Before dishing podcasting movement look it up first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast
Apple's contribution:
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Apple itself was not actively involved until mid-2005, when it joined the market on three fronts: as a source of "podcatcher" software, as publisher of a podcast directory, and as provider of tutorials on how to create podcasts with Apple products GarageBand and Quicktime Pro.
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Ergo they were the first mainstream software maker to give a hoot over podcasts.
Apple never took credit for creating the podcast. Other people called it podcasts. Apple just introduced it to the mainstream user.
AAC in itself isnt remarkable, other than being better than MP3s, but what it offers to content owners is. AACs bought from iTMS allows for the most consumer-friendly DRM around.
To a lot of people having to buy Apple hardware isnt such an issue anymore. Sure there are some who must be able to upgrade to the latest processor, motherboard, memory, hard disc drive, optical drive, video card, sound card, etc after each release but that isnt Apple's market. Apple sells products & solutions to those who do not mind paying a premium for a stable & secure platform that looks aesthetically good. It may not have many games but that's what video consoles are made for.
Microsoft duplicating what Apple did would be equivalent to ditching the whole Win9x & WiNT kernel and starting anew based on a UNIX-based or UNIX-like kernel or write Windows from scratch. This would simply mean almost all backward compatibility for both hardware & software would have to be sacrificed. This will never ever fly with Microsoft's shareholders because it would remove the dependency of most people to Windows, Office & other apps.
I really doubt Vista will ever be as secure or as stable as OS X. Then again most people are willing to compromise so long as they have the freedom to buy the cheapest & largest selection of hardware/software around. Sure you could use Linux/BSD but they aint as robust as OS X or even Windows in terms of GUI.
Microsoft has always been a follower.
Microsoft creates their own GUI-based OS after Apple proves the popularity of GUI-based OS.
Microsoft creates their own web browser after Netscape proves the popularity of web browsers.
Microsoft creates their own video console after Nintendo/Sony proves the profitability of video consoles.
Microsoft creates a PDA OS after Palm proves the popularity of PDAs.
Microsoft creates their own digital media player software after Apple proves the popularity of digital media player.
Microsoft creates digital music store infrastructures after Apple proves the profitability of their iTunes Music Store.
Microsoft creates a new OS that takes advantage of 3D accelerators found in most PCs after Apple creates a OS that takes advantage of the 3D accelerators found in all Macs.
Having a monopoly means innovation & prices remain stagnant. Thanks largely to Microsoft, Apple had to make a better product. In Apple's point of view it is them vs the World. At one end they have Microsoft to contend with in the other they have to deal with Dell/Lenovo/Toshiba/HP/white box clones. The cost of Microsoft's monopoly on all of us...
http://www.cybersource.com.au/about/monopoly.html
Microsoft has a lot of employees using iPods which management frowns upon. No outright bans yet but just wait.
If by "not having a lot of programs" you mean no more virii, worms, malware, adware, spyware, etc then by golly I am glad Macs have fewer apps. Windows can have all that crud. Yes I will pay more than $149 for a half-assed video card or processor just to play games while buying a PS2/Xbox/GCN would be a much better alternative.
Perhaps if the OS didn't have as much badly written ancient code to contend with it wouldn't be such an easy target. The most popular & secure web server at the moment is Apache and yet Microsoft Internet Information Services is more prone to security holes. Being popular isnt always a bad thing so long as your priority is security and stability insted of marketability.
OS X doesnt require those two simple pieces of software. That's why Symantec's publishing FUD to get sales up.
It may be cheaper to assemble your own PC if you value your time as zero. People who buy Macs are willing to pay the $100-200 markup over their Windows counterpart for a simple and elegant solution. It is true Intel chips are more powerful & energy efficient than those used by current Macs now but Apple's making the jump to Intel for the next 2 years. The problem with current PCs is that they're using Windows. The hardware isn't rubbish but the OS is.
Anyone can build a riced up Mitsu Evo to kill a Ferrari but at the end of the day you still own a riced up car and the other fellow is driving a Ferrari.
OS X is actually based on OPENSTEP OS. Which in turn is based on the Mach microkernel. Which in turn is based on BSD. OS X has some tools/parts of FreeBSD.
More and more companies are
using Macs within their orgs. Granted Macs may be less prone to exploits because they arent popular but no software's perfect. Even Linux/BSD tend to have the occasional holes. The difference between Linux/BSD/OS X and Windows is that solutions/patches to these holes are offered within hours or even days after its discovery instead of weeks or months. Maybe because it helps they're open source (OS X's Darwin is open source) or maybe they have less apps to contend with and avoid breaking. But then again if being obscure makes computing less of a hassle then so be it. I'd rather be in the fringe, not enjoying computer games and not having the option to easily upgrade on the fly but at least I have a personal computer that actually works.
At the end of the day all our arguements are for not if the platform cannot do what makes you happy. If spending hundreds of dollars in upgrades to play games gets you off then Windows is your OS. Then again I find it funny that someone would bad mouth the company & OS that they're supporting.