouse is a contributing editor to the Mac Observer, specializing in cultural matters, and comes to us by way of MacCreator. Send him your comments and tips.