[illume]

Ubuntu is really moving ahead now. It is a far superiour system compared to osx. osx has packaged up 2 year old stuff, and ubuntu is within 0 months to 6 month old wares.

Apple missed out on netbooks -- where ubuntu is ahead again. Looks like they'll hop onto cloud computing before Apple too.

Ubuntu is just much more agile, compared to Apple... which seems to be a bit stagnant.

[DanHulton]

Apple's not really targetting netbooks - I mean, they might release one of their own, but they really aren't interested in calling up Dell and saying "Hey, let's cut a deal to install OSX on your next-gen netbook." So it's not strictly a fair comparison.

That said, yeah, it seems like Ubuntu is moving really swiftly these days. Swifter than Apple even, but let's not forget that only a year ago, people were complimenting Apple for being so swift-moving when compared to Microsoft.

My, how things change.

[jrockway]

So it's not strictly a fair comparison.

I think the point of that comment was to say: "Netbooks are really popular. Apple is ignoring this while Ubuntu is embracing it. This is making Ubuntu popular, while Apple has pretty much maxed out its popularity."

[unalone]

Where's the proof that their popularity is maxed out? Their market share's grown steadily every quarter, they own the hottest phone on the planet, and their advertising's everywhere.

I don't have numbers on this and I haven't researched this, but I'd rather bet that Apple's increasing at a faster pace than Ubuntu. Or am I missing something?

[whughes]

Apple was well aware of the netbook segment -- they chose to ignore it. Their "competitor" to the netbooks, the iPod/iPhone line, has been doing extremely well. Ubuntu hasn't succeeded in gaining traction in the portable device market, but you don't consider that a failure.

[unalone]

This.

People like taking potshots at Apple by ignoring what Apple actually does, and perhaps that's deserved because Apple has a reputation for unflagging arrogance. It bugs me, though, when people make statements like the OP, because Apple and Ubuntu aren't doing the same thing whatsoever. Ubuntu has its goals, which include netbooks. Apple has said again and again: they understand it's an open market, but they don't want to release a product until they're certain they can make something of their accepted quality level. Meanwhile, they've made the iPhone into a miniature netbook with the App Store, and a lot of people are using it as such.

In the end, it's all very silly. The people who think that Ubuntu is cutting edge conflict with the Apple users who think the same, because we two camps use different definitions of "cutting edge". Can we stop bickering about it now? There's room enough for us all to hold hands, kiss, make up, and go back to tormenting the Windows users. (Joke! Don't shoot me.)