A couple of months ago I’ve switched from Java development to developing for Mac OS X. Let me tell you, it’s a completely different world, but that was to be expected. The first thing is to get acquainted with the OS and it’s features. That actually didn’t take too long. I’m really pleased with the availability of a full-fledged UNIX console in the OS, so I’m able to leverage all of my linux knowledge. The eye candy and the elegant design of most of the applications really give you quite a difference experience of using the computer than it would be on another OS. And at the end of the day, I guess, that is the most important factor for most users. Feature-wise Mac OS X has all the benefits of *BSD systems, being a derivative of FreeBSD and all. Over the years I’ve been using different OSes and for a long time now, I’ve not seen many major issues in any of them. I would suggest that such things like stability are not really a factor for choosing an OS nowadays. All of the OSes struggle to be as stable as they can be and the result is reasonable. I’d say that neither Mac OS X nor linux nor any other OS is the silver bullet, but some are better than others. I had experienced a application crashes in every OS I worked with. No matter how good the OS is you still need your day-to-day software to be well written and stable.  Sometimes it’s a matter of configuration and sometimes you’re just at the mercy of the application you’re using. When switching to a Mac you cannot overlook the sleek design of Mac OS X which I believe does lure a lot of users. I guess, I would agree, that this sort of design looks more profesional and makes a different impression on someone if say, you would be presenting something to your client vs. showing them something on Windows Vista.