Leopard or Vista?

[uspcommuter]

Mine as well post my two cents

Well I am not a switcher nor pro- (mac or windows). Been a hybrid user since System 6 and Win 3.0 (I think). Anyways, as a strong believer of technology and population mentality observer. I think Mac OS X is the way to go in the future and for the rest of the 21st century and here is why.

(By the way I am not gonna go into technical details on both systems).

So far there are a few battles on this thread on the merits of each OS/hardware. If I remember correctly cost, ease of use and potential in the future is debated.

Cost
I remember someone on this thread cited that even a emachine gives out 512 mb of ram for 299 and bundle with all the cool new techs like PCI-X. Well mac might not have PCI-X on their machines (except the Powermac) but 512 is standard on all machines (except the eMac but soon to be changed IMO) all starting at 499 with the mini. On top of that once we hit the transition you know what that means...well the cost absorbed by windows vendor will also become one of macs strengths. A quality product with a better OS for just 50 bucks more than dell's, HP, emachines etc. Of cousre IMO i think the cost of a macintel might give other companies a price battle. Therefore, as of right now Mac and Windows breaks even. So its a tie in terms of overall cost over time.

Ease of Use
UI: Need I say more Mac wins on this one hands down. Drivers: I dont recall having this issue with macs. Windows.....uh...need I say more. Third party programs: Um drag and drop install on mac and mac does everything. You will be surprise how many windows user dont understand the installation on windows. Therefore, one point for mac.

Potential
From a population perspective, I would have to say Mac will have a brighter future. The Mac OS is already easy enough to use for the average joe and with the cost of mac in the future to be comparable with PCs will further entice possible switchers to mac. So far we have seen bits and pieces of Vista and to be honest I dont think what it can do anything that 10.4.x or 10.5 or 10.6 cant do. I mean when all things like cost and ease of use are gonna level the playing field, why should the average customer continue to stay with windows? Well I cant think of one. Therefore, Leopard will be the way to go.

 

[pubwvj]

I really hope that leopard will make more progress than tiger did from panther, and include a new more "shiny" gui

I'm a lot less concerned with how the user interface looks than with:
1. How well the OS runs existing software including legacy programs,
2. How stable the OS is,
3. How well it is protect from malware,
4. How it stays out of my way so I can get my work done.

Functionality is more important than new looks.

 

[the-fish]

The problem is a surprising amount of Windows users are actually ignorant of the existence of Mac OS X (my friend was telling me yesterday that he'd heard rumours about an "iPod computer" ...) so many people won't actually realise that all the transparency and "Aero" crap has been stolen off Mac OS X and Aqua. I suppose it was the next logical step for Windows to make their GUI half-decent but, I mean come on, seriously! I wish they'd innovate in a different way to Apple. Ever since the conception of the GUI itself they've been copying it, maybe for once they should just innovate away from their competitors like Apple is at least *trying* to do! Jeez.. *fumes*

 

[~Shard~]

The problem is a surprising amount of Windows users are actually ignorant of the existence of Mac OS X (my friend was telling me yesterday that he'd heard rumours about an "iPod computer" ...) so many people won't actually realise that all the transparency and "Aero" crap has been stolen off Mac OS X and Aqua. I suppose it was the next logical step for Windows to make their GUI half-decent but, I mean come on, seriously! I wish they'd innovate in a different way to Apple. Ever since the conception of the GUI itself they've been copying it, maybe for once they should just innovate away from their competitors like Apple is at least *trying* to do! Jeez.. *fumes*

Ah well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

 

[the-fish]

Ah well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

I suppose. It's just annoying! Being 14, almost everyone at my school has an iPod and they're just like "Duhh...I love Apple......it's hot....." and it's so annoying and ARGH! Is there no way Apple can use some kind of super patent enforcing ... super.... stuff ... to stop Billy G and his gang of clods from stealing key features and GUI themes?

 

[Tahko]

Spotlight and Smart Folders were copied from XP/Longhorn anyway. Apple knew desktop search was coming with Longhorn and they wanted to beat them to the punch. That's what those WWDC 2004 posters were about. It said, "We stole your desktop search idea and released it first". Ulitmately they were still beat to the punch by Windows 2000/XP and Microsoft/Windows Desktop Search.

lol... Spotlight is indexing, XP search isn't. Spotlight searches data from files, not only looks the name like XP search does. This results in finding a very litte stuff with my name on it from this 1.4ghz Windows machine w/ 140 gigs of storage base very slowly. It took almost 10 minutes to search all, and search didn't catch any of my word documents I know include my name (like CV & presentations). Sucks.

