This was the tag line and message of this year's WWDC. Unsaid, but implied, was the message "pay no attention to Vista because Leopard will still outdo it". I suspect that Apple knows its history and remembers more than 10 years ago when another new version of Windows was on the way. Windows 95 succeeded in distracting attention from the Mac by duplicating (more or less) it's unique interface, even though a large number of people at the time mocked the Mac's cutesy desktop look-and-feel. Of course, those same people crowed the benefits of this UI once Windows duplicated it.

I've used the Vista beta and it's nice. It's still nowhere near as intuitive as Mac OS X: it seems that Microsoft has attempted a mostly superficial copy of the interface rather than any real ground breaking usability improvements. And it still has the dreaded registry. And an unbelievable number of inscrutable popup warning and confirmation dialog boxes.

Vista will however, distract quite a few people (and of course, the mainstream media) because of its superficial similarities to Mac OS X. And perhaps this is the genius of Microsoft at work.

From a developer's point of view, Mac OS X is vastly superior in its capabilities to Vista or any earlier version of Windows. The abundance of amazingly powerful APIs that are easy to use (think: CoreImage) and free development tools make it almost a pleasure to develop for. Except for the whole Cocoa memory management methodology, of course.

So Apple is mostly right. Mostly. From a technical point of view, it's assuredly easier to accomplish a task (and in a more elegant and satisfying way). Apple loses on the business attraction of developing for the Mac; lets face it, a 5% (or 10% or 12% or whatever the current claim is) market share isn't anywhere near as attractive as the 90 some-odd percent market share of Windows. And the market share, or rather the perception of market share, not the technical merits, will ultimately determine if this is the right platform or not.

As an aside, the question of percentages still needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the vast majority of installed Windows software is pirated. People affluent enough to purchase a computer in the first place go to great ends to steal a $20 piece of software (the lengths that some people will actually go to to try to steal our software is mind boggling; one day I'll list some of the better ones).

So whether or not the Mac and its associated peripherals is, in fact, the "right platform" remains to be seen. If market share continues to increase, developers will have both a compelling technology platform as well as a compelling business platform. Lets hope that Apple remembers Windows 95 and is ready for it.