Flip3D is a “productivity addition” in Microsoft’s forever forthcoming Windows Vista. “The biggest influence is clearly that of Exposé on the Mac – a utility attempting to help the user stay organized by seeing every open window at once – but Microsoft has gone in an entirely different direction in how they are presenting everything,” Ryan Smith reports for AnandTech.
Smith writes, “Activated via Win+Tab, Flip3D works like a rolodex of windows, with a mouse wheel (or repeated pressing of the TAB key) allowing the user to flip through the windows until they find the one they’re looking for. However, this is one major case where we wish Microsoft would have just completely copied Apple, rather than trying to create their own implementation.”
“Flip3D in its current incarnation is not at all a useful productivity tool because the rolodex design means that it can’t really show everything at once like Exposé can. Having to wheel through things further hinders its effectiveness, as it’s not as smooth an operation as simply using the mouse to select the desired window. For all you true nerds and geeks out there, Flip3D is an O(n) operation where Exposé is O(1),” Smith writes.
“Lastly, for such a great emphasis on eye-candy in Aero, the rotated view of the windows is poorly thought out; by rotating the windows it creates aliasing which in spite of the power of modern video cards is not being removed. The artifacting around the window borders and the illegibility of the text simply make Flip3D ugly to look at and ugly to use. In this case, Microsoft simply would have been better off not implementing Flip3D than using this. We like Exposé, and a version of it in Windows would be very nice, but Flip3D is a second-rate copy at best, and ultimately does not function nearly enough like Exposé to be useful,” Smith writes.
“Even with the massive improvements Microsoft has shown with Vista, we still feel they aren’t quite ready to beat Tiger in a fight. Tiger still offers a more refined experience that doesn’t come with nearly as many quirks as Vista does (beta quirks or otherwise), and there’s a great deal of functionality that Tiger has that isn’t replicated by Vista at all, such as drag and drop application installation or a Unix shell. Ultimately switchers are going to find that Vista is similar to Tiger, but it’s not enough to surpass Tiger and cause them to switch back,” Smith writes. “And then there’s Leopard…”
Full article here.
Watch a QuickTime video from Apple of Exposé in action: http://www.apple.com/macosx/theater/expose.html
MacDailyNews Take: We’d be surprised if Microsoft didn’t botch a copy job of yet another Mac OS X feature. See, when Microsoft copies, they can’t steal it outright or they’ll run into legal issues. This is why Windows is an upside-down and backwards Mac UI instead of a direct copy (Microsoft’s users pay for the lack of innovation every time). Since Apple did it first and they focus so intently on the user experience, they spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to implement it, so the copy, in order not to be a direct copy, has to be bastardized and diminished in some way by definition. Because this is Microsoft’s modus operandi, they are predictably consistent at bastardizing and diminishing Apple’s innovations in Windows. F9
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“Microsoft botches another copy job”
Microsoft. The Kinko’s of the software industry.
Steven
“are you using a Mac now or Windows?”
Windows…. since 1992
“I have not read a single article saying Vista, overall, is as good as Tiger.”
Yes but my problem is that I have a lovely machine that I spent quite alot of money bulding over the years. To improve it in the future, all I need to do is upgrade a component here or there. Now to move to OSX, I need to spend allot more money, just to get an equivelant machine. My though is….is OS X THAT good to basically chuck away a thousand pounds, or can I live with the Windows, and be £1000 richer!
“The GUI, Widgets, Spotlight, or fast user switching, it’s all a fairly obvious attempt to copy what Apple has had out”
I know, but the problem is, that as an end user, I’m not really too fussed as to who came up with it first. I’m not a member of the Steve Jobs Fan club, nor Bill Gates.
“But still falls short of what is on the market today in Tiger.”
But £1000 and all the migration time better? That’s what I have to evaluate.
“Of course, Leopard will arrive around the time of Vista”
Hence, I would not even consider my next move until we all Know what Leapard can do
“Lastly, Vista has already initially had virus issues”
The truth is, as a Windows user for 14 years, I have only had a virus issue twice. (once on windows 3.11, though a floppy, and onmce on XP, whilst visiting some very dodgy websites).