 

[~Shard~]

lol... Spotlight is indexing, XP search isn't. Spotlight searches data from files, not only looks the name like XP search does. This results in finding a very litte stuff with my name on it from this 1.4ghz Windows machine w/ 140 gigs of storage base very slowly. It took almost 10 minutes to search all, and search didn't catch any of my word documents I know include my name (like CV & presentations). Sucks.

The key word is metadata.

 

[the-fish]

The key word is metadata.

Vista's going to have metadata searching isn't it? I suppose since Apple can't protect OS innovations for some reason confused we'll have to rely on Leopard actually being better than Vista, even with Vista having stolen all its flagship features.

 

[~Shard~]

Vista's going to have metadata searching isn't it? I suppose since Apple can't protect OS innovations for some reason confused we'll have to rely on Leopard actually being better than Vista, even with Vista having stolen all its flagship features.

If Vista rips off Spotlight it sure will. But that's the thing to keep in mind here - Vista will no doubt rip off a lot of OS X's features, however it will be Tiger's feratures that they will be incorporating, not Leopard's. So think of Micrsoft releasing their version of Tiger (Vista) at the same time as when Apple is releasing their successor to Tiger (Leopard). So no worries, MS will always be a few steps behind.

 

[untamedhysteria]

What's funny about this argument is that Windows WILL have this type of stuff implemented in Vista...While we already have a lot of the technologies implemented (metadata). True, it's not completely thought through but I'm already using a lot of the metadata searches. Along with other implemations. Another thing with search for Windows, when it takes 10 minutes on my pc to NOT find what I'm looking for, while it takes only a few seconds (usually less) to mostly find the stuff I'm looking for, that's saying something. I've tried the other search crap that you could download, but they still took a while and didn't stack up relatively well compared to Spotlight.
Windows might be able to finally do networking with ease (I've always had problems with this on my pc), and be able to do diagnostics to automagically fix problems, but this kind of stuff has been around for UNIX for years.
And last but not least, Windows Vista already has virii...check out this link.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/08/monad_vista/
Sad, how sad.

 

[JFreak]

Windows Vista already has virii.

yes, vista has better software support than macintosh - it even supports virii before its release date, whereas osx has been out five years without a single one. that's why the better software support argument sucks, 'cause not all software is good software

 

[BGil]

lol... Spotlight is indexing, XP search isn't. Spotlight searches data from files, not only looks the name like XP search does. This results in finding a very litte stuff with my name on it from this 1.4ghz Windows machine w/ 140 gigs of storage base very slowly. It took almost 10 minutes to search all, and search didn't catch any of my word documents I know include my name (like CV & presentations). Sucks.

That's wrong. XP does all the metadata searching that Spotlight does and more but does it via traditional GREP-like searching. You need to turn on the Indexing Service to get instant results (like Spotlight).

Vista's going to have metadata searching isn't it? I suppose since Apple can't protect OS innovations for some reason

Apple didn't innovate metadata searching at all. Microsoft put it in both Windows 2000 and XP. Just turn on Indexing Service.
Microsoft simple didn't turn it on by default because XP was introduced in 20001 when most computers couldn't handle the indexing service all the time.

If you really look into it you'll see that every Windows 2000 and XP box has all the searching and metadata technology and capabilites that Spotlight has in 2005 (except for search as you type). In fact, Indexing Service is much more robust that Spotlight's indexing backend.

 

[chaosbunny]

First let's see if the name "Vista" even stays. It's definitely an improvement from "Longhorn". My association with cattle is they are very slow animals that require a large amount of space and food. But here are a few suggestions: Windows "Dagobert", Windows "Hamburger" or maybe "World of Windows"

 

[BGil]

First let's see if the name "Vista" even stays. It's definitely an improvement from "Longhorn". My association with cattle is they are very slow animals that require a large amount of space and food. But here are a few suggestions: Windows "Dagobert", Windows "Hamburger" or maybe "World of Windows"

Why would the name "Vista" change? "XP" and "ME" didn't change nor has any Microsoft product name that I can remember. You do know Longhorn was a codename, right? On all the Microsoft documentation it said "Microsoft Windows Codenamed Longhorn".

 

[DakotaGuy]

Hmmm... maybe another reason they switched to Intel? If Vista turns out to be great (unlikely, but possible) people can still run it on their Macintels without any loss of performance.

 

[Woodley]

Every new release of OS X seems to crush Windows more. Apple is one (or more) steps ahead of Microsoft. And if they continue the way they're going, they'll always be that way.

Leopard for me. But then again I really should test them both out at release.

I am really interested to see what Apple has up their sleeves for Leopard!

 

[mkrishnan]

Why would the name "Vista" change? "XP" and "ME" didn't change nor has any Microsoft product name that I can remember. You do know Longhorn was a codename, right? On all the Microsoft documentation it said "Microsoft Windows Codenamed Longhorn".

