“I just sat through my second Steve Jobs keynote ever. (My first was MacWorld in New York in 2002.) What struck me at the June 11 Apple Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) event wasn’t the glitzy demos, the rockstar-like worship of Apple CEO Steve Jobs or the ‘I’m Steve Jobs’ parody video by the ‘I’m a PC’ guy. Instead, it was the excitement by the 5,000 WWDC attendees about many technologies in the forthcoming Mac OS X ‘Leopard’ release that already exist in Windows Vista,” Mary Jo Foley writes for ZDNet’s “All about Microsoft” blog.
“If you’ve seen Vista, there’s no way you could help but compare the feature-complete Leopard beta Jobs showcased with Windows Vista. And — surprise — Vista looked pretty darn up-to-date in comparison,” Mary Jo writes.
Mary Jo provides a list:
1. New Leopard Desktop: Not a whole lot different from Vista’s Aero and Sidebar.
MacDailyNews Take: Mary Jo’s timeline must have gone through the wash. Apple’s Aqua came first – way first, then Aero, Mary Jo. And Vista’s sidebar is Microsoft’s screwed up rip-off of Mac OS X Dashboard, not the Dock. Dashboard was released with Mac OS X Tiger on April 29, 2005.
2. New Finder: Many of the same capabilities as the integrated “Instant Search” in Vista (the subsystem that Google is trying to get the Department of Justice to rule as being anti-competitive). The new Leopard Coverflow viewing capability looked almost identical to Vista’s Flip 3D to me.
MacDailyNews Take: Mary Jo has timeline issues again. Spotlight was released with Mac OS X Tiger on April 29, 2005. Vista’s Flip 3D is an inefficient rip-off of Apple’s Exposé, previewed on June 23, 2003 and released as part of Mac OS X Panther on October 24, 2003. Cover Flow is simply a fourth Finder view option. It’s clear so far that Mary Jo probably shouldn’t be writing about technology.
3. QuickLook: Live file previews — just like the thumbnail preview capability available in Vista.
MacDailyNews Take: QuickLook allows users to view the contents of a file without even opening it. Vista’s “Live Icons” only shows thumbnail previews of files – something Macs have done for ages.
4. 64-bitness: Leopard is the first 64-bit only version of a desktop client. Vista comes in 32-bit and 64-bit varieties. And most expect Windows Seven will still be available in 32-bit flavors. Until 32-bit machines go away, it seems like a good idea to offer 32-bit operating systems.
MacDailyNews Take: Do they actually pay Mary Jo for this stuff? Leopard delivers full 64-bit and 32-bit compatibility in a single universal OS. Microsoft is many years behind.
5. Core animation: Not sure what the Vista comparison is here. The demo reminded me of Microsoft Max photo-sharing application.
MacDailyNews Take: Our mouths are agape at the abject stupidity on display here. The poor woman.
Mary Jo continues to plod on with her list, but it’s so insipidly stupid that we’re done wasting our time. In the end, Mary Jo asks, “So, Apple folks: What am I missing? I’m not trying to pull a Dvorak here and use this blog post for click bait.”
MacDailyNews Take: Which, of course, means that Mary Jo is trying to “pull a Dvorak,” but she’s so ill-informed that she can’t even approach that sewer-level standard of ignorant nonsense. This mess reads as if written by somebody’s mom, plucked at random by ZDNet out of some supermarket aisle, who’s clueless about technology past, present, and future. If she’s capable, which we seriously doubt after reading her article, she ought to be embarrassed, as should ZDNet.
Full article, Think before You Click™, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “John W.,” “Eric,” and “Tomek” for the heads up.]
@MacSmiley
I thought that the caption read:
“She is so full of shite that you can smell her a mile away” But I must be mistaken!
Unfortunately, this is probably not the last you will hear of her! I just wonder how she got a press pass for WWDC.
I wonder if she really does think that and Steve Jobs are dumb enough to think that the only reason that people use Boot Camp is to play solitare.
Any one with a middle name of Jo or Joe seems to be two beers short of a six pack. Cheech! Mary Jo, Billy Joe, Bobby Jo… Maybe Mary Jo here ought to report on the NASCAR races. They don’t mind dumbasses there.
(can’t wait fo the flames on that one!)
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Quick Look is a rip-off of DataViz’s FileView application, which looks to have a creation date of 9/11/1996. I’m just happy that it’s finally been ported to OS X.
Ted has a point. I think Steve and Apple have used so much of their resources on the iPhone they have ignored the core business.
Mary Jo Kopechne is better informed than this Mary Jo.
she’s so ill-informed that she can’t even approach that sewer-level standard of ignorant nonsense.
Ouch.
Although her latest drivel was pretty bad. Is she Ballmer’ backseat stepsister or something?
dear mary ho,
open mouth, insert feces.
I never thought I’d say it…
The Think Before You Click link’s just always been a cute joke to me, but that is one of the stupefyingly idiotic tech posts I have ever read.
