Apple Copies Longhorn, MS Worried About Future Thefts

[stcanard]

Microsoft did think of and implement fast user switching before Apple. Apple did in fact copy them, why? Becuase it was a good idea and they were smart to add it to their OS. This is not a matter of pride or who is smarter or more innovative, it's business.

Of course the problem with using FUS as the counter-example is that in the Panther release demo the Steve said flat out "Microsoft beat us to this, and we thought it was a good feature, so we're copying it".

That's hardly a good example of surreptitious copying.

 

[feakbeak]

I thought I was clear, but maybe I was not. I am not saying that Apple does not admit that they copy/take/implement good ideas from other companies. I really don't care what semantics you want to use - borrow/copy/steal/take/implement... doesn't matter. The original poster quoted a Microsoft executive talking about how Apple copied some concepts they had originally thought about, marketed, implemented, etc.

My entire point in posting was to say that I believe Mr. Allchin's comments were accurate and fair. I have also stated several times that I do not think his comments were in any way offensive towards Apple. They are factual statements and Apple did what any smart company would do - there is no shame in this. I don't understand why so many of you seem to be taking this as a personal attack. You act as if I insulted your mother or something.

 

[StarbucksSam]

Let me decide upon the most appropriate response:

Snort.

 

[jayscheuerle]

It's one thing for Microsoft to say they'll put these cool features in Longhorn but it's quite another thing for Apple to actually impliment them. That's a really frustrating comment, Mr Allchin.

No, that's a really frustrated comment...

 

[Sun Baked]

No, that's a really frustrated comment...

Yes, it is a frustrated MS we are dealing with.

Apple is keeping up with and adding their own features, and delivering them on-time and much easier to use.

And they turn out to be things people use every day.

This is the opposite of MS which has had a habit of delivering "me too" features and apps that may or may not work the first time out -- while some take quite a few tries before they become shining jewels compared to their 1.0 cousins. Or these features wither and die because MS really wasn't interested in supporting that feature in the first place.

Heck most Apple apps/features in their 1.0 form probably compare favorably to most MS 2.0 & 3.0 apps and features.

 

[yellow]

I don't know about "copying" the fast searching concept, that was something that the Finder has needed for a long time and Apple has known it..

But Apple definitely "copied" FUS from Windows XP. And I, for one, am glad they did it. FUS is really quite useful.

Personally I don't really care that Apple stole that from Microsoft. That makes the count 2 and 500 or so in favor of Microsoft stealing concepts from Apple?

 

[jayscheuerle]

The problem is that Windows doesn't need features. Windows needs things like stability, security, consistency and UI guidelines that are actually followed. Their approach to their OS is akin to the pinnacle of the American Motor Car design philosophy: Homer Simpson's Car design.

Microsoft is more interested in cup-holders, spoilers and faux-wood paneling than they are engines and transmissions...

 

[stcanard]

Actualy I find this crutch of "MS has to maintain backwards compatibility" to be a fascinating excuse.

Linux, OSX, Solaris maintain an amazing amount of backwards compatibility with the leaps they make in features.

MS OTOH has (impressions aside) done a horrible job of maintaining backwards compatiibility.

Remember how many things broke on the Win 3.1 -> Win 95 transition? Compare that to how many OS1 programs you could still run on OS9.

You'd be amazed at how much breaks if you try to make the Win 95/98/ME -> XP switch, forget Longhorn.

I had hardware (ASUS TNT video card) that was never properly supported on Windows 2000, if I ever wanted to use the tv in/out I had to go to Windows 98. Yet that was as vanilla/basic as you could get!

And yet by constantly trumpeting the "we have to maintain backwards compatibility" line as an excuse, they have somehow managed to give this impression that they are better at it than everyone else; that's why they take so much time, when realistically, best case scenario, they are no worse than anyone else.

 

[feakbeak]

I was wrong. Apple makes the all the best software. In fact if they don't make it is sure to completely suck and cause your hardware to melt. Microsoft is evil - it is the spawn of Satan himself. Microsoft is the scourge of computing and using Windows will lower your IQ by 30%. You will have nightmares about the BSOD and you will begin to hit Ctrl+Alt+Del for no reason whatsoever.