Both times the effect were annoyances (rather than lethal). They were also both times when I had been running my system for months without a firewall or Anti-Virus. I now always use a firewall / anti-virus, and apart from increased startup times, my system runs tickety boo.
“If you can answer these questions point by point, directly, I think people will now you are not trolling but really putting out what you feel is an objective argument.”
I hope I have laid out my honest case!
In conclusion, the dilemma I and millions of Windows users have is as follows.
“To switch to Apple, I have to buy a totally new system, i.e. no upgrading. My current system will then be a waste.”
Thanks to Boot camp… all other reasons have now gone out of the window. It’s now all financial!
John,
No more need to hide, and each desktop is nice and clean.
Why this isn’t in the OS already, I have no idea. It’s a great tool!
How do you drag & drop between desktops? (Not that I really care, think of it from a marketing standpoint.)
One thing Apple DOES need to fix is the application switching! It’s still a UI kludge from MultiFinder. Maybe if there was an option to give each app its own desktop (or at least fake it with an automatic “Hide Others” when switching apps).
FWIW, the demo that Se7en pointed out, originally had a segment showing a ‘parade’ of windows that uncannily reminds me of MS’s ‘innovative’ Flip3D. This video displays a working technology which MS hadn’t yet announced.
[mighty mouse right clicks]
Before anyone gets too excited by MS’s ‘invention’ of the two button mouse, please note that Apple actually patented the one-button mouse — and the two-button mouse had not been. It wasn’t until Win95 when Microsoft STUMBLED upon an actual use for the second button — when ‘right-clicking’ to activate a ‘contextual menu’ that the ‘genius’ of a two-button mouse was revealed.
[Mac OSX has a dock (which resembles the start menu]
Uh, yes. Mac OSX has a dock — which may resemble the 1995 Start menu — which certainly resembles the 1987 NeXT Dock.
Window bloom: you can set it up so the desktops “flip” as you drag to the edge of the screen. I don’t like that myself, so I don’t have it set up that way. And BTW, one of the great things about Desktop Manager is how very configurable it is.
face;
While the Dock may superficially sort of resemble Windows’ start menu, the Dock grew out NeXT’s shelf, which predated the start menu by a few years.
The Dock resembles the start menu in roughly the same way that a whale resembles a shark; they’re not closely related, but since they work in the same environment, they do look somewhat alike.
Personally what I thought was most telling, on the first “The First Look” page is this quote: (Mac usage has shot up immensely since Anand started covering that market, with at least 3 of our editors admitting to their Mac addiction)
Just one look….that’s all it took!
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Peace.
that Windows Start menu is a rip off of the old Apple menu, which I always hated.
[Uh, yes. Mac OSX has a dock — which may resemble the 1995 Start menu — which certainly resembles the 1987 NeXT Dock.]
Actually, and more correctly — the Mac OSX dock resembles the 1995 ‘task bar’ — which certainly resembles the 1987 NeXT Dock.
And, the 1995 Start Menu resembles the 1984 Apple Menu.
Don’t post on an empty stomach!
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{ (or at least fake it with an automatic “Hide Others” when switching apps). }
Hold option when you switch apps!
Gee, nice video. Love that shaky quality. It’s oh so Cinema Verité.
Yeah, Cinema Verité, that’s it. Not a Microsoft-branded tripod. NOT A MICROSOFT-BRANDED TRIPOD! Cinema Verité, yeah, that’s it.
there is no eye candy in os X
everything u see is there for a reason
see the drop shadow behind windows, when bring a window to the front it makes the shadow further away as if the window lifts up off the desktop
to windows users this is eye candy
if fact it is a very subtle and vital form of user feedback
it does look nice too
windows just puts drop shadows that dont change on every window. it serves no purpose whatsoever and somehow they made it look bad too
SUSE Linux 10.1 has better “eye-candy” than Vista will (transparancies, window effects etc.), AND is secure, less resourse intensive, and FREE. Although you can get a distro from Novell for $59.00 on DVD. Well worth it as another alternative to Vista. If you want to see it in action (VERY IMPRESSIVE) check out this episode of DL.TV:
http://digitallifetv.com/blogs/digitallifetv/default.aspx
<b>Episode 72 – click on the right “sidebar” for the SUSE segment<b>. The virtual destops are kinda cool………..