I really wished I hadn’t. It was like reading something written by someone living in some bizarre alternate universe where everything has gone horribly wrong.
There’ s not even any fun in jabbing back at some one so clueless and who doesn’t seem to be mean spirited or have an ax to grind.
It be like beating Helen Keller for not mopping the floor right.
What drugs has Mary Jo been taking. She must have been in a coma or something. OSX has had all of these features for a long time. Apple is the inovator and Microsoft is the copy machine user.
Get your facts straight lady!
“…the new ‘glass’ dock and ‘dew grass’ desktop background immediately reminded me of Vista…”
They did me too. however, those were the only things in the entire article I can agree with. Clearly, Foley should never have been hired in the first place. But it’s actually the editor (if there is such a person at ZDNet) who’s job it is to make certain such silliness never gets published. Just another sad day for journalism, indeed.
I’m a former reporter who left years ago out of embarrassment for the “profession”.
Can we get this chick’s email so we can set her straight?
Please excuse Mom. All of us know she’s a moron when it comes to anything other than a TV remote and dinner.
Wait. Dad’s coming out of the bathroom again with his naughty magazine.
We’re so embarrassed…..
she no seem very smarter
glad i don’t know her or any of her friends
..fascinating. After reading a little of Ms. Foleys article and realizing that ZDNet actually published it I reverted to a more primitive form of intelligence …and rolled myself in dog shit. I needed to make contact with one of our very low common denominators. I knew if I didn’t hit bottom I’d never bounce back. I would like to say one thing to Ms. Foley …I hope you’re exceptionally good looking.
So it seems that her company was recruiting at the local special Olympics for her job and found a candidate.
It’s Dvorak in disguise!! Run for the hills!!
I know what Mary Jo is missing.
I think the line goes like this, “If she only had a brain.”
Yes that’s right Mary Jo, you appear to be missing a brain!
Wow. It’s like 500 pounds of stupid fell on Mary Jo and won’t get off of her…
Wow. It’s like 500 pounds of stupid fell on Mary Jo and won’t get off of her…
Steve Ballmer.
She’s actually really connected at Microsoft, and has the scoop on lots of stuff before anyone else. I think she had the Safari on Windows thing pegged before the keynote.
But that sad, to paraphrase the Big Lebowski
“MARY JO, YOU”RE OUT OF YOUR ELEMENT!”
Watch the keynote. When SJ introduces the dewy grass desktop a very audible chuckle ripples through the crowd… they clearly think it’s one of Steve’s jokes and he’s having a dig at Vista. Steve is momentarily aware of this but holds his composure and presses on.
Look at the images of the new MacBooks on the Apple site… terrible photos of the Swiss Alps pasted onto them… apart from the ugly Windows-style theme, the images are also out of focus, crudely colour saturated and over unsharp-masked. Very very unlike Apple.
What’s going on at the company? Is it iPhone fever, or is there a Microsoft-type carelessness creeping in after a long period of success?
MW ‘faith’. You can find it, but keeping it is the trick.
BIMBO!
For what it’s worth, she’s not denying the pre-existence of any of these features. Just saying that there’s nothing radically new and special about them. Yes, Microsoft copied them from Panther and Tiger, but that’s the point.. where’s the NEW stuff that HASN’T already been copied?
Just read her list:
1. Leopard Desktop: Aqua came first, but there really isn’t any new functionality in it, except transparency and the dock eye-candy. Sounds like Aero to me.
2. Finder: Yes, Their search (spotlight) is an old feature. So old that even Microsoft now has it. All they’ve done is move it to the left. Where Microsoft has theirs.
3. Quicklook: Yeah, she missed the point on this one.
4. 64-bit. See #3. She doesn’t get it.
5. She freely admits she doesn’t understand it, and neither did the devs she talked to.
6. Boot camp. It’s not new.
7. Spaces: Vista doesn’t have it. But Linux has for years, and there have been 3rd-party apps to do it on OSX for years, too. Not new.
8. Dashboard: Again, not new. Yes, Vista stole Gadgets from Dashboard, but Dashboard was new in TIGER, not LEOPARD. Why is it being featured? Because there are some new widgets?
9. iChat: Yep, MS has had better groupware for years, and iChat still doesn’t do Yahoo or MSN or IRC. iChat’s new features are still behind MS’s.
10. Time Machine: Again, her point is just that Vista already has automatic backup. Leopard might do it better, but this is NOT radically new stuff.
As we say in Frrench,
Marie Jo, mange donc la merde maudit putain…
Translated for the non-French speakers at MDN
Mary Jo, you sure are smart…
Okay, Mary Jo. It took Microsoft engineers five years to build M$ Vista and Apple engineers 5 months to copy it. Uh huh. See we can spin too.
I have never said anything disparaging about any anti-Apple journalist on these boards before, but I’m going to make a special exception.
This is the most inane and poorly researched Apple-bashing article I have ever seen. This lady needs some well written e-mail.