Apple on the other hand is divine. God gave us Apple because he loves us, Steve Jobs is the second coming of Christ and Apple's code should be written into the bible as the third testament. (except then, Apple would have to sue all of the Christian churches) All those who use Windows or Linux will burn in hell for all eternity. Apple can do no wrong - and even if they did (hypothetically speaking, of course)... well, Microsoft will always do worse so it doesn't matter.

I now see the light, thank you all for pointing out the flaws in my thinking. Now, pass the Kool-Aid. All this Apple praise got me thirsty. Oh, give me my sunglasses and some of that sun-block too, Steve's RDF is starting to burn me. Oh, look it is shiny!

You know what they say, if you can't reason with them... join 'em!

(BTW - it's a joke. If you can't laugh at it, you need to step back from the RDF)

 

[stcanard]

I now see the light, thank you all for pointing out the flaws in my thinking. Now, pass the Kool-Aid. All this Apple praise got me thirsty. Oh, give me my sunglasses and some of that sun-block too, Steve's RDF is starting to burn me. Oh, look it is shiny!

And if you disagree with them, make them all out to be cultists.

I would far prefer it if you actually pointed out the factual errors that you seem to see in my previous post. That way there could be a dialog, and even the chance to change opinions on either side.

 

[jayscheuerle]

I think that you have two different drives at stake between Apple and Microsoft.

Microsoft wants to be a successful business at any cost. They want to make tons of money and they want everyone to use their software. If they can't get you to use it by creating compelling reasons, they will get you to use it by default and crushing the competition with anti-competitive practices. Quality is not important. Becoming embedded is. They want to corner you and leave you no options, no way out. Give up. You're stuck. It's too difficult to go any other way. We win.

Apple IS Steve Jobs. It (he) is arrogant and convinced of correctness in both approach and execution. The bigger picture, the concept, is of greatest importance. Apple wants you to desire it, to be unable to live without it because your heart tells you so. It wants to make you fall in love, to become an addict, to see "the light", look down your nose at those that blindly settle for less. You can't resist. You are beautiful...

 

[calyxman]

Actualy I find this crutch of "MS has to maintain backwards compatibility" to be a fascinating excuse.

Linux, OSX, Solaris maintain an amazing amount of backwards compatibility with the leaps they make in features.

MS OTOH has (impressions aside) done a horrible job of maintaining backwards compatiibility.

Remember how many things broke on the Win 3.1 -> Win 95 transition? Compare that to how many OS1 programs you could still run on OS9.

You'd be amazed at how much breaks if you try to make the Win 95/98/ME -> XP switch, forget Longhorn.

I had hardware (ASUS TNT video card) that was never properly supported on Windows 2000, if I ever wanted to use the tv in/out I had to go to Windows 98. Yet that was as vanilla/basic as you could get!

And yet by constantly trumpeting the "we have to maintain backwards compatibility" line as an excuse, they have somehow managed to give this impression that they are better at it than everyone else; that's why they take so much time, when realistically, best case scenario, they are no worse than anyone else.

Nobody said it was perfect backwards compatability, and if I'm not mistaken, I'm remember back in the day when system 7 came out and many apps from system 6 were not compatible with system 7. So it's not an easy win for Apple at either. Wasn't system 8 (copland?) licensed from a third party? That was one big disaster of its own.

Also the transition from 3.1 to 95 was understandable given the fact most 3.1 apps were 16-bit.

But you seemed to miss the point: it's not just backwards compatability, it's also the user base. Comparing the number of hardware drivers, applications, api's, etc to what Apple has is like comparing Jupiter to Pluto. So yeah, it's not necessarily an easy task to create harmony between all the OSes across your 90% market share, but MS has been doing a pretty decent job at it.

Also, just like Apple pushed it's marketplace to adopt a Unix based file system, MS did the same in pushing its userbase to NTFS.

I continuously hear all this stuff trumped about how Apple is already on their 5 major OS release in within the last 5 years while MS is dragging along. Let's not forget that OS X had a major uphill climb during those years: 10.0 was more like a beta release and lacked many essential features you'd expect to find a major OS until 10.1 arrived, major software such as Quark still held out on the classic side of the fence until finally arriving to OS X, graphics support wasn't really addressed until Quartz with Jaguar, there were still quirks with Java compatability on certain websites, and before Safari everybody was using a different browser from camino to mozilla to Omniweb, anything but IE.

