OS X and Windows Vista...some random thoughts...

[Counterfit]

What?!? XP is based on a completely different kernel then the "hybrid DOS" kernel that 95/98 were based on. I am so sick of people bashing XP just because it's Microsoft. It's a good operating system, and it's rock solid.

C:\>systeminfo | find "System Up Time"
System Up Time:            34 Days, 22 Hours, 12 Minutes, 52 Seconds

yeah you're right, I guess it's an unstable piece of junk.

Congratulations, you missed the point completely. It's over there ->
What he was saying is that Vista will be an improvement of similar amounts over XP as XP was over 98.

Also, I've gotten my PowerBook over 50 days, so 34 days is nothing

Im also amazed at the speed. Im running it on a dual 3ghz Pentium, and for a beta, I cannot believe how fast it runs.

Er, is that dual core, or dual processor? I couldn't find anything on a dual P4 with Google, only P3 and Xeons. Oh, and potential dual Ms.

 

[Malfoy]

I'm aware of the technical improvements. I was speaking of the UI, which hasn't changed significantly since Windows 95. Microsoft corrects their interface mistakes by making them look prettier instead of actually fixing them.

People tend to keep mentioning that something is wrong with the windows interface, and someone even went as far as to say its 'confusing'. Can someone please tell me what is so wrong and 'confusing' about the windows interface? If anything I find that 'out the box before you change anything' the Windows interface to be more friendly than OS X.

 

[Malfoy]

Er, is that dual core, or dual processor? I couldn't find anything on a dual P4 with Google, only P3 and Xeons. Oh, and potential dual Ms.

P4 extreme editions are dual core and each core has HT.

 

[rand()]

I agree to some extent with you on the next three, but I have to argue here:

1) try running 10.4 on a 5-6 year old mac, slower than molassas in winter.

I've got 10.4 running on a Dual 500 MHz G4 ("Gigabit Ethernet," discontinued Jan 18, 2001, according to LowEndMac.com)... and it runs beautifully. Now, it's not a "stock" system, I'll grant you; I've put over 1GB of RAM in it. But with adequate ram, the older machines run the latest OS extremely well.

Hell, the thing even runs the Adobe CS and Macromedia Studio, and I've got no complaints.

Granted, it was a top-of-the-line system at its time, but hey, it's got legs, baby!

-rand()

 

[jhu]

I agree to some extent with you on the next three, but I have to argue here:



I've got 10.4 running on a Dual 500 MHz G4 ("Gigabit Ethernet," discontinued Jan 18, 2001, according to LowEndMac.com)... and it runs beautifully. Now, it's not a "stock" system, I'll grant you; I've put over 1GB of RAM in it. But with adequate ram, the older machines run the latest OS extremely well.

Hell, the thing even runs the Adobe CS and Macromedia Studio, and I've got no complaints.

Granted, it was a top-of-the-line system at its time, but hey, it's got legs, baby!

-rand()

well, the fud troll above was saying how windows xp won't run well on a 5-6 year-old x86 computer. back then, the top-of-the-line x86 computer was a 1ghz athlon.

 

[qtip919]

Vista is to XP what XP was to 98 -- the same old confusing Windows UI with a new color scheme. For ten years now, Microsoft has refused to rethink the Windows UI in any significant way. Every few years, they just paint nicer lipstick on the same old pig. This is not the way it should be done, obviously, and not the path Apple should take. I don't care about brushed metal or any of these superficial "look" characteristics. I care about how the user experience is thought out. The Mac has always beaten Windows in this area, and based on what I see of Vista, will continue to do so.

Also, keep in mind that Vista will be an automatic success at least in terms of sales numbers, whether it's great or it totally sucks. Even if Microsoft doesn't sell a single upgrade, they'll get millions and millions of OEM sales. It'll be forced into the pipeline just like every version of Windows before it.

I couldnt diagree with this more...

The Windows NT kernel was a massive upgrade to 98, and the "skin" applied to it for XP was actually quite a bit of work...

However, there are a TON of features in Vista that I am still plowing through. I still stand by my original assertion that there are about a million dialog boxes for accomplishing way too many things. Simplicity is something that is completely lost on the average Microsoft employee. Also, there is an outright fear of having to cut a feature, so MS is dragging thousands of features through the mud and making sure they all work in Vista. This, more than anything, is what hampers development at Microsoft. Believe me, on horsepower, Microsoft has the most brilliant developers in teh world. The Program managers, who define their work, are not the most brilliant people in the world and make these guys do some of the dumbest things you've ever seen. Remember to always point the blame in this direction!

 

[qtip919]

P4 extreme editions are dual core and each core has HT.

