VISTA is nice! 1628

That's not compensation in the spirit of doing that service, and you know it. Beta-testing takes WORK, and merely getting to use that product in the mean time is NOT a valuable commodity when it actually requires work to keep running or to do beta testing work with it.

No, you are building contradictory arguments -- Apple DOES use beta testers, and it DOES compensate them, and the public DOES get a finished and non-beta product when they buy it. Developers pay, and are given developer builds (NOT beta test opportunities, and not merely these developer builds, either) because they need access to build their products. This is not different from what Microsoft does, so it can't be used as evidence of different behavior.

Of course not. And it isn't important that Apple doesn't release public betas -- why should it be? Apple keeps lists of QUALIFIED beta testers, and it also expects significant input and reportage from them. That helps them get better feedback and more use out of the beta process.

Huh? You attribute this process to philanthropy? For what reason? Microsoft is infamous for dumping poorly finished products into beta programs. It certainly is NOT because of some philanthropic atbreastude of generosity -- it's usually attritbuted to their unwillingness to finish in-house.

Which has gotten them into heaps of trouble because those products weren't actually good enough (by expert determinations) to actually be released. There is no standard for release -- you seem to imply that Microsoft gets it to some point sooner, but they are merely releasing based on their own schedule, not based on the product being actually ready.

That's such a nonsense comment it doesn't deserve any remark.

Sparse color is NOT a bad thing -- it's a FANTASTIC thing. The OS is supposed to be out of the way and unintrusive, not violently colorful and brilliant. The OS is supposed to be machinery in the BACKGROUND, not toys on the playground!