Next Mac OS X is released when Longhorn is released?

[RacerX]

Longhorn looks somewhat promising, though. It must at least be a new threat to Mac OS X.

Not in it's current form...

Honestly, if I were in charge of Microsoft (lets say starting three or four years ago) I would have started longhorn by stripping it down to the foundational levels of Windows NT... remove Internet Explorer from the system... lock up the registry so no one could write to it... and started building the operating system back up from that point. I would redesign the APIs so that software was more like the package stuff that Apple is using and didn't install too much stuff in the system itself (avoiding things like dll hell).

Microsoft had a great start with Windows NT technology (which was based on OS/2) but their implementation of it was flawed. The biggest problems Microsoft has had has been throwing new features and technologies at it's releases without thinking about the consequences or actual needs for them.

Most of the Windows exploits have been based on pointless features that almost no one used. The first major viruses on Windows came because Microsoft installed and enabled Visual Basic Scripting by default. Why? Less than 5% of Windows users knew anything about it and the ones that did would have been savvy enough to install it themselves.

Sadly, Microsoft sees a stripped down version of Windows as a form of attack on them and their position in the industry... what it really would be is a great place for them to start making a truly useful and secure operating system.

But, Microsoft is run by a corporate mentality which pushes file format lock in and providing it's own software with access to the system that other venders don't have (again, opening those products to being used for exploits).

This is something that doesn't happen in Mac OS X. Apple's own software is nice, but it doesn't take advantage of any thing that other developers don't have access to. Which means you aren't locked out of features by not using Apple software (I use OmniWeb instead of Safari, Curator instead of iPhoto, Watson instead of Sherlock, etc.).

And when Apple made APIs for TextEdit and Pages to have the ability to work with tables, these APIs were made available to all developers (in fact Stone Design used these changes to add tables to Create).

So no, Longhorn isn't much of a threat to Mac OS X.

Even though Apple also has a corporate mind set in many areas, it looks like it is run by a bunch of tree huggers by comparison to Microsoft.

 

[dotdotdot]

True. Again, as I said, I don't know much about Longhorn. Just what the general public knows.

Longhorn looks somewhat promising, though. It must at least be a new threat to Mac OS X.

Heres everything on longhorn:

XP with a new visual style.

Thats IT. The graphics technology: ported to Windows XP, not by hackers, but BY MICROSOFT! The core features of longhorn won't even be released when longhorn is - WinFS File System, the "future" for Windows, a core part of Longhorn, will be missing from retail boxes. Wow, IE7 - whats that? Windows XP will get it also??!!?? Wow!

Basically, Microsoft has taken this amazing looking OS, delayed its release, removed cool features (the sidebar, a revolutionary new way to use an OS, 100% gone)! And weren't there rumors it'd be called Windows eXP Edition (like Expedition, get it? eXP Edition, Expedition?) Wow, add an e, add a new visual style, and its a new OS...

Thats what the general public knows.

AND also didn't anyone look at the pics I posted? Someone said the 200+ new features werent noticable, well since 10.0 to 10.4, there HAS been a HUGE difference.

 

[jayscheuerle]

Longhorn looks somewhat promising, though. It must at least be a new threat to Mac OS X.

Well... Very few people are migrating from Macs to Windows these days for their personal machines (businesses are another story), so what Microsoft has to work at is slowing the trickle of people who are dumping Windows for OSX. These people aren't dumping it for the eye candy, they're doing it for security, reliability and ease of use. For what Apple is best at, Microsoft can't even compete, but they don't need to because they already have 90-something percent of the lemmings market which they'll have no problem keeping and the lemmings don't even know that their revolutionary new Longhorn will be poorly attempting to base its look and feel on a 4 yr. old OS. Windows is NO threat to Apple, though Apple has the faintest glimmer of hope of being a threat to Microsoft some day.

 

[jayscheuerle]

AND also didn't anyone look at the pics I posted? Someone said the 200+ new features werent noticable, well since 10.0 to 10.4, there HAS been a HUGE difference.

Absolutely looked at them. Apple has claimed 200+ new features for every point release, which would put them up over 800 new features since 10.0.

There have been a few significant changes along the way (mostly growing pains with the Finder), but nothing that I would call HUGE (with the exception being Spotlight, if you're willing to work that way). - j

 

[jcgerm]

Absolutely looked at them. Apple has claimed 200+ new features for every point release, which would put them up over 800 new features since 10.0.

There have been a few significant changes along the way (mostly growing pains with the Finder), but nothing that I would call HUGE (with the exception being Spotlight, if you're willing to work that way). - j

Yea, those lists are incredibly inflated. The list of new features for Tiger lists "Dashboard Widget", every widget that's included in OS X, and then the ability to change the key that activates dashboard as new features. I bet I could shorten the list to below 100. Most of those aren't significant in fact.

 

[abc123]

the biggest features of 10.4 in my mind are spotlight, graphing calculator, core image and dashboard. automator could be up there if i could get it to do anything useful, every time i think "i'll use automator for that" i can't.

i have trouble imagining what the next expose/spotlight/dashboad feature is going to be in 10.5. and i guess that is why i am skeptical about a release timed to longhorn. they'll need to pull some big punches to get noticed over the longhorn rush, hopefully the journalists will run with a leopard vs longhorn angle and apple rides on longhorns publicity (which is probably what steve is hoping for). i still can't see them topping what has already been released, unless they announce that 10.5 is available for both mac and pc.

 

[BGil]

Microsoft and all the people close to Microsoft are putting Longhorn's RTM at next summer and it's "broad availabilty" at the Holiday season. The Holiday season for Microsoft starts in late October BTW. "Broad Availabilty" means that all the PC's with XP pre-loaded will have been supplanted by the ones carrying Longhorn. That almost certianly means that Longhorn needs to be in the hands of OEM's like HP and Dell by August otherwise places like Best Buy and Circuit City (which make up more than 50% of all holiday PC sales) won't have Longhorn PC's on the shelves by Thanksgiving.

Windows XP was RTMed in Late August of 2001 and it began showing up on shelves in late September although most stores didn't get it until the middle of October.
My guess is that Longhorn will RTM in late June of next year and beat Leopard to the punch by about 6 months+.

Jobs making jabs at Longhorn coming out "12/31/2006" and "late 2006/early 2007" is just stuff to keep Mac users happy. Microsoft is very firm on their launch window now-- they've never done this regarding Longhorn before.

 

[thecow]

the biggest features of 10.4 in my mind are spotlight, graphing calculator, core image and dashboard. automator could be up there if i could get it to do anything useful, every time i think "i'll use automator for that" i can't.

I really don't like the graphing calculator. Every time you want to do something, you have to get out that stupid inspector window and the special character window. I remember easily playing around with it when I was about 10 in 8.6 and it was really easy to make cool looking graphs. Now I mostly know what I am doing with it, but it is really confusing. The same goes for keynote and pages. I hate the inspector window. The thing that is similar to it in MS word is even easier to use!!

 

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