Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Thurrott: Vista Beta 1 versus Tiger
- Thread starter mac-er
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Mitthrawnuruodo said:Did you see me use the word basically...? You know that means that it's not the same, just that it in many ways does the same...
Hey, I have to prove my point, don't I?
And we're Mac users here speaking (mainly) of finding files on our Macs. That other OSs have inferior search functions that cannot read the contents of files and relies on you as a user to do lots of extra work (by having to manually write in lots of other words when saving the file) is not really mine/our problem...
The problem is, from what is being said, Windows might not be inferior in this regard for too much longer. As well, making the user add in metadata is in no way, shape, or form a negative.
All that information in an MP3 has to come from somewhere. We have it easy now thanks to the CDDB, but somebody somewhere has to enter it in initially. But what about all of the things that DON'T have good metadata from the start? If I write something in TextEdit, and don't put in any metadata, I can't find that file by the name of who wrote it (me) unless my name appears somewhere in the document.
A far bigger problem is images and movies - unless you bring an image into iPhoto and, wait for it, manually enter in metadata for it, it can be near impossible to find it if it doesn't have a good filename. Let's say I download a picture of a dog off of the internet, but don't remember what it was called - I can't find it by searching for "dog." If I was asked to enter in some quick metadata about the image when downloading it, though, I could write "a dog in a field" and then I could find that image that way.
Some people might not have a problem finding images. I, however, currently have 62,794 images on my iMac, and that doesn't get into the many CD-Rs I still have yet to copy over. If I'm working on a project and need to find images of a certain subject, without metadata that I've entered in myself, Spotlight is useless for searching through those pics.
It isn't that that solution couldn't work - because for a number of instances, it could. But that isn't a true fix. As well, I don't like mess - I don't want a Spotlight box that ends up being chocked full of a hundred different tags.
As well, like I said, having individual tags for specific uses has other benefits. If somebody finally gets around to making a decent video playing app that has a nice library like iTunes, it could then do all of its sorting by those tags. Or the ability to rate ANY kind of file on a five-star scale, not just songs.
Another this is, for example, I'm in the Finder and I want to sort my library of music videos by artist. With specific metadata, that would be easy. If the artist's name is one of many tags in the Spotlight comments, that can't be done. That something else that needs to be done - things like List view need the ability to bring in columns for any metadata tags that exist. I should have the ability to make a Finder window replicate the feel of the iTunes library if I want to. That's something I'm afraid Vista might do better than OS X - the display of metadata in the Finder - because I'm not sure how much Apple cares about something like that.
Spotlight comments will probably work for a majority of users out there. For me, metadata was the #1 thing I wanted to see in OS X, and it is just a bit frustrating right now that the foundation is there but we aren't seeing its full potential yet. Right now, we have the means to search for things by the metadata, but getting the metadata there in the first place is a pain in the rear. I want to see Apple really commit, and do things like MS is doing with Vista where metadata fields come up when saving (if you want them to) to remind you to fill that stuff in. (And man would I love Safari to have a "Downloaded from..." tag where it tags everything you download with where you got it from originally.)
stcanard said:Completely arbitrary metadata is there, it's just that Apple hasn't exposed it in the GUI yet:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/7
So just be a bit patient and wait until you see how Apple decides to expose it. There's no need to worry about who will be shipping it first
Thanks for that link - I read the article around the launch of Tiger, but forgot about those details. (Hey... it was a big article!) I am really, really glad that those kinds of things are there, but my fear is Apple's support of them. Give the devil his due, MS is often better at giving access to more power-user options, while Apple is about getting rid of the extra junk and keeping things easy to use and streamlined. In that, though, Apple may decide that a deep level of metadata support is something most users won't care about, and won't worry about really pushing metadata and the ability for users to add their own tags.
I hope I'm wrong, though, and that Apple's commitment to metadata is serious. I also think it is a big mistake for Mac users to make fun of Windows and write it off. It isn't as nice as OS X, in my opinion, but there are some great features that OS X could really use, and it is always a mistake to under-estimate the enemy.
nsheikh80 said:
WHY would any apple operating system be an answer to a ms operating system? apple is so far ahead (and they know it) that they can just concentrate their efforts into their own thing, which eventually gets copied by ms and linux world.
in fact, i have no problem in whoever copies apple, as it only shows that apple has done something worth copying in the first place. but KNOW that apple is not in competition with microsoft in features/quality, but only in market share. apple leads innovation and microsoft leads market share, and sadly, that tells more about the customer base than it tells about the two companies.
leopard is not an answer to the vista. no. it is what microsoft wants to copy into their next system. vista is the microsoft's answer to tiger (in fact, all osx operating systems from 10.0 public beta to the latest tiger version) -- and never the other way around.
ok, end ranting.
shidoshi said:
OMG... Really you should use OS X more carefully. In any file, just open the Finder's Get Info wndow... You see the "spotlight comments" field?
