OS X greener than Windows Vista?

"There's more than a whiff of 'shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic' about the attempts of the technology industry to save the environment, but it looks like we're finally waking up to the fact that we may have wrecked the planet, and 2007 is the year that..." writes Graham Barlow, in UK Mac Magazine 'MacFormat'. Click Full Story, to read futher comments...

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There's more than a whiff of 'shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic' about the attempts of the technology industry to save the environment, but it looks like we're finally waking up to the fact that we may have wrecked the planet, and 2007 is the year that technology is finally going to go green. What's really got the ball rolling is an important piece of legislation called the WEEE Directive

What is this revolutionary new legislation you ask? Well, it's nothing to do with Nintendo games consoles for a start. Instead it's a directive that means everyone who buys an electronic item (computer, washing machine, etc) can get the manufacturer to pick up their old one to recycle it once WEEE comes into force. Now, once everyone realises that then the (financial) impact on the market is going to be huge.

So where am I going with this? Ah yes, the Mac. It's a fact that OS X contains far more backward compatible drivers for printers and scanners than Windows Vista does. What this means is that when people upgrade to Windows Vista they'll discover that their 5 year old scanner or printer won't ever work for them again, and they'll have to ditch it and buy a new one. That's not exactly environmentally friendly, is it? Even worse, a lot of people will use the arrival of Windows Vista to simply dump their old PC (which wouldn't be up to running it anyway) and buy a new one. Again, that's not the right message to be sending out in these environmentally sensitive times.

Compare this to upgrading an old Mac. I've got an old G4 Power Mac at home that I brought over 5 years ago in 2001. I've just upgraded to the latest version of OS X (OS X 10.4 Tiger) and it runs without a hitch. All my old printers and scanners still work and I can just get on with things. Lovely. The only remotely tricky thing I had to do was download one updated driver for an Epson printer that was up and running in seconds.

Windows Vista's fascination with bloated software and lack of compatibility with older peripherals has already caused one Windows die-hard to up-sticks and move into the Mac camp, thus saving the world from one more 5-year old printer heading for a land-fill site.

We need to start using all our computer equipment to the end of its natural life-cycle, not just discarding perfectly adequate hardware just because we've upgraded our software. Despite pressure from Greenpeace over its iPod materials, it's Apple that are leading the way here, and others should take notice.

Graham Barlow is editor of MacFormat, the UK's fastest growing Mac magazine.

http://www.macformat.co.uk