I personally feel that user-discoverable URLs are the biggest usability strengths of Apple's web site over Microsoft's.
Say you want to learn about Safari. You go to apple.com/safari
, as you'd expect. What if you wanted to learn about Internet Explorer? You need to go to microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/default.aspx
. Who could have guessed that without a search engine?
What about the page for, say, information on a Macbook Pro vs. Microsoft Office? One of these is easily guessable from a consistent URL scheme, the other is not.
Easily being able to find content is just as important as good, clear content.