It’s still far too early in Windows 8’s development cycle to pit the nascent OS against its fully baked competition. But Apple’s recently released OS X Lion offers the most recent competing view of what a PC operating system should look like in the age of the smartphone and tablet.
I like to think I’m platform agnostic: I game on a Windows desktop, I work on an Ubuntu desktop, and I recently picked up a MacBook Air to replace an aging Windows laptop--and to complete the set, to be honest.
Lion has been my first real taste of Apple’s take on the desktop OS (I’ve owned iPads and iPod Touches), and I’m liking what I’m seeing: It’s a decidedly modern OS, blending lessons that Apple has learned from iOS into a form that makes sense when you have a proper keyboard and pointing device available.
