A couple months ago, a guy I know finally quit using XP. He couldn't stand how unreliable it was, so he switched to Linux. He said he loved Linux because everything worked. Yesterday he tried the beta of Vista and he was blown away by how good it looks, and how much more user friendly it is than XP. I haven't had a chance to use Vista yet, so I'm just wondering what people here think about it [he doesn't have a Mac, so he couldn't really compare it to OS X, but he did say MS copied OS X's genie effect]. Is Vista a lot better than XP? How does it compare to OS X? Does it look as good, or better? Is it as easy to use as OS X [he mentioned how easy burning a CD or DVD was with Vista]? Is Apple gonna have its hands full competing with Vista, when they release OS X 10.5?
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Is Vista beta as good as (or better than) OS X?
- Thread starter Invizzible
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Invizzible said:
Vista is pretty. I'd say prettier than OSX. But far less functional. It's not all that much of an improvement over Windows XP. Unless Microsoft pulls off a miracle before it ships, Apple has nothing to worry about. Tiger is already well ahead of where Vista is now.
No. You can't compare a mature product to beta software. It's unfair to both products.
It's equivalent, in my mind, to about 10.1 in terms of bugs/performance. The fact that it does transparency and some 3D effects, while having sys requirements that are nearly double of OS X is telling as to how "good" it is.
If you run the beta as your primary OS, you'll definitely get frustrated with its intricacies very quickly. It will likely be polished by the time it ships, but right now it has things that are just far too nagging.
As a for instance, even though it's something I generally avoid in Windows, installing drivers from WU is much worse than, say, XP. In Vista it brought my entire system down to a flashing DOS-like cursor while it installed some fundamental chipset drivers. It came back in a few minutes, but I can see a user panicking and pulling the plug while it is installing drivers.
That's cool and great and all, if it weren't for the fact that it's rather confusing, scary and frustrating for end-users who have automatic updates installed and don't realize why their system just jumped down to a flashing cursor for a few minutes.
I foresee typical end-users becoming plenty frustrated with UAC in a mighty fine hurry, though.
It's equivalent, in my mind, to about 10.1 in terms of bugs/performance. The fact that it does transparency and some 3D effects, while having sys requirements that are nearly double of OS X is telling as to how "good" it is.
If you run the beta as your primary OS, you'll definitely get frustrated with its intricacies very quickly. It will likely be polished by the time it ships, but right now it has things that are just far too nagging.
As a for instance, even though it's something I generally avoid in Windows, installing drivers from WU is much worse than, say, XP. In Vista it brought my entire system down to a flashing DOS-like cursor while it installed some fundamental chipset drivers. It came back in a few minutes, but I can see a user panicking and pulling the plug while it is installing drivers.
That's cool and great and all, if it weren't for the fact that it's rather confusing, scary and frustrating for end-users who have automatic updates installed and don't realize why their system just jumped down to a flashing cursor for a few minutes.
I foresee typical end-users becoming plenty frustrated with UAC in a mighty fine hurry, though.
Interesting.
Ok, let me run a slightly different perspective by you now. I wonder, if you ignore the beta bugs, is Vista so pretty and feature rich that MS has finally leap frogged past Mac OS?
Or if they haven't accomplished that, do you think Vista will at least be good enough so people will no longer have the current reasons to switch (i.e., not as user friendly, not as good looking, included apps not as well integrated, etc...)?
Ok, let me run a slightly different perspective by you now. I wonder, if you ignore the beta bugs, is Vista so pretty and feature rich that MS has finally leap frogged past Mac OS?
Or if they haven't accomplished that, do you think Vista will at least be good enough so people will no longer have the current reasons to switch (i.e., not as user friendly, not as good looking, included apps not as well integrated, etc...)?
F*** NO.
Vista Beta 2 is slow, buggy, and annoying. The eye-candy is very slow, even on a pretty decent card like my 9600XT and Athlon 64 2.8.
Now I'm running Mac OS X Tiger on a 466 MHz Digital Audio G4, with 1 GB of RAM, and a PCI Nvidia GeForce FX5500 128MB, and its fluid, on BOTH monitors, with full CI and QE effects. (The PCI card is from my old Yikes, that I still have, but moved some of its components to the DA, which only has a (eeh) ATI Rage 128)
Vista Beta 2 is slow, buggy, and annoying. The eye-candy is very slow, even on a pretty decent card like my 9600XT and Athlon 64 2.8.
Now I'm running Mac OS X Tiger on a 466 MHz Digital Audio G4, with 1 GB of RAM, and a PCI Nvidia GeForce FX5500 128MB, and its fluid, on BOTH monitors, with full CI and QE effects. (The PCI card is from my old Yikes, that I still have, but moved some of its components to the DA, which only has a (eeh) ATI Rage 128)
Windows is over
Most people only judge an OS by its gui, in this aspect Vista may look 'acceptable'. If you judge Vista by the design of its code it is a sad, sad mess and should not even be considered. (still based on same design as XP)
The momentum for Windows has gone, the momentum for OSX has come.
