With OS X Mountain Lion, Apple and Microsoft’s strategies grow further apart

Mobile computing has become an important piece of our digital lives, and nothing could be a better example than the release of new operating systems from both Microsoft and Apple. While we won’t be seeing Windows 8 for another three months, Mac OS X 10.8 “Mountain Lion” was released to the public earlier today.
Both intertwine the mobile experience with that of the desktop. With Windows 8, Microsoft has made the choice to unify its entire platform from top to bottom. Windows 8 looks like Windows RT, which looks Windows Phone 8, and the convergence even extends to the Xbox. In short, the operating system both looks, works, and feels the same.
Redmond sees this as an advantage: sit in front of a current Microsoft product, and you’ll instantly know how to use it once you’ve used one. It’s also the reason why touchscreens will likely appear more and more often on desktop and laptop PCs, as obviously the Metro user interface itself is built around touch.
Apple couldn’t see it any more differently, though. The company takes the position that while the operating system should feel the same, it doesn’t necessarily need to work or look the same. CEO Tim Cook took that position last year during a financial analysts call when he maintained that a unified approach just doesn’t work.
 “Anything can be forced to converge,” Cook said of the strategy at the time. “The problem is that the products are about tradeoffs. You begin to make tradeoffs to the point where what you have left at the end of the day doesn’t please anyone.”
While some of us — including myself — saw this as a bit of hypocrisy in light of Apple’s moves in Lion and now Mountain Lion to bring iOS features (and to some extent the look) to the desktop, it’s true. Look at Metro. The interface certainly translates better to touch than it does to mouse control. In fact, in the reviews of the user interface I’ve seen, that’s the most common complaint.
(As an aside, I have the pleasure of having a Samsung Series 7 slate with Windows 8 here which I’m reviewing at the moment. I will tell you I actually prefer Metro over iOS as a touch interface. But on the desktop? Metro kind of sucks. Sorry Microsoft.)
With Mountain Lion, the iOS features brought over to Mac OS X still feel like the iOS apps, but operate like mouse-controlled apps should. This illustrates the difference in strategy here between Microsoft and Apple quite well. One is embracing mobile computing wholeheartedly and changing its entire platform as a result, the other keeping it at arm’s length while maintaining the integrity of the traditional desktop.
Who is right? The consumer will decide that in the coming months.