And how about those users that don't want to use OS X? Unfortunately, newer Macs don't boot up in OS 9 or lower. Yeah you have classic mode, but it doesn't work as well as running classic apps in their native environment. I haven't seen an x86 machine that won't allow a person to install Win 98 or 2000 on it.

So yeah Microsoft's got issues with backwards compatability just like everyone else, but it's a different jungle, and Apple isn't so perfect either.

 

[feakbeak]

And if you disagree with them, make them all out to be cultists.

I would far prefer it if you actually pointed out the factual errors that you seem to see in my previous post. That way there could be a dialog, and even the chance to change opinions on either side.

Fair enough. I thought it was funny though.

Linux, OSX, Solaris maintain an amazing amount of backwards compatibility with the leaps they make in features.

I've only used Linux and Solaris for a combined total of a few hours, so I can't really speak to that effect, but the transition from OS9 to OS X was less than smooth. Apple forced user to move up to OS X if they wanted any newer apps or security hotfixes. I'm not saying this is wrong, it's a business decision and it has helped move the majority of Mac users to OS X in a relatively short period of time.

MS OTOH has (impressions aside) done a horrible job of maintaining backwards compatiibility.

I would disagree. I think they do fairly well. Microsoft is still releasing hotfixes for older OSes like Windows 98/ME, NT4. Those platforms are really old, but you can at least plug the security holes still. When iLife '05 or iWork were released they would only run on the most recent OS X version. Apple does not release security patches for anything earlier than 10.2. Only recently did Microsoft start cutting off support the Windows 9x platform. Office XP, WMP 9 ran on Windows 98. The newest iterations of Office and WMP only run on Win 2K/XP or just XP. The Microsoft technology I work most with at work is Windows Installer and only in the past couple of months did Microsoft release the latest version which finally discontinued Windows 95 support - that is 10 years of support! What specifically do you feel Microsoft has done a bad job with in backwards compatibility support?

Also, as I said before, I don't believe Apple does as well with support of old software/OSes but they do an excellent job of supporting old hardware. Tiger can be run on any G3 processor. I'm not sure how well it runs, but still that is impressive and I applaud them for making the effort to give their hardware that type of longevity. I believe this task is easier for Apple than Microsoft because Apple has a very limited set of supported hardware in comparison to x86 hardware. Still, usually each new iteration of Windows requires significantly hardware to run well - this sucks.

Remember how many things broke on the Win 3.1 -> Win 95 transition? Compare that to how many OS1 programs you could still run on OS9.

No, I don't. I didn't start using computers much until the Windows 9x and OS 8 days. Wasn't the switch from Win 3.1 to Win 9x also the switch from 16 to 32-bit as well? That makes it more difficult especially since the processors didn't run 16-bit natively like AMD has done with the Athlon 64, right? I'm not sure of this info, so correct me if I am wrong.

You'd be amazed at how much breaks if you try to make the Win 95/98/ME -> XP switch, forget Longhorn.

I have made that switch and didn't really have any problems, minor things but that happens with any OS. I had one or two compatibility problems just going from Panther to Tiger. Small issues like this are expected on any OS migration though, regardless of platform. Fresh installs are almost a must on Windows, the "upgrade" option is no good. (sidenote: Interestingly, I worked with a developer that worked on the XP upgrade tool at MS.) I haven't tried it with Mac OS because I don't trust that option in general. The "Archive and Install" option is very nice though, Apple wins on that one. Microsoft doesn't have anything comparable and based on my knowledge of Windows it would be very difficult for them to implement something similar.

I had hardware (ASUS TNT video card) that was never properly supported on Windows 2000, if I ever wanted to use the tv in/out I had to go to Windows 98. Yet that was as vanilla/basic as you could get!

Wouldn't the blame really go to the hardware manufacturer for not provided a stable, quality driver for Windows 2000? I know there were quite a few problems gaming on Windows 2000. I'm sure some of the problems with gaming software were caused by issues in Windows 2000 itself. Still, if your hardware just didn't work well, then blame the people who are writing the drivers.