THAT'S METADATA!
The fact that apple does not say "metadata" does not mean it is not metadata.
Comparing OSX to Windows has become an endless exercise in futility.
A big part of what makes Windows so appealing is the wide range of applications, and cheap hardware that will run it.
Its greatest virtue is that it's cheap, generic, and ubiquitous.
The Mac's greatest virtue is the philosophy behind it; it's an expensive, high quality niche product suited to a very small segment of the population.
It's "better" than Windows because it's expected to be.
In the audio community, it would be like Bose trying to compete with the likes of Bowers & Wilkins, or in the auto community, Saturn trying to compete with BMW.
They simply do not appeal to the same markets, and that's probably a good thing.
A big part of what makes Windows so appealing is the wide range of applications, and cheap hardware that will run it.
Its greatest virtue is that it's cheap, generic, and ubiquitous.
The Mac's greatest virtue is the philosophy behind it; it's an expensive, high quality niche product suited to a very small segment of the population.
It's "better" than Windows because it's expected to be.
In the audio community, it would be like Bose trying to compete with the likes of Bowers & Wilkins, or in the auto community, Saturn trying to compete with BMW.
They simply do not appeal to the same markets, and that's probably a good thing.
Sometimes Paul gets it right and sometimes he gets it wrong. Here he's dead wrong. Features matter when they positively and effectively change the way people use and interact with their computers. Then - and only then - does Microsoft notice and copy the feature. Microsoft's "monkey see, monkey do" approach means that you'll never see a feature in Windows that really "matters" until someone else invents it for them
shidoshi said:
I think MS continues to make the mistake of exposing way too many layers of complexity in the general Windows UI that most average users will never touch, let alone understand. Apple is pretty good (but not perfect) at initially exposing just what average users would need to accomplish a given task - so they can move on to the next task without being overwhelmed and overdosed with technological fanfare options they'll never use. Generally, the more complex functions of OS X are kept in secondary layers of the OS, so they can be addressed as the need arises, not every single time in the frontmost UI layer.
On thing Apple did with Spotlight that was smart (and I don't remember Thurrott mentioning this, but I just skimmed his piece a few days ago) was making Spotlight extensible. That way, specific applications can expose complex metadata layers exclusively to their users from within their applications where it make sense, without the need to include verbose metadata layers in the general OS, where non-users of the app will never need it, much less understand it. It also gives the entire metadata landscape much more flexibility, as apps (and their users) decide how to exploit the apps file metadata to it's fullest potential in ways that could never be implemented (or make sense) in the general OS UI.
It still remains to be seen. 10.4 hasn't been out that long and a lot of of it's "under the hood" technologies like spotlight, core image/video and core data are brand new. There still along time to go before Leopard, and developers have a lot of new technologies in Tiger that they can take advantage in the meantime that would make Vista seem like yesterday's tech by the time it makes it to the stores shelves
I would expect 10.5, maybe even a 10.4 update to use this metadata that's already thereshidoshi said:
Soulstorm said:
How many times are people going to say this like it is a big revelation before they understand what I'm talking about? I am very familiar with Spotlight comments, thanks, and they aren't what I am asking for.
VanNess said:
I agree and disagree. I think sometimes MS offers up too many options, thus making the interface a cluttered mess. However, sometimes Apple offers up too few options. Look at Column view in the Finder, for example - it desperately needs more options. Why can't I sort files in Column view by type? Why can't I show item info tags, so that I can know how many files each folder has without having to click on each? (Another example I'm fighting with right now is iPhoto - to this day, you still can't sort film rolls by anything other than date.)
I absolutely agree with the Apple design philosophy, in that the UI is often far too complex, and should be trimmed down to what is most important. But I also think Apple has a bad habit of making a lot of the customization options TOO buried, requiring too much information to get to, or simply leaving them out altogether.
For example, as I said before, I really do think that Apple should provide the option so that when saving a document, it will have the metadata fill-in options like the screenshot for Vista has. Being that I am a typical human being, I often forget to fill in metadata when working with a TextEdit document, for example. If it reminded me to do so when saving, that would be wonderful.
