Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"As promised, you can finally use Netflix's Watch Instantly streaming video service on a Mac. The juiciest, most ironic part? The magic happens with Microsoft's Flash-wannabe Silverlight—which you probably grew to know and maybe hate during the Olympics—since it keeps the DRM voodoo intact. The only real catch is that it works exclusively on Intel-based Macs, leaving anyone on an aging PowerBook out in the cold. Full details below—it's not live yet, but it should be soon."

It has been a long time coming, but the Netflix "Watch Instantly" feature is now available for Mac users. I've been loving the "Watch Instantly" feature on my PC (watching Weeds as I write this post), so great to see it spreading out. Now, if they'd just support Firefox and Linux, I'd be good to go.

"While obviously it’s comparing apples and oranges, and the products appeal to different markets, it’s interesting to look at how Mac prices have changed versus PC prices. Macs have gone from an average price of $1,432 and $1,574, for desktops and laptops respectively in June '06 to $1,543 and $1,515 respectively in June '08. While much lower to start, PCs are now even lower in average sale price. The average PC notebook went from $877 to $700, while the average desktop dipped just barely from $559 to $550. Vista PCs have reached a sweet point with pricing that is appealing not just to the high end crowd, but to the masses. And while prices are staying constant, hardware features are increasing, which is good for the consumer. As Mr. Baker puts it, "Of course there is feature creep—there always is.""

This article brings up an interesting point. No matter how great you think the Mac OS is, is it really worth a 100%+ premium in the purchase price of a computer?

"Love it or hate it, Microsoft Windows is the world's most dominant operating system. But when you look at some of the hot features found in competitors such as Linux and Mac OS X, both XP and Vista can seem a little incomplete. From intuitive interface features like Apple's application dock and Cover Flow to basic media capabilities such as ISO burning, Windows often falls short on built-in goodies. And some features that other operating systems offer by default-- such as 64-bit processing and business-networking tools--require a premium-version license in Windows. We took a good look at a variety of OSs, from the Mac to Linux to PC-BSD and beyond, and we rounded up a list of our favorite features--few of which come standard in any version of Windows. We even considered some operating systems of yore, and recalled a couple of cool features that Microsoft still hasn't caught on to. Some of these features simply aren't available for Windows at all, owing to the way the OS is designed. But you can add most of them to XP or Vista with the help of third-party applications, and we'll show you how to get them."

If you've never used an OS other than Windows, you might find this an eye opener regarding some of the cool features you are missing and if you are a Mac/Linux devotee, I'm sure you enjoy a recap about why your OS of choice rocks. I'll admit, since I've been messing around with Linux, I especially enjoy the Virtual Workspace feature and would love to see that implemented in Vista.