And when Microsoft's Bill Gates talked about the new operating system on national TV yesterday, one couldn't help but yawn again.

On NBC's "Today" show yesterday morning, Bill Gates appeared as a guest to talk about the release of Vista, and anchor Meredith Vieira hit him up on a couple of points that garnered answers Mac users have heard before. As one analyst put it last night, on the San Jose-based NBC affiliate in the San Francisco Bay Area, NBC11(KNTV)...

"Been there, done that." (Commenting in the NBC11 tech report that Vista will be much easier for PC users to work with, but for Mac users, it's something that's been prevalent in the Mac OS--Vista's new features--for 2.5 years now).

"Well you might say it's a Microsoft world, and we're just living in it. The computer giant has dominated the industry for years, and in an effort to maintain its supremacy, it is launching a new Windows operating system... it's called Vista and they say it will change the way you live," says Vieira as she starts out her report.

She adds, "But its competitors are not taking the launch lying down, including Microsoft's arch-rival, Apple."

Ironically, the intro piece before the Gates interview began with a minute-long piece on Apple: first with shots of Apple CEO Steve Jobs announcing new features to the product line, then showing clips of the "Get a Mac" ads "Surgery" (PC upgrades to Vista) and "Counselor" (PC envious of Mac), and then the competitor to the iPod.

Microsoft's Zune, which was not described as an mp3 player, but, as Vieira put it, "Microsoft's own version of the iPod."

A line that stands out for Mac users was Vieira's description of Apple's take on Microsoft's Vista operating system. "Too little, too late." And when the interview between her and Gates begins, one could have been inclined to think--it being morning and all and having just gotten out of bed--it was Steve Jobs describing Tiger.

Mac OS X version 10.4, "The World's Most Advanced Operating System."

And beginning today, Windows PC users will finally get a taste of the world's most advanced operating system that Mac users have enjoyed for many years now-- thanks to Microsoft's next generation system that people on both sides of the fence are already comparing in an, apples to Apple's kind of way.

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