Correct...sorry next time I will provide every detail

By the way, those dual P4s with HT are very very very very fast...I have not been able to overload this system with average user tasks...I really welcome Intel's contribution to Apple's internal hardware

 

[IJ Reilly]

What?!? XP is based on a completely different kernel then the "hybrid DOS" kernel that 95/98 were based on. I am so sick of people bashing XP just because it's Microsoft. It's a good operating system, and it's rock solid.

For the third time, I'm aware of the technical improvements. I am speaking of the UI, which hasn't changed substantially since 1995.

yeah you're right, I guess it's an unstable piece of junk.

Who are you responding to here? Certainly not me, since I never said anything about Windows stability.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I couldnt diagree with this more...

The Windows NT kernel was a massive upgrade to 98, and the "skin" applied to it for XP was actually quite a bit of work...

Oy, not again. Applying a new "skin" to the UI is a poor excuse for an improvement to the interface, no matter how much effort went into it. But that's exactly my point.

 

[IJ Reilly]

People tend to keep mentioning that something is wrong with the windows interface, and someone even went as far as to say its 'confusing'. Can someone please tell me what is so wrong and 'confusing' about the windows interface? If anything I find that 'out the box before you change anything' the Windows interface to be more friendly than OS X.

The Start menu is brain dead. The Tray is weak. A lot of things are just plain buried under piles of tabbed menus. Is it a "program" or an "application?" After all these years, you'd think Microsoft would have decided. The Wizards are totally lame. I could go on...

 

[Project]

Indeed, the Task Bar needs to be totally reinvented.... its a mess...

For the tech kids out there, how does Microsofts WPF (Avalon) and associated technologies compare to Apples Core technologies? Are they comparable? Im just interested.

 

[IJ Reilly]

The only thing we really need to know about Avalon is that it's a closed, proprietary reinvention of a mature, tried, tested and relatively open technology that we've already got. If it catches on, we're all screwed.

 

[Randall]

For the third time, I'm aware of the technical improvements. I am speaking of the UI, which hasn't changed substantially since 1995.

Yes, and what exactly drastically changed in the UI with OS X?? Congratulations, you got Dock. It's all the same functionallity with some sweet eye candy. Much like the UI in XP compaired to 98. You can't change the UI too much without everyone flipping out that it "doesn't feel right" etc.

 

[Project]

The only thing we really need to know about Avalon is that it's a closed, proprietary reinvention of a mature, tried, tested and relatively open technology that we've already got. If it catches on, we're all screwed.

You mean like OSX is a proprietary reinvention of an open sourced kernel? lol. Seriously though, what makes you think we're all screwed? In a Word/Office kind of way, or that the technology is better than what the Mac has? I genuinely dont know anything about the technicalities of Avalon or Core Image/video etc, so im interested in knowingm ore.

And Randall, I think what the poster means is that the Mac interface always was more intuitive and logical. Windows never was, but for reasons of leagacy and not to piss people off, it has remained pretty much the same.

One thing MS has tried to do, is make Windows more of a task based OS, as opposed to an app based OS. Those big columns on the left hand side of explorer for instance. Theyre useful for the most technophobe of technophobes, but I applaud any kind of development in the field of accessibility. (speaking of which, OSXs accessibility functions are a huge development if you want examples of changes in UI)

 

[Randall]

Congratulations, you missed the point completely. It's over there ->
What he was saying is that Vista will be an improvement of similar amounts over XP as XP was over 98.

Also, I've gotten my PowerBook over 50 days, so 34 days is nothing


Er, is that dual core, or dual processor? I couldn't find anything on a dual P4 with Google, only P3 and Xeons. Oh, and potential dual Ms.

So then he was saying that Windows Vista will be a dramatic improvement over XP in terms of stability and eye candy? Just as XP was over 98. Good. I think that is something that we both can agree on.

P.S. I know that uptime doesn't mean jack without Load Average, I was just making a point to all the Microsoft Haters out there, that XP is quite stable. Contradicting a strong belief on these boards that you can't have Windows running for more then a day or two without haveing to reboot (which is total BS). It was true back in the days of Windows 95, but it is no longer the case.

 

[Randall]

The only thing we really need to know about Avalon is that it's a closed, proprietary reinvention of a mature, tried, tested and relatively open technology that we've already got. If it catches on, we're all screwed.

No, the only thing we need to worry about is how severe the penalty/overhead is for having OpenGL being rendered as essentially an emulation layer through Avalon. It could be a total disaster to OpenGL (frozen at version 1.4 in Windows Vista ) applications. There has been no word on how much of an impact this will be, but I'm not looking forward to it.

