“Known for years by the code name ‘Longhorn,’ the successor to Microsoft’s Windows XP has been dubbed ‘Longwait’ for its numerous delays. As features have been announced, it’s also been accused of copying of Apple Computer Inc.’s Mac OS X,” Matthew Fordahl reports for The Associated Press. “And that was before most people had the chance to see — let alone use — what’s now been christened Windows Vista. Microsoft finally took some of the wraps off last week, releasing Vista’s first major test version to about 500,000 programmers and tech professionals.”
“Yes, it does have more of a Mac-like look and feel. And, yes, it’s insanely late. But it also gives users hope that some of Windows’ most serious annoyances and dangers might be mitigated just in time for the holidays of 2006, when the final version is expected to be out,” Fordahl reports.
Fordahl describes Windows Vaper, er Vista’s search capabilities and writes, “Mac fans are probably screaming. Yes, this is very similar to the Spotlight function in the recent update of Mac OS X. At this stage of development, Vista does bear a significant resemblance. “
“Mac lovers are also likely to fume once they see Vista’s graphics. Green progress bars shimmer. The Minimize-Maximize-Close buttons look something like glowing Chicklets when moused over. Each window has a drop shadow while borders and title bars are slightly transparent. Folder icons now show the documents inside, such as a very small picture thumbnail for an image file. The icons also can be enlarged,” Fordahl writes. “Finally, when a program is launched, its window doesn’t just appear but pops open in a slick animation. When minimized, the window slides into the taskbar. It remains to be seen whether the graphics capabilities will be turned into something more than eye candy. Apple has made great strides on this front, particularly with a technology called Expose that quickly tiles open windows with one key press.”
Fordahl explains Microsoft’s challenge is to maintain “backwards compatibility” with previous Windows versions writes that if Microsoft fails to adequately address this issue, “there could be a revolt at the same time that Apple — for once copying the Windows PC industry — builds Intel Corp. processors into its computers and updates Mac OS X yet again. Though Microsoft is largely thought to have won the PC war, the biggest battle might just take place in 2006.”
Full article, with more details and promises from Microsoft of greater security (didn’t they promise that with Windows XP?), in the full aritcle here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’ll take “insanely great” over “insanely late” any day of the week. You knew that was coming didn’t you?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Microsoft’s Windows Vista will attempt to incorporate many features from Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger – August 01, 2005
Apple to unleash Leopard on Microsoft’s Windows Longhorn; Mac OS X 10.5 due late 2006 – early 2007 – June 07, 2005
PC World names Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger ‘Best Operating System’ – June 01, 2005
Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger ‘is the most advanced operating system on the planet’ – May 31, 2005
TrustedReviews: After using Mac OS X Tiger ‘going back to Windows XP is something of a joke at best’ – May 18, 2005
The Butler Group: ‘Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger the best desktop operating system in the world to date’ – May 13, 2005
BBC News: Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger ‘the most stable and reliable OS, well ahead of Windows XP’ – May 10, 2005
Windows users show strong curiosity about Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger – May 09, 2005
Windows tech writer Thurrott: ‘In many ways, Mac OS X Tiger is simply better than Windows’ – May 07, 2005
EarthWeb: Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger is a ‘serious enterprise operating system, a pivotal release’ – May 06, 2005
BusinessWeek: ‘Tiger bolsters Mac OS X’s edge as the best personal-computer operating system’ – May 06, 2005
The Guardian: Mac OS X Tiger a powerful solution while Microsoft’s Longhorn remains on drawing board – May 06, 2005
Chicago Sun-Times: Mac OS X Tiger shows ‘there’s never been a more compelling time to switch to Mac’ – May 05, 2005
Dan Gillmor: ‘With Mac OS X Tiger, Apple is plainly in the lead today’ – May 05, 2005
Jupiter Research VP: Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger ‘runs rings around Microsoft Windows’ – May 04, 2005
The Independent: Apple’s ‘faster, smarter, simpler’ Mac OS X Tiger ‘a must-have’ – May 04, 2005
Mac OS X Tiger review for a Windows PC audience finds Tiger’s ‘far, far better than Windows XP’ – May 03, 2005
Boston Herald: Mac OS X Tiger should compel Windows PC users to think about switching to Apple Mac – May 02, 2005
Mac OS X Tiger will likely improve performance of your Macintosh – April 30, 2005
PC World review gives Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger 4.5 stars out of 5 – April 30, 2005
Ars Technica: Mac OS X Tiger ‘at least twice as significant as any single past update’ – April 28, 2005
BusinessWeek: ‘Tiger bolsters Mac OS X’s edge as the best personal-computer operating system around’ – April 28, 2005
Associated Press: Mac OS X Tiger ‘provides another excellent incentive to switch from Windows’ – April 28, 2005
Mossberg: Apple’s Tiger ‘the best, most advanced personal computer operating system on the market’ – April 28, 2005
InformationWeek columnist: Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger ‘a compelling upgrade’ – April 28, 2005
NY Times: Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger is the most secure, stable and satisfying OS on earth – April 28, 2005
Wired News: Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger ‘full of welcome surprises’ – April 27, 2005
Thurrott: Longhorn ‘has the makings of a train wreck’ – April 26, 2005
Thurrott: Longhorn demos ‘unimpressive, fall short of graphical excellence found today in Mac OS X’ – April 26, 2005
Apple posts QuickTime movies of Mac OS X Tiger features in action – April 13, 2005
Oh where is Sputnik? Come out kitty, oh kitty where ever you are! Do you cut and paste thing like “The real IT world, blah blah blah……”
Okay, I want to say this:
Thurrott the other day was discussing MS Search over Spotlight..