Have a shot at OSX and soon you will not even consider XP anymore.
Most people only judge an OS by its gui, in this aspect Vista may look 'acceptable'. If you judge Vista by the design of its code it is a sad, sad mess and should not even be considered. (still based on same design as XP)
The momentum for Windows has gone, the momentum for OSX has come.
Have a shot at OSX and soon you will not even consider XP anymore.
This article makes it sound like Vista is a Tiger copy, with a few enhancements.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1842175,00.asp
I'm really looking forward to leopard. I hope it blows us all away.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1842175,00.asp
I'm really looking forward to leopard. I hope it blows us all away.
this time microsoft has gone a few steps in the wrong direction. i have no problem with a gui which is bad designed. but if i install an os and the first thing i have to do is disabling all the new "features" before i actually can start using it -> the os has at least failed for me.
another cool thing: if i change the style of the startmenu to classic, the spotlight search or however this thing's called, disappears..
did you know, that you need windows ultimate for media center?
another cool thing: if i change the style of the startmenu to classic, the spotlight search or however this thing's called, disappears..
did you know, that you need windows ultimate for media center?
on a purely visual standpoint...
after reading this thread I, for the first time, really took a look at my gui and realized that os x is started to look older, especially the finder. I personally don't think vista looks good, but it does look new. I wonder if there is a graphic redesign in store for 10.5. or maybe os 11 isn't that far around the corner after vista comes out.
after reading this thread I, for the first time, really took a look at my gui and realized that os x is started to look older, especially the finder. I personally don't think vista looks good, but it does look new. I wonder if there is a graphic redesign in store for 10.5. or maybe os 11 isn't that far around the corner after vista comes out.
I've used it twice, and I love it. To tell you the truth, I think we're at a point and time where the two major OS's are realy one in the same. OSX does some things better and XP does some things better. If you like using XP/Vista use it, if you like using OSX, use it. I really enjoy using both. I also think that that Linux (Redhat) server software is great too.
Hector said:
exactly how i feel.
OSX Tiger is better and leopard will be MUCH better. Vista is xp with a skin and a couple of crap apps installed.
Visat doesn't really copy the genie effect. The genie effect looks much better than this Vista style, however it's called. The gadgets are nothing but a shallow copy of the dashboard in my eyes. The of eyecandy OS X is better than the eyecandy of Vista.
In terms of security Vista is a giant leap forward in comparison to XP but as I don't know anything about security in OS X I can't really compare that.
In Vista they tried to make everything easier than in XP but I think they went to far with that. I haven't yet found a way to change settings in Media Player 11 (which is the only thing that looks better than it's apple equivalent).
On my computer I currently have installed Ubuntu, XP and Vista and I tried the Beta 2 of Ubuntu and of Vista and the first thing I noticed is that Vista Beta 2 has a lot more bugs than Ubuntu 6.06 Beta 2. They really have to hurry up if they want to fix all that by Dec 06 / Jan 07.
Vista is definitely better than XP. It's more secure than all it's predecessors but stuff like User Account Control is crap. It looks good but not as good as OS X and it's still not that easy to use. But for a final judgement I'd wait until Vista has been out for some to see if it's really more secure and to see if stuff like Windows rot has been illiminated.
In terms of security Vista is a giant leap forward in comparison to XP but as I don't know anything about security in OS X I can't really compare that.
In Vista they tried to make everything easier than in XP but I think they went to far with that. I haven't yet found a way to change settings in Media Player 11 (which is the only thing that looks better than it's apple equivalent).
On my computer I currently have installed Ubuntu, XP and Vista and I tried the Beta 2 of Ubuntu and of Vista and the first thing I noticed is that Vista Beta 2 has a lot more bugs than Ubuntu 6.06 Beta 2. They really have to hurry up if they want to fix all that by Dec 06 / Jan 07.
Vista is definitely better than XP. It's more secure than all it's predecessors but stuff like User Account Control is crap. It looks good but not as good as OS X and it's still not that easy to use. But for a final judgement I'd wait until Vista has been out for some to see if it's really more secure and to see if stuff like Windows rot has been illiminated.
I think one major fact people missed was even if vista is better, which it won't be. It does not matter because mac will come out with a way to run leopard and vista. We know that leopard will be better than vista. Also, do you really want to go back to having to worry about annoying drivers, viruses, and the numberous other problems. I only have had a mac about half a year, I have forgetting that xp is an operating system. I am sure I will do the same about vista.
