Similarities: Vista and OS X (Pictures)

[dralfonzo]

I posted this on the Binary Bonsai forums, but though that it would also be of intrest here. Before I start this post I would just like to note that i'm not a semi-deranged Windows basher in the slightest. Unlike many people I do not have a big problem with windows. I can see why people would but it doesn't really bother me. Saying that, i'm a big mac fan and of course OS X is the superiour OS :]

I was looking at some screenshots of Vista and noticed a few similarities between it, and OS X. I think it's interesting to see the features that have been 'imitated' and then maybe been improved upon/ruined. What do you think?

The pictures of Vista used are from TechRepublic.com.

This first one shows the 'almost' completly avaliable integrated search function thats been added to the Start bar in Vista. It's not as acessible as Spotlight (if you being picky and value your clicks) but it's the same principle.

Vista:

Another feature added into Vista is the 'Gadgets' which show up on a sort of sidepanel on your screen/desktop. The gadgets feature looks quite similar to dashboard in the fact that you can choose the different 'mini apps' (widgets) that you want to have displayed. It seems more like Konfabulator in that you can interact with other applications etc while having the 'Gadgets' open;

Vista:

OS X:

Here you can see how the 'Gadgets' are integrated in;

Yet another similar feature that seems to have made its way into the new Microsoft OS is an expose like function, which although you can't see it here in the picture - allows you to scroll through the open windows while in the 'expose' mode;

Vista:

OS X:

Although it's obviously not an exact copy, I think it's safe to say certain 'influences' have been made on the Vista team from OS X


The last set of similarities are not so obvious, more just little features that both systems will be using. The first is the star rating system from iTunes which has made its way into Vista;

Vista:

OS X:

...and last but not least the little image size toggle slider thing feature that can be seen in apps like iPhoto also has made its way into Vista. It amuses me to see microsoft treating its customers like dipsh*ts, they just can't leave things alone! On the slider they've marked "Extra-Large icons" and "Small icons", yet they still feel like they need to tell the user that "Medium Icons" will probably come somewhere inbetween. It's little things like this that make OS X and the rest of the Apple design ethos appear minimalistic, Apple usually realises that they don't always have to point out the obvious whereas microsoft feels the need to label and annotate everything

Vista:

OS X:

So there we go, what does everyone else think.

 

[yankeefan24]

apple should make an ad campaign and show the similarities and the time. then show leopard and a new virtual pc-like app standard on all new hardware where it can run all files (such as .exe which isn't in darwine) without the windows GUI.

too similar. its sad.

 

[drumpat01]

the star rating system has been in windows media player since WMP10 if not before that even. other than that, good work.

 

[Voidness]

Nice...

From what I understand, the "Start Search" isn't equivalent to Spotlight. Start Search searches only within the Start Menu (in other words, the shortcuts in the Start Menu), so it's much more like filtering. System-wide search is located somewhere else.

Other than that, even though Vista has some nice "eye candy", the important aspects of the GUI needs a ton of work, IMO. It's all just messed up and wasted. I would point out a few examples to clarify my opinion, but I'm really not in the mood nor have time, right now.

 

[JonHimself]

I remember hearing about all the similarities but it's nice to see some pictures. However, I think that media player has always (or at least for like past few years) used the star rating system. I haven't used my pc for over a year (i'm completely mac-reliant now!) so I don't *really* remember but i think it did.

 

[4JNA]

V.I.S.T.A. (various improvements similar to apple)

 

[Josh]

the star rating system has been in windows media player since WMP10 if not before that even. other than that, good work.

Yeah, I laughed when I saw that.

The star rating system has been around long before either Windows or OS X.

I don't think Expose was a factor in Vistas window 'rotate' either.

That's more of an influence from Sun's Project Looking Glass - which came before Expose as well.

It seems like if Apple copies company X, and MS copies company X as well, rather than being seen as both copying company X, MS somehow copied Apple.

And the comparison to Windows explorer's icon selector (ie - the actual file browser that works across the entire system) to one single app (iPhoto) in OS X is pretty weak.

No need to look for signs of 'copying' that aren't there. Of course if you want to find evidence of copying, you will see it no matter what, copying or not.

From the pics posted, Vista is hardly a copy of OS X.

 

[bousozoku]

That's great...yeah, whatever. Mac OS X borrows from a number of things, too. (I wish that it borrowed the open/save dialog boxes from Windows. I'd like to rename things while I'm in there.)

