Vista looks like OSX but a little, dare I say it, better!

[ksz]

After watching the keynote, the only innovative thing was the 3-screen mock-up of a next-gen user interface that Bill drove in the opening minutes.

The photo editing, searching, ALT-Tab switching, Dashboard-like sidebar, and other enhancements in Vista are mostly rehashes or alterations in the way things are done already. Nothing exciting at all. But Vista does promise to make the overall Windows experience richer and more Mac-like.

However, the "Comedy Central Motherload" is interesting and appears to be well done. It's a nice digital TV guide and shows how much further Apple needs to go with Front Row.

 

[brepublican]

To you nay sayers, I have two strong words for you: C'MON!!!

(It's good they are putting up a fight. Competition is also good )

 

[freeny]

Im anticipating the comments I will get from my pc friends. Ever since Os X came out they have all been saying "Its just eye candy, looks like a toy". Now that Vista looks almost exactly the same what will they say?

Also on the Microsoft site devoted to Vista they talk about features they barrowed from Os X as "Groundbreaking" and "Breakthrough". They have an iTunes like feature that is exactly the same as iTunes and is described as "An entirely new music experience". I guess for those who have never seen Os X it will be all those things.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/default.aspx

 

[ifjake]

i thought it was interesting when the MTV representative was brought onstage and said "I'm going to be kickin' it old school and use hand written notes."

Lots of this stuff is cool. but i think there's a balance between how much of what we do needs computers and technology and how much doesn't. there's a balance i think. there are a lot of cool forward looking things in this keynote, but it'll be interesting to see where it actually ends up going.

 

[AtHomeBoy_2000]

For my whole life I have used a Windows PC. I only switched to Mac this fall. WIth that being said, I think Vista is still increably ugly. They are taking OS X and over doing it. I think the CLassic style is still a better look than VIsta.

 

[floyde]

Well some of us still have to use Windows machines at work, so this can't be such a bad thing. If anything, the extra competition will make the Leopard team work harder and push their creativity to the limit.

 

[AtHomeBoy_2000]

Has anyone been watching the Bill Gates keynote speech at CES.

I am watching it right now. I love the Ass licking of Bill Gates by the CES guy. He says that Microsoft is focused on improving software technology and making it easier to use. Actually, that is almost opposite of what it really is. Microsoft software is often behind Apple and is significantly harder to use and GETS harder with each new function.

 

[jmufellow]

If anything, the extra competition will make the Leopard team work harder and push their creativity to the limit.

Exactly. I'm glad for windows competing like this. It can only make things better for the end user-- us mac users!

 

[AtHomeBoy_2000]

In the KeyNote, he demonstrates a Wall TV and how all various medias will be integrated. Oddly, I have a hard time believing that anything MS does will be that simple.

OH! and of course since it is Windows based, it is all propriatary and doesnt work well with others unless you pay them.

 

[OldCorpse]

good news and bad news

Yes, a lot of Vista features rip off OS X, but what else is new? Anyone remember Windows 3.xx? Right. For those who don't... Macs were way ahead in GUI design and general ease of use at that point (early-mid 90's). It was sort of like OSX vs XP now. So what happened? Windows 95 happened, that's what. AND IT WAS A DISASTER FOR APPLE - IT KILLED APPLE!

When Windows 95 came out, everybody screamed "MS ripped off Apple!" I think there was even a lawsuit going on (by Apple I think, can't remember exactly, Apple accusing MS of stealing their GUI design), which Apple eventually lost. Anyhow, it was true, MS did rip off Apple in Windows 95. Windows 95 came closer to being usable, and closer to the Apple design - even though it wasn't as polished, integrated and "native" as Mac... I remember Apple making fun of Windows features by running ads to the effect that "oh yeah, about time, we've had it since 84, welcome to the fold, Windows". In any case pundits claimed that finally with Windows 95, MS got a desktop with feature parity to Apple, and that Apple's big advantage disappeared... well, it wasn't strictly true - it was only surface parity, and underneath, Windows sucked compared to Macs, and Macs were still ahead, though by a smaller distance.