I'm not saying that 10.5 won't do these kinds of things - don't get me wrong. I just wish people would stop bashing Vista simply because it is Windows, and realize that there are some great things that can be learned (*coughstolencough*) from it. For example, Windows for years has had far better open and save dialog boxes, due to the ability to do things like rename files and folders, delete files, etc. directly from the dialog.
The one thing that really irks me is that people call Vista "Beta 1" when most people should know that the traditional term for where Vista is, is Alpha. Vista will not be feature complete until "Beta 2" at the earliest. I guess MS likes to feel better about itself by calling it Beta.
P.S. I can't wait for his second article about security.
P.S. I can't wait for his second article about security.
Yes, because those kind of reminders doesn't get annoying as h*ll after a very short time (and the ability to disable takes all the point out, doesn't it)...shidoshi said:
Mitthrawnuruodo said:Yes, because those kind of reminders doesn't get annoying as h*ll after a very short time (and the ability to disable takes all the point out, doesn't it)...
Why are people so against giving options to other people? Turn it off by default, and let the people who DO want it turn it on. Just because you wouldn't find something useful doesn't mean that others also wouldn't.
shidoshi said:
Just curious, but with Microsoft's proposed method of overlaying metadata support (as far as what I gathered) that support wouldnt be in Linux or OS X in the first place, so sending the file across systems wouldn't have the metadata work properly anyway. I thought that the whole purpose of metadata was to be part of the specific file type, and that only then would metadata be truly universal. Can someone explain what is going on and what needs to happen?
I have to admit that while the article is clearly biased towards Windows Vista (my assumption is because Thurrott is excited for the new beta and is blinded by his own "Microsoft RDF"), the Mac OS is not totally ignored or put down, like most of the comments in this forum suggest.
And for the comment a few threads above, I think that while Apple is more advanced than MS in the basic computing (Unix, obviously, is more advanced than MS), the GUI is being so redone in Vista that by the time Beta 2 is released (which will have an all new GUI) it could be more advanced than OS X 10.4 and even 10.5 if it keeps the same GUI as the other Mac OS X's. And in my oppinion, while I like Macs, it is easier for me, a power user, to use Windows. I already have most things memorized and don't get hacked, spyware, or viruses.
Plus, I like the taskbar.
And for the comment a few threads above, I think that while Apple is more advanced than MS in the basic computing (Unix, obviously, is more advanced than MS), the GUI is being so redone in Vista that by the time Beta 2 is released (which will have an all new GUI) it could be more advanced than OS X 10.4 and even 10.5 if it keeps the same GUI as the other Mac OS X's. And in my oppinion, while I like Macs, it is easier for me, a power user, to use Windows. I already have most things memorized and don't get hacked, spyware, or viruses.
Plus, I like the taskbar.
Vista just looks so complicated and cluttered. When Leopard comes it, it will shut down every last bit of Vista.
Dark said:
I've run beta 1. I agree. The complexity of the interface is going to be mind boggling for many users. MS has made so many radical changes across the board in an attempt it "innovate" the GUI that its turned into a kludge of a mess. However keep in mind that there is aprox 8 months left before the OS "theoretically" goes gold. So its possible there is enough time for them to hire former Apple employees to clean things up.
I ran Beta 1 a few weeks ago, before I even had a mac. Trust me when I say that it's still Windows. I wouldn't trade it any day for OS X.
bousozoku said:
I think you're right, but in the next 5 years Apple's OS X can potentially rip huge chunks of market share from Microsoft, if present tends continue and the Intel switch goes well. We could very well see Apple's market share hit 15-20% or beyond.
I've upgraded to Tiger (new machine too) and haven't any problems with it (yet). All Leopard has to do is not suck and it will blow away whatever I've seen of Longhorn/Vista. The features that I would have liked have been taken out and the dates pushed back even further to the point of rediculousness (what, that's a word). I've been very unhappy with XP, so it looks like my Windows machine will still be running 2000 for awhile. Maybe I'll upgrade to 2003, but I doubt I should even bother.
I'm actually hoping Vista isn't horrible because I support PCs for a living, and have been frustrated to no ends with M$ and their crap. I have enough to do with setting up printers and doing lease returns. Maybe that's why I'm quitting.
I'm actually hoping Vista isn't horrible because I support PCs for a living, and have been frustrated to no ends with M$ and their crap. I have enough to do with setting up printers and doing lease returns. Maybe that's why I'm quitting.