It's actually good that operating systems work more the same. You showed me a slider and I could point out that Apple didn't have one until years after Windows had one. The right-click contextual menus were made popular by Borland before Windows 3.0 was out and Windows and OS/2 had them far earlier than Mac OS--even My Atari ST applications had them in the late 1980s.

There was recently an article about two UI designers--one from Apple, one from Microsoft who are working together now--and they were mentioning that a lot of things just happen to occur at different places at the same time. They didn't mention that everyone had probably seen the innovation in a little-known piece of software, though.

 

[AlmostThere]

Although it's obviously not an exact copy, I think it's safe to say certain 'influences' have been made on the Vista team from OS X

Posted on Mac Bytes (Forum Thread), this probably happens much less than one would imagine, as these designers from Apple and MS and now working together discuss.

Many of the features of Vista have been developed pre-Pather, if not Jaguar. It is partly the nature of the smaller, more agile company that these things can come to fruition earlier.

 

[steelfist]

V.I.S.T.A. (various improvements similar to apple)

LOL best laugh of the week i had!

 

[dralfonzo]

And the comparison to Windows explorer's icon selector (ie - the actual file browser that works across the entire system) to one single app (iPhoto) in OS X is pretty weak.

No need to look for signs of 'copying' that aren't there. Of course if you want to find evidence of copying, you will see it no matter what, copying or not.

From the pics posted, Vista is hardly a copy of OS X.

Fair enough, I happen to disagree but thats your personal opinion I agree that there's features of both OS's that have come from outside influence - but I think features like the Windows "Gadgets" are blatent copies from OS X

 

[SummerBreeze]

It's amazing that even when Windows is "borrowing" from Apple or other operating systems, they can manage to make things look so horrible. The gadget integration is hideous!

 

[theBB]

Thanks for the pics. The only thing that looked nicer with Vista is its Expose. Vista's dock still looks almost as clunky as XP's and I certainly prefer the OSX's fonts used in its GUI.

Apple may have been "inspired" from other companies while designing their GUI. However, considering that almost all of the eye-candies and other more useful features became available in Mac's years earlier and Vista is still not out, I think it is fair to say that MS uses Apple's innovations as a gauge to see what works and what is popular. In the end, it may not matter much; even though Vista is going to be late by a few years in bringing these features, for most users there will be fewer reasons to switch once Vista is out. (Unless, 10.5 introduces some earth shattering innovations or Vista is not very stable...) That may be a bit of an issue for the future of Macs.

 

[theBB]

Many of the features of Vista have been developed pre-Pather, if not Jaguar. It is partly the nature of the smaller, more agile company that these things can come to fruition earlier.

Your logic is a bit flawed here. You are comparing one product's features when it is introduced (let's say Jaguar) with when the other one started developing them (Vista) Besides, Apple is not exactly a startup, its size alone would not explain why it is years ahead of MS.

 

[dotdotdot]

Your logic is a bit flawed here. You are comparing one product's features when it is introduced (let's say Jaguar) with when the other one started developing them (Vista) Besides, Apple is not exactly a startup, its size alone would not explain why it is years ahead of MS.

"Longhorn" started development in 2002, as "Blackcomb," which is now "Vienna," which is now scheduled to come after Vista ("Longhorn") is released.

And though the themes and stuff have changed, many of the basic features have not.

 

[BlueT]

Hell, I'm happy Vista is like OSX. The reason I chose Apple a few years ago was because of Microsoft's security flaws and crappy OS design. If those get fixed, I'll gladly switch back and spend 20-30% less on my hardware and be compatible with most offices across America. It's Apple's fault that OSX is only on 5% of computers worldwide. If they'd open themselves up to the PC world, more (office/industrial/financial) developers would gladly create programs for OSX. As it stands now, OSX is limited and so its software and user base will never rival Windows (at the current pace).

 

[VanNess]

Another feature added into Vista is the 'Gadgets' which show up on a sort of sidepanel on your screen/desktop. The gadgets feature looks quite similar to dashboard in the fact that you can choose the different 'mini apps' (widgets) that you want to have displayed. It seems more like Konfabulator in that you can interact with other applications etc while having the 'Gadgets' open;

Unless the controls for what you happen to be "interacting" with are full screen and extend into the Dashboard-esq "side panel"

Here you can see how the 'Gadgets' are integrated in;

So basically, it's about a fifth of your screen real-estate dedicated full-time to a miniature "dashboard."

That will be just great for viewing/editing full sized jpegs or other tasks dependent upon an abundance of screen real estate. Presumably. MS has built-in a function to switch it (the side panel) on and off, but that's extra, unneeded user managment/involvment with MS's clumsy UI.