The thing that irritates me is that this thread is so one-sided. I know it's a Mac board, but still can't we have some objectivity? I am willing to praise Apple/MS for their merits and criticize Apple/MS for their faults. However, most of the posters in this thread have been unwilling to criticize Apple or praise MS, even when it is clearly deserved. To me that just illustrates that these specific MR posters are stubborn Apple apologists who cannot be or are unwilling to be objective.

I like following Apple much more than following Microsoft. Why? Apple is more fun - more dramatic, more secrets, more style - Apple is simply more consumer-oriented while Microsoft is business-oriented. Microsoft's biggest crime is pretending that they design their technologies with ordinary home users in mind, by and large they do not and it is simply a marketing lie.

I just call it as I see it - but I can provide reasons for why I see something a particular way. I'm just shocked that so many posters in this thread only see Apple in a good light and MS in a bad light. They both have their pros and cons. You can like Apple more than MS - you can even strongly like Apple and dislike MS and still be objective. I know this is possible, I do it all the time.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Well, this is VERY old news... Steve Jobs himself credited Microsoft (and Windows XP) for being first with Fast User Switching during his Panther introduction in June 2003... but of course Apple had to make a cool visual twist (and make sure it actually works... )

 

[feakbeak]

I think that you have two different drives at stake between Apple and Microsoft.

Microsoft wants to be a successful business at any cost. They want to make tons of money and they want everyone to use their software. If they can't get you to use it by creating compelling reasons, they will get you to use it by default and crushing the competition with anti-competitive practices. Quality is not important. Becoming embedded is. They want to corner you and leave you no options, no way out. Give up. You're stuck. It's too difficult to go any other way. We win.

Apple IS Steve Jobs. It (he) is arrogant and convinced of correctness in both approach and execution. The bigger picture, the concept, is of greatest importance. Apple wants you to desire it, to be unable to live without it because your heart tells you so. It wants to make you fall in love, to become an addict, to see "the light", look down your nose at those that blindly settle for less. You can't resist. You are beautiful...

I'd agree with that.

I'm no MS apologist. Don't get me started on how pissed I was/am at MS over what they did with IE - dominate the market, embed it in Windows. Then, after saturating the market they just let it stagnate, no more innovation. Pathetic! Now that Firefox is on their heals we'll see IE 7 before Longhorn, supposedly.

 

[feakbeak]

Well, this is VERY old news... Steve Jobs himself credited Microsoft (and Windows XP) for being first with Fast User Switching... but of course Apple had to make a cool visual twist (and make sure it actually works... )

FUS works on Windows XP just fine. Might not be as efficient with resources, but it works fine. Overall, OS X is more efficient for multiple users and multitasking in general because of its better resource management. However, if you have the resources, FUS works great on WinXP.

 

[Nermal]

I think Steve (Jobs, Apple's CEO) would also say this thing about fast user switching, when he saw that in Windows XP, he said, ahh, that was pretty nice, and they ended up adding that. They did it in a nicer visual way than what we did but we put the concept in there first.

Let's just completely ignore the fact that the underlying Unix has had the 'switch user' command for years now.

 

[feakbeak]

Let's just completely ignore the fact that the underlying Unix has had the 'switch user' command for years now.

Of course Unix was designed for multi-user environments, but did Apple expose that aspect of Unix to its users? No.

 

[stcanard]

I think that you have two different drives at stake between Apple and Microsoft.

Actually you hit the nail on the head here.

Steve Jobs is a tech/culture visionary and Apple while he is/was heading it reflects that.

Bill Gates is a business visionary, and Microsoft while he was Chairman/CEO reflected that.

Steve Ballmer is a ... umm ... what exactly has Microsoft done in the years that Steve Ballmer has been running the company?

 

[calyxman]

No, I don't. I didn't start using computers much until the Windows 9x and OS 8 days. Wasn't the switch from Win 3.1 to Win 9x also the switch from 16 to 32-bit as well? That makes it more difficult especially since the processors didn't run 16-bit natively like AMD has done with the Athlon 64, right? I'm not sure of this info, so correct me if I am wrong.

Windows 95 required at minimum a 386 DX processor. The SX was a 16-bit variant I believe, and the DX was 32-bit and included the math co-processor.