Invizzible said:
Vista will be good enough and be quite successful. It will be successful, if for no other reason, because there is no viable competition at this point. Apple will not license OS X in the foreseeable future, and Linux still has yet to penetrate the mainstream desktop market -- OEMs are kinda, sorta, iffy maybe, bundling Linux with some of their products.
So, in this regard, Vista will be good enough to be pushed through the OEM pipeline, just as every other version of Windows has. As for "leap-frogging" OS X, I'd say no with a caveat. I would wager that, for some of the features that Windows lacked, Vista has finally achieved parity with Tiger in featureset, while OS X is still lacking some features that Windows has; in this sense, I suppose it could be said that Vista has leap-frogged OS X.
I do honestly believe that if there is another OS war, it will be down to design philosophies -- look and feel, usability, and simplicity. Featurewise they're on par with each other, and I think Apple could make some big wins with the whole simplicity gig.
Users are familiar with Apple design in the iPod/iTunes combo, and with the UAC/Vista interface looking hopelessly complex, Apple can really push the simplicity bit. "Simply secure." Also, Apple is the only computer that can officially run System 6 - OS X, Windows 3.1-Vista, Linux, etc.
In the end, Vista seems to be a product of an insecure ego on the part of Microsoft, and goes to show the high amount of influence Apple still holds in the desktop arena.
anandtech had a good article recently about Vista Beta 2. I've downloaded it but haven't installed it. I'll be interested to know if my laptop can cope with all the effects...
One thing I will say is that the OS X GUI is becomming messy, so many different interface styles. Apple need to pick one and stick with it.
You have Aqua, Metal, Aqua Plastic (Mail), Dark Plastic (iTunes) & Pro. Apple doesn't make the later two available to developers at all, yet it keeps telling people to use Metal for Video apps and then doesn't listen to its own advice.
You now have people trying to mimick the look of dark plastic that's used throughout iLife 06 with their own graphics and often it doesn't look the same. I reckon there's a far too many different shades of grey going on.
Just pick on and stick with it, please!
One thing I will say is that the OS X GUI is becomming messy, so many different interface styles. Apple need to pick one and stick with it.
You have Aqua, Metal, Aqua Plastic (Mail), Dark Plastic (iTunes) & Pro. Apple doesn't make the later two available to developers at all, yet it keeps telling people to use Metal for Video apps and then doesn't listen to its own advice.
You now have people trying to mimick the look of dark plastic that's used throughout iLife 06 with their own graphics and often it doesn't look the same. I reckon there's a far too many different shades of grey going on.
Just pick on and stick with it, please!
I just use Uno. Works great, makes almost everything look unified, even FireFox. I'm hoping they get back to basics UI-wise in 10.5 too.mark88 said:
I don't think Vista looks that good from what I've seen. A little busy too. Maybe better than XP, but that's not saying much. I always set XP to look like Win2000 when I use it at work anyway, and still use 2000 on my server at home. There are a few things I don't like about OS X, like the Cutting and Pasting from the Finder and a few other little things, but when I go back to having to use XP (or even 2000), I miss my Mac. I hope Vista isn't as bad as it seems because I'm sure I'll have to use it at work eventually. I am looking forward to running it in a tiny window on my new Intel PowerMac (or whatever they call it) when I have to and getting my real work done on 10.5.
Or 10.6 by the time Vista comes out and is actually usable.
rams said:did you know, that you need windows ultimate for media center?
No you don't; Media Center can also be found in the 'Home Premium' version of Vista, which in my mind will be the most popular version of Vista for consumers (Home Basic lacks the Aero interface, for example...)
EDIT: Link, scroll down to 'Home Premium' - http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_editions_final.asp
Vista certainly looks good.
A few issues still remain:
1. Looking good is not the same as usability. The usability of Vista is much better than XP, but still over-all much worse than OSX
2. Security is still going to be a major issue
3. Vista still phones home daily on encrypted channels to Microsoft. While "no personal information" is passed along, anything and everything else is. Microsoft has a long history of monitoring its users, and lying about it. (As recent as last week when they were busted again.)
With all of that said, Vista is a good enough knock-off of Tiger and Glass.
Apple needs to leap frog the whole OS field with Leopard. It's time to change the game again and make Vista look like a relic.
A few issues still remain:
1. Looking good is not the same as usability. The usability of Vista is much better than XP, but still over-all much worse than OSX
2. Security is still going to be a major issue
3. Vista still phones home daily on encrypted channels to Microsoft. While "no personal information" is passed along, anything and everything else is. Microsoft has a long history of monitoring its users, and lying about it. (As recent as last week when they were busted again.)
With all of that said, Vista is a good enough knock-off of Tiger and Glass.
Apple needs to leap frog the whole OS field with Leopard. It's time to change the game again and make Vista look like a relic.