 

[Project]

No, the only thing we need to worry about is how severe the penalty/overhead is for having OpenGL being rendered as essentially an emulation layer through Avalon. It could be a total disaster to OpenGL (frozen at version 1.4 in Windows Vista ) applications. There has been no word on how much of an impact this will be, but I'm not looking forward to it.

You seem to be in the know - what does this mean in English?

 

[pknz]

Apple now have till 2007 to catch up with some of the Vista features.

I thought it was the other way around, Vista copies (catches up) Tiger and adds a bit more, Leopard copies anything of use from Vista and adds a bit more, and walla Leopard is infront.

 

[bosskxx1]

I have played with Windows Vista beta 1, and it was absolutely horrible on a new emachine with 256 megs of RAM and an intergraded video card. Besides it being slow, there will lots of BSODs when just running it. To tell you the truth it was really no better than Windows XP in terms of functionality at that point. But I don't take much stock in a beta OS anyways.

 

[jhu]

You seem to be in the know - what does this mean in English?

microsoft is basically trying to kill opengl on the windows platform, which is really too bad because of opengl's cross platform nature. then again, the opengl -> directx overhead may not be noticeable on a machine that can run the full eye-candy of vista.

 

[XNine]

Vista is to XP what XP was to 98 -- the same old confusing Windows UI with a new color scheme. For ten years now, Microsoft has refused to rethink the Windows UI in any significant way. Every few years, they just paint nicer lipstick on the same old pig. This is not the way it should be done, obviously, and not the path Apple should take. I don't care about brushed metal or any of these superficial "look" characteristics. I care about how the user experience is thought out. The Mac has always beaten Windows in this area, and based on what I see of Vista, will continue to do so.

Also, keep in mind that Vista will be an automatic success at least in terms of sales numbers, whether it's great or it totally sucks. Even if Microsoft doesn't sell a single upgrade, they'll get millions and millions of OEM sales. It'll be forced into the pipeline just like every version of Windows before it.

Oh, you shut your foul hole! The start button is being COMPLETELY overhauled!

Yeah, Windows is windows is windows. I am forced to work on it every day. Every single day I have to restart the computer for something. Yesterday it's because outlook wouldn't unfreeze. Today it's because Word would not print. And yes, I have tried the CTRL/ALT/DELETE thing a thousand time on every problem, and no, it does not make things all better.

I'm not impressed in the least by Vista. Those who think it will be superior to XP and OS X are sadly mistaken, methinks. I think people are underestimating the possibilities Apple are about to pull out of their hat.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Yes, and what exactly drastically changed in the UI with OS X?? Congratulations, you got Dock. It's all the same functionallity with some sweet eye candy. Much like the UI in XP compaired to 98. You can't change the UI too much without everyone flipping out that it "doesn't feel right" etc.

Drastically? Thanks for the loaded question.

Just a few things off the top of my head: The Finder changed substantially (drastically, you might say). The window widgets were changed and relocated, and their behaviors were altered. They way system preferences are set and organized was completely new in OSX. Application switching is done in a completely different way. The function of the Apple menu was modified. The Control Strip was eliminated, as were Control Panels, Desk Accessories, and the Extensions Manager.

Note that none of this is "eye candy." They are all functional changes to the UI, and none of them are the Dock (which, btw, is a big change).

BTW, all of these changes to the Mac UI did flip out a lot of veteran Mac users. Many of them migrated kicking and screaming all the way.

 

[qtip919]

microsoft is basically trying to kill opengl on the windows platform, which is really too bad because of opengl's cross platform nature. then again, the opengl -> directx overhead may not be noticeable on a machine that can run the full eye-candy of vista.

That is rediculous

They arent trying to kill anything, they just put the full force of their development effort behind DirectX, which has thankfully produced the gaming world as we know it today

Why would they go out of their way to support something that brings them no benefit to their platform?

 

[IJ Reilly]

No, the only thing we need to worry about is how severe the penalty/overhead is for having OpenGL being rendered as essentially an emulation layer through Avalon. It could be a total disaster to OpenGL (frozen at version 1.4 in Windows Vista ) applications. There has been no word on how much of an impact this will be, but I'm not looking forward to it.

Also part of this package is Microsoft's new page and display description language, which they hope will displace PDF. If this occurs, we are all indeed screwed.

 

[XNine]

That is rediculous

They arent trying to kill anything, they just put the full force of their development effort behind DirectX, which has thankfully produced the gaming world as we know it today

Why would they go out of their way to support something that brings them no benefit to their platform?

I honestly can't wait to run a pirated copy of windows on a Mactel just so I can play hentai games. This will make my year!