In other words, it's in the god damn way

Yet another similar feature that seems to have made its way into the new Microsoft OS is an expose like function, which although you can't see it here in the picture - allows you to scroll through the open windows while in the 'expose' mode;

Obvious expose rip-off and very badly implemented. The whole point of expose is too see all windows at a glance, not rifle through them one at a time rolodex style. MS sacrificed usability here for cheap eye-candy gimmickry.

The last set of similarities are not so obvious, more just little features that both systems will be using. The first is the star rating system from iTunes which has made its way into Vista;

Not even a thinly disguised rip-off.

...and last but not least the little image size toggle slider thing feature that can be seen in apps like iPhoto also has made its way into Vista. It amuses me to see microsoft treating its customers like dipsh*ts, they just can't leave things alone! On the slider they've marked "Extra-Large icons" and "Small icons", yet they still feel like they need to tell the user that "Medium Icons" will probably come somewhere inbetween. It's little things like this that make OS X and the rest of the Apple design ethos appear minimalistic, Apple usually realises that they don't always have to point out the obvious whereas microsoft feels the need to label and annotate everything

Once again, not even a thinly disguised rip-off. Just what have these guys been doing for the last several years?

 

[Bubbasteve]

Is it wrong for me to say that I like the look of Vista? I mean I don't intend to start an uproar or anything but I really like some aspects of Vista...now bring on Leopard!

 

[Josh]

Obvious expose rip-off and very badly implemented. The whole point of expose is too see all windows at a glance, not rifle through them one at a time rolodex style. MS sacrificed usability here for cheap eye-candy gimmickry.

Please see my previous post and/or refer to Sun's 'Project Looking Glass.'

That resembles *nothing* of Expose, and is an influence from Sun, not Apple.

Likewise, it was Apple who copied Project Looking Glass to come up with Expose.

Apple did not invent a single thing that so many claim Vista is copying.

 

[mkrishnan]

Is it wrong for me to say that I like the look of Vista? I mean I don't intend to start an uproar or anything but I really like some aspects of Vista...now bring on Leopard!

I think you're far from being in the minority. I think it'll be an improvement in a lot of ways.... I'm not quite ready to switch back, but I'm paying attention.

 

[Bubbasteve]

I think you're far from being in the minority. I think it'll be an improvement in a lot of ways.... I'm not quite ready to switch back, but I'm paying attention.

Well thank God I'm not the only one

 

[VanNess]

That resembles *nothing* of Expose, and is an influence from Sun, not Apple.

Likewise, it was Apple who copied Project Looking Glass to come up with Expose.

Nonsense.

Project Looking Glass was an attempt at rendering a standard desktop environment as 3d shapes. That has absolutely nothing to with expose, the function of expose, or the appearance of expose.

On the other hand, Microsoft's window management feature has, in presence, in style, in implementation, etc., more than an overt - if not abject - similarity to expose

 

[chaos86]

the comparisons from exposé to the windows app switcher thing are a little far fetched, but they do share the same function.

personally i prefer exposé because the vista thing shows only one window at a time, but apple could make it a little nicer. like instead of having the windows turn blue and have the name over them, they should grow a little and the others should shrink slightly, while the name appears off to the side somewhere.

 

[rendezvouscp]

Hell, I'm happy Vista is like OSX. The reason I chose Apple a few years ago was because of Microsoft's security flaws and crappy OS design. If those get fixed, I'll gladly switch back and spend 20-30% less on my hardware and be compatible with most offices across America. It's Apple's fault that OSX is only on 5% of computers worldwide. If they'd open themselves up to the PC world, more (office/industrial/financial) developers would gladly create programs for OSX. As it stands now, OSX is limited and so its software and user base will never rival Windows (at the current pace).

When you say "open themselves up," what do you mean? How would the "open themselves up" as to invite more developers? Aren't the developers currently working on the Mac fine enough? Frankly, I think we have some of the best hardware and software available; there are developers that create apps that fill niche markets (no matter how large) that haven't caught on to the Mac, and may never will. Are those the developers you're talking about?
-Chasen

 

[howesey]

Nonsense.

Project Looking Glass was an attempt at rendering a standard desktop environment as 3d shapes. That has absolutely nothing to with expose, the function of expose, or the appearance of expose.

On the other hand, Microsoft's window management feature has, in presence, in style, in implementation, etc., more than an overt - if not abject - similarity to expose

I have used PLG for a few years now, it is nothing like Expose. Just downlaod a copy, they do builds for PPC as well.


http://tauquil.com/archives/2006/01/06/re-introducing-the-real-windows-vista/