And you bring up another good point about the support MS has been offering for their previous OSes vis-a-vis Apples treatment. Jaguar was released not too long ago and yet newer apps such as iLife require 10.3 or higher (maybe even 10.4 now that it's out). Where's Apple's mercy in this situation? That's why I'm not feeling the euphoria that everyone else is feeling with the release of Tiger because you know that any new software for the mac will equate to having a higher version of OS X.

I'd also maintain that developers still have the tools and means to create cross compatability among the Windows OSes starting from 95. You can get DVD burning software that's compatible with Windows 95. As a serious question, is there any Mac DVD burning software today that runs on OS 7 or 8 (whatever it was back in 1995)? I'd like to know.

 

[Sun Baked]

And you bring up another good point about the support MS has been offering for their previous OSes vis-a-vis Apples treatment. Jaguar was released not too long ago and yet newer apps such as iLife require 10.3 or higher (maybe even 10.4 now that it's out). Where's Apple's mercy in this situation? That's why I'm not feeling the euphoria that everyone else is feeling with the release of Tiger because you know that any new software for the mac will equate to having a higher version of OS X.

I'd also maintain that developers still have the tools and means to create cross compatability among the Windows OSes starting from 95. You can get DVD burning software that's compatible with Windows 95. As a serious question, is there any Mac DVD burning software today that runs on OS 7 or 8 (whatever it was back in 1995)? I'd like to know.

Actually, MS is probably jealous of Apple's ability to get people to upgrade.

One of the flaws that MS recognizes, is that you don't have to have the latest version of Windows and Office.

For Apple many of the new features are tied to an OS, and any app that makes use of those features means that it only works with that OS or later.

Compile with a certain library version, and it's supposed to work in the future versions -- but not with older libraries.

 

[stcanard]

I would disagree. I think they do fairly well. Microsoft is still releasing hotfixes for older OSes like Windows 98/ME, NT4. Those platforms are really old, but you can at least plug the security holes still. When iLife '05 or iWork were released they would only run on the most recent OS X version. Apple does not release security patches for anything earlier than 10.2.

Okay, here's a problem. Your definition of backwards compatibility differs from the standard definition. What you're talking about here is called "legacy support" (supporting updates and maintenance of legacy systems). Legacy support is another issue entirely, and for the record both Microsoft and Apple have very bad track recrods on legacy support.

When people talk about backwards compatibility what they mean is that old binaries will run on newer operating systems. For reference, any time I use the term "backwards compatibility" here I mean running older binaries on newer systems.

snipped more talk about legacy support

No, I don't. I didn't start using computers much until the Windows 9x and OS 8 days. Wasn't the switch from Win 3.1 to Win 9x also the switch from 16 to 32-bit as well? That makes it more difficult especially since the processors didn't run 16-bit natively like AMD has done with the Athlon 64, right? I'm not sure of this info, so correct me if I am wrong.

Okay, then I can see that your upgrade experience is fairly limited (this is not an insult, just an observation), I gather you've only made the change from a Windows 4.x (95/98/ME) -> Windows 5.1 (aka XP). For the record 9x didn't actually make a switch to 32 bit, it was an 16 bit operating system with access to 32 bit libraries (although for the most part the 32 bit parts eventually got thunked back down to 16 bit, it was really messy). The whole "32 bit" thing was a claim that Microsoft eventually had to back off of. I'm assuming that by Win 98/ME they had actually fixed that.

This was not a huge change architecturally. Windows 3.1 already had a win32 layer in it, and Windows 95 it was discovered was still booting a version of DOS and starting a shell over it. There was a bit more memory protection, an a bit better multitasking, yet it broke an awful lot of programs.

Now what's interesting is that since 1995 Microsoft has only done *2* major OS changes! Windows 3.x -> Windows 4.x -> Windows 5.1 (that's on the consumer side, of course on the pro side it was NT3.x -> NT4.x -> Windows 5.x).

Now don't forget that in that same time frame Apple switched to an entirely different microprocessor and still maintained binary compatibility! That is a feat that is beyond belief.

Wouldn't the blame really go to the hardware manufacturer for not provided a stable, quality driver for Windows 2000? I know there were quite a few problems gaming on Windows 2000. I'm sure some of the problems with gaming software were caused by issues in Windows 2000 itself. Still, if your hardware just didn't work well, then blame the people who are writing the drivers.

