There are literally millions of people that use personal computers at office and in their homes. In the past mainframes and minicomputers were way beyond the reach of the common man. But the invention of the PC totally revolutionized the way that computers are used. It made the computer affordable and accessible to almost everyone. The two most popular PCs in use today are the Macintosh and the IBM. Although there are other brands, these two are the most widely used in the world today.
Despite the fact that IBM has a much wider user base, people who have used Macintosh PC would insist that the latter one is definitely better. While it might be true to a certain extent, the IBM PC has been fast catching up with the Macintosh in both quality and functionality. Things were far different, however, just a decade ago. The Macintosh was miles ahead in performance, usability and even looks. But the gap has been narrowing considerably, although the IBM PC still has a lot to catch up to do in several areas.
There is no doubt that Macintosh set the trend for most of the features we enjoy today in a PC. The graphical user interface, the vibrant color displays and different typefaces and fonts that we take for granted today have all been developed by Apple, the creator of Macintosh. In the early days of the company, Steve Jobs, the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Apple, once visited Xerox’s facility at the Palo Alto Research Center, where research was being conducted on a GUI. He was inspired by what he saw there and then incorporated much of it in the development of the Macintosh interface. Today, both Macintosh and IBM have advanced GUIs, although Mac is still slightly ahead in terms of innovation and style.