In any case, unfortunately, the predictions came true - Apple was killed... folks saw no reason to hold back. Apple had customers for their more expensive product, because it was blindingly, demonstrably head and shoulders above what MS had to offer. And so, Apple had decent market share. But with Windows 95, even though it still was not as good as Macs of the day, folks figured "good enough feature parity" and saw no reason to shell out more for Apple computers. And that was a deathknell for Apple. Market share immediately started sliding (of course, there were additional reasons, including many missteps by Apple). Apple has never recovered.

Tragically, Apple share fell so far, that even with the introduction of OS X, and with Panther and Tiger it was clearly ahead of XP, Apple fell too far down in market share to recover.

And now, we'll have Vista. Pundits will scream "feature parity with OS X", and even though it won't be strictly true (the underlying guts will still be POS MS, versus the unixy goodness of OS X), it'll be enough for Joe User 95% of the market. Yes, 10.5 will move ahead again, but the damage will be done. The distance between 10.5 and Vista will be too small for the average user to care about - and smaller than between the current Tiger and XP. That's not good for Apple.

The good news is that the market is a bit more sophisticated and as a result, the niche of Apple buyers should still be there. You won't see too many defections. But the dreams of 30% desktope marketshare will be likely dashed. Also, likely and hopefully, Apple will continue to lead with hardware design... that is definitely a factor. I'd rather work with my good looking iBook, than any laptop in the PC world - I'm sure I'm in a minority, but I'm not alone

All I can say, Jobs and team better pull out all the stops. Make spotlight way better than it is now, because the equivalent in Vista is going to beat the pants off Tiger spotlight (there was a nice article in Anandtech about this a few months ago, and the compromises Apple did to get spotlight out the door). 10.5 must be as big a leap forward as possible to maintain some sort of marketshare.

 

[jacobj]

Plus, iPhoto also saves an original picture when it is edited. Nothing new there.

I know.. that's what I liked about it. There is so much OSX is Vista that any claims that they had the ideas independently cannot be believed.

 

[jacobj]

it's still windows period... and all the eye candy in the world is no good if it still runs like ass and viruses still permeate every inch and it's still a maze to get through the inner workings. period.

i wouldn't go jumping ship just from a pretty controlled demo.

also, it's such a blatant rip-off of features i wouldn't use it just on principal.

that said... VISUALLY it's "ok".

i can't wait for 10.5 myself.

I go with the OS not just because of how it is but becuase I have faith it where it will go (a bit like Apple's switch to Intel ), and I agree Vista is a huge rip-off I just liked some of the thoughts they had had and hoped that some of them could be ripped off and put in OSX.

 

[AtHomeBoy_2000]

Has anyone been watching the Bill Gates keynote speech at CES.
If you are interested in the keynote you can find it here.

I am watching it and all I keep thinking is...
If this were being streamed in in H.264 this would look SOOOO much clearer rather than this boxy pixilated look.

 

[freeny]

Really, what would Microsoft do without Apple? Does Apple get paid for R&D from Microsoft? I wonder what "Vista" would look like if there was no Apple?

 

[Randall]

Really, what would Microsoft do without Apple? Does Apple get paid for R&D from Microsoft? I wonder what "Vista" would look like if there was no Apple?

What would "The Flintstones" do without The Honeymooners? What is your point? Ideas get stolen all the time, [un]fortuantely depending on how you look at it.

 

[Diatribe]

As I have written here MS is now integrating backup into the system... maybe Apple should do the same.
MS isn't always copying Apple, there are quite a few things MS innovated and Apple copied or should be copying.

 

[freeny]

What would "The Flintstones" do without The Honeymooners? What is your point? Ideas get stolen all the time, [un]fortuantely depending on how you look at it.

Well I guess by your logic there is no point to just about the entire thread. Did you just drop in to vent?

 

[Randall]

Well I guess by your logic there is no point to just about the entire thread. Did you just drop in to vent?