Actually here the blame does fall on Microsoft, and it's one of the reasons things have been so badly delayed. The drivers for the consumer (Windows 9x) windows and the drivers for the professional (NT3.x, NT4.x, Windows 5.x) are architecturally very different! You need seperate development efforts to do it. They've been trying to fix this for 10 years now, and not only have they not been completely successful bit its one of the issues that's leading to decreased OS stability of Windows 5.1 vs 5.0.

The thing that irritates me is that this thread is so one-sided. I know it's a Mac board, but still can't we have some objectivity? I am willing to praise Apple/MS for their merits and criticize Apple/MS for their faults. However, most of the posters in this thread have been unwilling to criticize Apple or praise MS, even when it is clearly deserved. To me that just illustrates that these specific MR posters are stubborn Apple apologists who cannot be or are unwilling to be objective.

I agree that there are some very one sided people here, but lets put this in perspective. In a thread where Microsoft was accusing Apple of copying, can you name 5 features in which Microsoft was first to market (against Apple, IBM, Sun, Be etc)? They seriously lack any kind of credibility in the "innovation" they keep trumpeting.

[Edit]
I just want to add, on the backward compatibility standpoint that OS/2 Warp, which predated Windows 95 was a true 32 bit, pre-emtive operating system and it was always considered a great source of irony that it had better backwards compatibility to Windows 3.1 that Windows 95 ever did!
[/Edit]

 

[dotdotdot]

Didnt Apple SAY they took it from Windows XP and it ended up being a LOT better???

 

[stcanard]

And you bring up another good point about the support MS has been offering for their previous OSes vis-a-vis Apples treatment. Jaguar was released not too long ago and yet newer apps such as iLife require 10.3 or higher (maybe even 10.4 now that it's out). Where's Apple's mercy in this situation? That's why I'm not feeling the euphoria that everyone else is feeling with the release of Tiger because you know that any new software for the mac will equate to having a higher version of OS X.

I'd also maintain that developers still have the tools and means to create cross compatability among the Windows OSes starting from 95. You can get DVD burning software that's compatible with Windows 95. As a serious question, is there any Mac DVD burning software today that runs on OS 7 or 8 (whatever it was back in 1995)? I'd like to know.

Now you're talking Forwards compatibility (newer binaries run on legacy systems) which is another matter entirely.

The difference in forwards compatibility is very much an architectural difference in the OS's. Apple's view dates back to the days of the original Mac with the toolkit in ROM providing a very rich set of libraries for people to use (in this case it was necessary, because RAM and disk sizes would not allow this to be done any other way). To this day that's what Apple does, with very complete foundation kits in the OS to provide a lot of functionality. It allows for smaller exectuables because so much is already in the OS, and some of the across the board performance improvements, but at the price that applications that take advantage of the foundation kits are not forwards compatible because they require libraries that don't exist on the older system. Safari on Panther was a good example of this, using parts of WebKit that don't exist in Jaguar.

Windows on the other hand, has a very poor set of libraries (this is one of the things I think they are trying to change with Longhorn), and so every application carries it's own libraries (think about it, even the primitives of drawing are in their own libraries! That's why you used to have the different looks between MFC and OWL applications). This makes forwards compatibility easier, because the application will bring it's own libraries, but makes for larger applications an what is affectionately known as DLL hell, different implementations of the same feature, meaning different bugs on what should be common functionality, etc.

Personally I think Microsoft's forwards compatibility is a bug, not a feature.

 

[panphage]

The BeOS had fast searching based on metadata and indexing in like 1995. So I don't know what everyone is crying about. Be also, in 1995, had: pervasively muti-threaded, journaled filesystem, pre-emptive multi-tasking, multi-processor support, etc. I think a lot of these ideas found their way into Windows between 2000 and 2007. I think apple got most of them with the release of OS X. So who's copying what? Some ideas just get expressed when they become part of the zeitgeist. Look at hollywood movies, everyone has the same idea at the same time.

Of late, Be has responded to the tiresome accusation that they are doomed with the assertion that BeOS is "a media operating system" made for media content creators, and hence is not really in competition with Windows at all. This is a little bit disingenuous. To go back to the car dealership analogy, it is like the Batmobile dealer claiming that he is not really in competition with the others because his car can go three times as fast as theirs and is also capable of flying.

http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html