Microsoft has publicly changed names before going to gold... like with Windows XP Home Edition N or whatever it's called now, and with Windows XP Starter Edition, I believe. But they're just names. Doesn't mean anything anyway.

 

[greatdevourer]

It's quite funny seeing all these people saying "Vista is nearly as good as Tiger", when you consider thatn Tiger has been out for some months, and Vista still has more than a year to go. In the words of good ol' Steve - "they can't even copy fast"

 

[greatdevourer]

Another thing with search for Windows, when it takes 10 minutes on my pc to NOT find what I'm looking for, while it takes only a few seconds (usually less) to mostly find the stuff I'm looking for, that's saying something.

Oh God... not the Winblowz search function. I search for summat, and it goes and finds all these system files, but forgets to look in My Documents (yes, what I was searching for was in the title). How utterly sh*tty is that

 

[BGil]

It's quite funny seeing all these people saying "Vista is nearly as good as Tiger", when you consider thatn Tiger has been out for some months, and Vista still has more than a year to go. In the words of good ol' Steve - "they can't even copy fast"

What's funnier is that you believe Microsoft is copying Apple even though Microsoft showed off all that stuff (virtual folders, stacks, desktop search etc.) over a year before Spotlight was announced. In fact, you can download build 4015 (dated sometime around the end of 2002 IIRC) and see for yourself.

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/longhorn_4015.asp

Apple basically looked at all the buzz around Longhorn and decided to try to implement the single most obvious feature in an attempt to upstage Microsoft. They half-assed their implementation (Spotlight) and rushed Tiger in order to make that "one year before longhorn" date and now Mac users are paying for it. Tiger is by far the buggiest major OS release of the last 5 years (since 10.1). And ultimately they were beat to the punch by Microsoft and Google anyway when Google Desktop Search and Microsoft Desktop Search came out in late 2004. Jobs had to devote time at MWSF to the controlling the damage caused by those two products (among all the other desktop search products that sprung up after PDC 2003) and all those "Introducing Longhorn" posters were never seen again.

Everyone at Apple was so tied to trying to copy Longhorn features that tehy even used the same language in their keynotes.

One of the big problems with PCs today is that it often takes longer to find a document on your hard drive than it does to find information on the Web via Google.

Not Steve Jobs but Paul Thurrott in his 4051 review.

Apple even copied the damn icon from Windows Search, XP, and Longhorn/Vista to use for Spotlight. The new "glass" look on Spotlight is straight out of WMP10 beta, Media Center, and every Aero Glass demo. That's sad.

 

[zakatov]

And if you think Apple "invented" Spotlight technology during the same timeframe as Tiger, you are wrong.

 

[ja0912]

Can one decide that Vista is a major improvement based on some shiney buttons and an over-use of transparency alone?

 

[~Shard~]

Can one decide that Vista is a major improvement based on some shiney buttons and an over-use of transparency alone?

Quick answer: No.

 

[BGil]

And if you think Apple "invented" Spotlight technology during the same timeframe as Tiger, you are wrong.

Of course you have such inside knowledge that you know that for sure, huh?

If Apple "invented" Spotlight before 2003 then why does it's implementation suck so much? Why does it have a ton of stupid limitations that WDS, Indexing Service, GoogleDS, Coopernic, X1, Yahoo, and Blinx don't have?

It's pretty obvious that they built Spotlight in a rush. I mean, damn, you can't even apply multiple keywords to files without Automator. Correction, you can't apply keywords at all you need to use Spotlight comments.

 

[JFreak]

If Apple "invented" Spotlight before 2003 then why does it's implementation suck so much? Why does it have a ton of stupid limitations that WDS, Indexing Service, GoogleDS, Coopernic, X1, Yahoo, and Blinx don't have?

how does it suck? even my mother-in-law can use it and get the results she's looking for. she uses it on a regular basis. in that regard it works wonderfully and doesn't suck at all. quite the contrary.

limitation is a wrong approach here. "not implementing all possibilities" is a common thing with apple consumer software, and that makes things easy to use. that's a great thing and separates apple software from the implement-everything-and-make-nothing-usable microsoft way. apple offers the features most people will need and use, and doesn't want to implement every wish of a bitchy power user that possibly never uses them anyway.

key word here is usability. spotlight is easy to use and gets the results that the user is looking for. and it has been out for some time now, whereas microsoft's is not. apple has a better position to improve what has already been released. there's nothing wrong with catering for the regular people first and the power users later on, when we after all are talking about a feature that is mostly being used by the regular non-power-user people.

after all, power users already know where their files and content are, right?