What do you mean? The thread was started by saying that Vista looks like OS X. I still like OS X much better, but mainly for it's UNIX base. That was my selling point anyway. Don't think that Vista was just a facelift to XP however. It is much much more.

My point was that it's stupid to argue who ripped off who and which company had their idea first. Tha fact is that just like AMD and Intel, Microsoft and Apple help push each other towards excellence. IMO OS X is still leaps inhead of Vista, but Vista is definately a step in the right direction for Windows.

 

[freeny]

What do you mean? The thread was started by saying that Vista looks like OS X. I still like OS X much better, but mainly for it's UNIX base. That was my selling point anyway. Don't think that Vista was just a facelift to XP however. It is much much more.

My point was that it's stupid to argue who ripped off who and which company had their idea first. Tha fact is that just like AMD and Intel, Microsoft and Apple help push each other towards excellence. IMO OS X is still leaps inhead of Vista, but Vista is definately a step in the right direction for Windows.

Well perhaps if you had just started off with your second more informative and less hostile post we would have avoided this exchange. You could always use one of the convenient smilies to soften the blow and come across a little more kindly Unless of course you intended to be a d**k in the first place

 

[Randall]

Well perhaps if you had just started off with your second more informative and less hostile post we would have avoided this exchange. You could always use one of the convenient smilies to soften the blow and come across a little more kindly

fair enough

 

[brepublican]

Is it just me or its getting a little bit hot in here? Phew!

 

[Sunrunner]

The key is not the eye candy, the key is the elegance of design and underlying operating system, MacOSX based on decades of unix development is more likely to be more robust than Vista and everyone knows that.

Apart from that MacOSX has been out for years and Vista is still not in the shops and by the time it is 10.5 will be coming out and will have some improvements to Tiger!

EXACTLY. Its all great to have your OS look pretty, but when it runs slower than sh*t and has the kind stability/security issues windows is famous for, pretty is worthless.

 

[scokim]

The Dashboard area is on the main screen. If the user is interested in the information the widget is explaining then they can drag the widget onto the desktop and and the functionality and detail of the widget expand into a mini application. Not all will do this it has to be said, but the concept is not even in OSX.

Yes, a dashboard widget can be dragged onto a mac desktop.
http://www.askdavetaylor.com/dashboard_widgets_on_my_mac_os_x_desktop.html

I liked the tab browsing in the new IE where the user can see realtime miniatures of all tabs a manage them, i.e. close them, reload them or focus on them. Quite nice it has to be said.

SafariStand is a plug-in that can do this in Safari. It shows a thumbnails of tab pages on the side.

 

[cubist]

So we're plateauing GUI-wise. What I want to know is, where are the core functionality improvements?

Where is transparent virtualization? (When I run a Classic program, the OS should construct just enough of a Classic environment to run the program, not run a whole Mac OS 9. I hear that the Intel versions of Mac OS X don't include Classic at all! That's a big step backwards.)

Where is transparent distributed computing? (I should be able to run a program on any machine on the LAN, and it shouldn't matter which machine it's running on. Plan 9 had that eons ago. Secondly, I'd like to be able to move the running program from one machine to another without stopping it.)

These are both realistic features (and I have more) which we should have today, given the processing power we have. I blame two things for us not having them: (1) Too much focus on the GUI, with worthless crap like Dashboard and Spotlight, and (2) the Microsoft monopoly, which like all monopolies, has retarded innovation.

I'd also like to see Mac OS X's kernel cleaned up, the crusty old FreeBSD/Mach stuff replaced by a true microkernel - and as for Windows, Windows is like sausage - it looks great, but you don't want to know what's inside it.

 

[maya]

And, by the way, these guys just don't get it.

I think Apple is going to continue dominate the digital music and media market.

True to a point, it depends on what features Apple will implement in the next iPod Shuffle, Nano, 5G.

These other vendors are pacing some pressure on Apple, which is good. I want the option of listening to XM. Lets seem what Apple introduces at SF.