He thinks Apple screwed up by running search instantly as you type letters..
I love that.. just like iTunes..
With Windows you have to hit enter after you type in the search…
Does Apple have some kind of IP on this.. anyway.. I love the way Spotlight does it.. just like iTunes. Boom.
in his words, “an instance where Apple actually got it wrong and MS got it right”
Thurrott.. check the mailbox.. another cheque from Gates.. thanks for your fair and balanced view
“They lifted the record and they looped it. They looped it.”
“Mac lovers are also likely to fume once they see Vista’s graphics.”
Not likely. MS has proved over and over again they have no sense of good interface design when it comes to their OS. If they maintain the same design team as before, I look for it to look more like a Fisher-Price OS than anything that truly shimmers.
In 3 years all the Winzealots will be touting the next version of Windows that will be the MacOS killer, just like they’ve done with every previous OS release.
Or perhaps they’ll still be waiting for Longhorn.
The New Microsoft Windows Vista Etch-a-Sketch Shit Box
Let MS work tirelessly to create a quarter-assed knock-off of Tiger!
Because within six months of shipping Windows Fistula, Apple will ship Leopard and – by the time Fistula is fully-featured and stable (!), with it’s second Service Pack – the likelihood is that Apple will have pre-announced Cougar/Lynx/insert your preferred feline codename for 10.6 and be within months of shipping.
So people will have a choice: run a well-engineered Mactel box where the OS and the hardware work with each other and, if you’re sufficiently masochistic, you can still run Windows “in a window”.
Or buy a Dell or a Gateway and wonder why when you start up a USB printer that you’ve used a hundred times before, Fistula suddenly feels the need to re-install the printer in such a way that the original no longer works, but it’s difficult to work out which is the original: it happens now with Windows XP and certain Epson printers, so I don’t see any reason why it won’t still be the case with Microsoft’s latest course in operating system construction for the terminally underqualified.
Please stop saying Mactel. It sounds so cheap.
Windows Vista
Viruses Infections Spyware Trojans Adware
The “Mactel” name doesn’t make sense. Nobody calls G5 PowerMacs “MacBM”s, and nobody calls G4 PowerMacs “Macrolla”s. WTF? Who cares what brand of CPU it’s using – Motorola, IBM, Intel — it’s still a Mac.
Nice to see an honest portrayal of the blatant Winblows rip-off of OS X in the Associated Press and not just some joker’s blog that no one except us will read.
If anybody listens to “This Week In Tech”, Episode 14 had John Dvorak (I know, I know, I’m still dealing with that…), stating boldly that Windows is finished; that in a few short years, everyone will be running Mac OS X on either Apple or generic PC computers as their desktop system, that they will be running LInux on their servers, and using Google as their search engine; and that Microsoft will be confined to desktop apps like Office and Powerpoint. It’s kinda scary hearing those kind of predictions from him.
I agree, please oh PLEASE stop writing ‘mactel’
Cheap, cheap cheap it looks as well as sounds.
STOP WRITING ‘MACTEL’
STOP WRITING ‘MACTEL’
STOP WRITING ‘MACTEL’
STOP WRITING ‘MACTEL’
Ok no more…Lets hope it doesn’t make it to Wordspy
Actually, there are a couple of things which aren’t so hot in Tiger.
