Great article by Peter Bright.

There are lots of developers producing Mac applications and utilities. And they’re actually making an effort with them. Conscientious developers, who care about making an application that looks good, works well, and exploits the capabilities of the OS, are putting out great applications for MacOS X. We see applications like OmniGraffle, Adium, NetNewsWire, Delicious Library, Quicksilver, Coda, Unison… these apps are all well put together, a lot of effort has clearly gone into them, and there’s a real sense that their developers care that they don’t suck.

Windows software has never struck me as being like that. The third-party software ecosystem for Windows is big, no doubt about that. But it’s also incredibly shoddy. Most Windows applications—from both major software companies and minor ones alike—are ugly, poorly-thought-out, clunky pieces of crap. While there are a few artisan developers for Windows, most Windows devs just don’t care.

I switched to Mac about two years ago, mainly because I didn’t see any progress in the Windows world. It used to be exciting to be a Windows user and I remember waiting for the next release of Windows just like a little boy waiting for christmas. I often installed beta versions of Windows only to try out all the new exciting features.

Eventually it all faded away, Vista had been in the makings for about seven years and there was just nothing to get excited about anymore. I slowly realized that if I wanted new features and a better experience I had to make a change. However, I postponed it in 2003 when I needed a new laptop. I was beginning my first semester in computer science and somehow thought that I wouldn’t be able to do all my assignments on a Mac.

I finally switched in 2006 and it only took me a few days to realize that I was wrong. I didn’t need Windows at all.

Back on topic. When I was a Windows user I didn’t buy software. That’s right, I have never bought software for Windows. I didn’t even think about it before I switched. I’m not going to try to excuse myself. I know it’s wrong, illegal and all that but that’s not really the subject of this article. (We had a fairly good academy deal at my university so I got all the tools I needed for my projects.)

However, I had already bought a Mac application before I switched. (Money very well spent on TextMate). With that said, since I jumped over, I’ve bought every software I need and I’m going to list the reasons that I think made me start buying software.

• Mac software is in general better designed, more fun to use, more straight to the point and not bloated with features you don’t need.

• It’s almost always very fairly priced. You can get quality software for as little as 15$. That’s nothing, even if I only use it once it has already saved me money.

• Mac developers are often in a small team so they can give a personal service and really listen to their users. This also means that they can make changes and fill requests more quickly and easily. This is described in details in Getting Real by 37signals.

I believe that if Windows software was better designed, less bloated and fairly priced I wouldn’t have to admit that I didn’t pay for all the software I used when I was a Windows user.