^^^Episode 72 – click on the right “sidebar” for the SUSE segment. They are using Xgl in addition to Open SUSE to acheive the effects seen. Very cool to me. I love when they change the virtual desktop “cube” to have ten sides – impressive performance.
Hi ,
i have a query in vista.can any one help me.
Billy,
I went to watch that video, but the damn image was jumping around so much that it made my eyes hurt! I don’t know if you shot it, but if you did you SO did not impress me. If anything, you only proved how clueless windows users are. Is it really so hard to use a tripod?
A Mac user would have made a live screen capture, saved it in Quicktime, edited in iMovie and exported the compressed file for the web – no jitters, no jumping and no headaches!
It’s all about how well you “show up”. A crappy demo completely distracted from the content and only made the producer look bad. Sorry to be so harsh, but someone needs to say it.
Hi Billy,
From a former PC user, I hope you go the Mac route.. Here’s my story.. A rather lengthy soliloquy on it all…
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Back just before I started going to art school, I was a PC user. I thought Macs were cool and all, but I used to think that they were “toys” or for very specialized needs in certain industries. I worked in a tech support department full of PC users who would always poke fun at Macs. What’s strange is that we were troubleshooting Windows problems and bitching about XP, ME, and 2000 constantly. So why did Apple get a bad rap from those guys? Like me, they were stuck in their own wolds, used to dealing with, and bitching about Windows problems. That’s just the way life was. Almost like complaining about your parents or your job.
When I got into the labs at AIP and started using Macs I was perplexed, because they were so intuitive that in the first week of using OS X, it was counter-intuitive. I was saying to myself “You mean you don’t have to go to the Start Menu, Programs, and scroll through a list of programs to find the one you want? You just take an application you use often and drag it to the dock, then it’s there permanently? Just one click? Weird.” It just kept getting better and better. I learned my way around OS X very quickly in the labs and bought a used G4 for home. Then I bought a PowerMac G5 the month they hit the stores. I’m going to nab a new Mac Pro in the coming weeks, and I’m so excited. In the years that I’ve had my G5, how many times has my system crashed? Once, and I just rebooted.
I have never looked back, not once, not for a second.
I am a Mac advocate, not a Mac Nazi. Mac Nazis (like PC Nazis) are annoying at best and are the sort of people who feel they have to prove something, act condescending, arrogant, or elitist in order to make them feel better about themselves. So if you have taken insult from Mac Nazis, my condolences.
Billy, from a former PC user, and someone who knows where you are in your predicament, all I have to say is make the switch. Invest in your computing future. You’ll never look back. With Apple’s prices being BETTER than comparable PC units (see the Apple WWDC clip on their site), and with the ability to run Windows, now is a very good time to make the switch.
Kind Regards,
Nick
Yawn! The Mac-PC war is dead. Move on and find something more interesting to moan about why don’t you… It’s all about convergence. As always users will vote with their cash. Flip3D / Exposé – who cares? I’ve never heard anyone complain about not being able to bring into view their application of choice quickly enough on either OS, so why bother now that Microsoft have introduced Flip3D?
What is it with that giant, ugly clock in Vista? Please tell me that can be changed or eliminated!
It reminds me of watching the school clock waiting for recess or better yet, the end of the day. In other words, it reminds me of the interminable hours and minutes waiting for the fun to start. Hmmmm…
I can’t wait until our IT monkey comes in with Vista under his arm expecting to install it on my HP Inferion (Pavilion).
The man is such a pompous dork, I think I’ll let him install it, then call him five times a day to fix it.
In the meantime, I’ll just continue to use my Mac G4 with Tiger under the hood. With a smile on my face I might add.
No WOW in San Francisco!
http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/archives/2007/01/windows-vista-launch-san-francisco.html
MacFags will never stop fighting a lossing battle. The 5% followers or the flat earthers will always think they have something great, when all they have is a brick wall… keep the rest of your five percent gang thinking Apple is great, it will make you feel better then knowing you use a pile of crap.