Spotlight searching is great, but the entry box annoys me due to the delay after pressing a few characters – for fast touch typists such as myself, I still find I’ve only gotten 3 characters in before the search engine kicks in, chews thru the index on disk, and I get a spinning beach ball. I’m unable to add characters until the first few (usually non related) entries come back. As I said, I’m a fast typist, yet this search as you type stuff is too fast. And if you’ve mistyped as well – forgetaboutit for a minute whilst the search on the wrong thing is performed. I wonder if I’m better off copying/pasting the word I want to look up into the search box? If they haven’t fixed this by 10.4.3, I’ll be logging a feature request to ask them to either give us the option to turn auto search off until Return is pressed, or perhaps something more fancy like sense the time between keystroke pauses – and if one such pause appears longer than another, then start searching (it might already do this, but a minimum of 3 characters have to be entered).
The firewall could probably do with checking outgoing net traffic as well – something like Little Snitch (which I haven’t got btw) Microsoft are right in putting in such a firewall into Vista. Apple doesn’t really need it yet, but it’s something they should seriously consider for future security, esp. as the platform becomes more popular.
Justifed,
Quite an obscure reference to an old RAP diddy by 3rd base…bravo.
“And the weasel goes pop!”
I quickly looked at Windows Vista and I thought that Microsoft was trying to copy Linux more than Apple. Now thinking about it Linux users are trying to make Linux look like Apple OSX.
IMOP Windows Vista isn’t worth getting worked up about I really isn’t impressive at all.
Interesting that the mainstream media is finally clueing in to the obvious rip offs of the Macintosh platform by Bill “Sour Grapes” Gates and crew over at M$.
The M$ will make the usual wholesale rips of the Mac and water it down the way they always do like a cheap Zen Micro compared to an Apple iPod.
My money is on iCon especially now that Apple will be on Intel and we have Mighty Mouse that has come to, ah “save the day”.
Rock on Steve!
“Insanely late”. LOL!!! How fitting from the house of Ballmer and Windows.
The general rule in any product is, when it’s over-hyped, over-promised, and years late, it’ll be a spectacular flop. Longhorn/Vista is a black hole that’d make even the US government blush.
Forget the eye candy, anyone can do transparencies and jelly buttons (only Apple can put it all smoothly together, but that’s another subject). We’ll see how Vista delivers in areas that can’t be copied: security, stability, and user satisfaction.
Heh, MW “problems”. Good luck, MS, people are expecting perfection.
Nick and MIKAL in NYC,
MACINTOSH today, MACINTOSH tomorrow and MACINTOSH forever!
You all will be surprised that unfortunately Windows users will be impressed with the new Vista.
They don´t know Mac or its OS and will pleased with all this new Mac-like features.
“Uh martha why switch to that apple thing when theres is just like our new windows vista????”
Ballmer and Gates will be spinning the heck out of the Apple stole all our ideas ruse.
According to the article…
–Password protection for the installation of apps/exec files was turned off by default in “Vista”, BUT
–Password protection WAS required for changing the clock or accessibility settings!
LOL!!!!! HA HA HA HA…
Boys and girls, we have nothing to fear from Microshit.
RT
One of the many things I like about Windows XP (and I fully expect LongWait to continue with similar behavior):
I open MyComputer. I see a folder named Shared Documents. I open it and choose a folder (XYZ) within Shared Documents and make a copy of it. It inherits the name “Copy of XYZ”. I don’t want that so I change it. When I click off into white space to end my edit, I see the name switch back to Copy of XYZ. I try again. This time when I click off into white space to end my edit, I get an error message with a title of “Error Renaming File or Folder”, and the message is “Cannot rename file: Cannot read from the source file or disk.” Uh-oh, this is bad, right? I must have a failing hard drive or something. Anyway, I click OK, and I see that my folder still has its old name like the message implies. OK, so now I close the Shared Documents folder (which, by the way, isn’t named Shared Documents in the Address bar of its window – it’s simply “Documents”), and then open it up again. And lo and behold, the folder I renamed DID get renamed!
I want Sputnik to tell me what in the “real IT world” is going on.
(To add even more confusion to this insanely insane OS, this copy & rename quirk doesn’t happen to all folders I do this to, just some.)
Who cares if MS copies from Apple? If MS does nothing but copy, they will always be behind the times, because Apple is a moving target. Always innovating, updating and giving its users what they want. I’m glad I use a Mac, and I’ll leave Windows to Windows users. Its their choice.
MDN, you misspelled “vapor”. You have it as “vaper”. Don’t you use the OS X built in spellcheck?
MDNMW: “Poor”, as in, poor spelling effort.
Nick said…
“Nobody calls G5 PowerMacs “MacBM”s, and nobody calls G4 PowerMacs “Macrolla”s.”
Oh man- that is funny!
I prefer Macintel to Mactel