“Steve Jobs today used his keynote speech at the Apple WWDC 2006 conference to take a dig at Microsoft and its Vista operating system as well as outline a number of features in the company’s new operating system [Leopard],” Stuart Miles reports for Pocket-lint.
“Aside from announcing a plethora of new hardware, Jobs used the speech to accuse Microsoft of copying its operating system Tiger. ‘Instead of having the menu on the top right, they have it on the bottom left. Another major technology is RSS. We have a browser that’s simple and elegant and added Safari RSS. Guess what? IE7 RSS.’ One blog reported Jobs saying in his speech to a packed theatre,” Miles reports.
Miles reports, “When about to show off new features of the company’s latest operating system; Leopard, Jobs is reported to have said ‘Redmond – start your photocopiers.’ However, that didn’t stop the CEO announcing a piece of software called Time Machine that sounds all too familiar to Microsoft’s System Restore.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s Time Machine that sounds all too familiar to Microsoft’s System Restore? If you’re deaf, maybe, or have little or no idea about which you’re writing. Apple’s “Time Machine” is to Microsoft’s “System Restore” as the word processor is to the typewriter. How does Microsoft show the user how far back in time to go restore? With a calendar. A calendar! That’s really helpful, if you’re a computer. But – note to Microsoft – you’re not a computer, you’re a human being. So, understanding the obvious, Apple has designed “Time Machine” for actual living, breathing people (this is the whole difference between Mac vs. Windows in a nutshell, by the way). Time machine shows you exactly what you need to see visually, so you quickly know exactly how far back to go and you’re done. Typically primitive Microsoft lets you stare at a nondescript, not-very-useful plain old calendar and guess at what you want, as usual.
And remember, Microsoft’s all-or-nothing, ham-handed “solution” exists because their OS is so flaky, bug-ridden, and inept at basic security, they need it; Apple’s is for helping the user if they happen to make a mistake and dump a file or folder they might need in the future.
Ironically, given Microsoft’s continuous and unending delays with Windows Vista and Office, a time machine is exactly what they need most.
How Apple Mac OS X Leopard’s “Time Machine” works:
How Microsoft’s System Restore forces the user to try to do all the work:
“Time machine shows you exactly what you need to see visually, so you quickly know exactly how far back to go and you’re done.”
So it generates a Reality Undistortion Field? Cool!
Most innovation comes from improving on existing ideas. Frankly that is how science works 99 % of the time.
Completely novel ideas / inventions are rare, since most technology requires something else to make it possible.
Good inventors have insight and knowledge of their field, that makes it possible to modify something or combine two things to make something else novel.
The major limitation of innovation is the availability of tools for acheiving the task. Luckily for us, OS X and Mac are great tools for generating novel applications and Apple are very talented at putting these together.
Car with gasoline engine same as car with hybrid power
Refrigerator with ice block coolant same as fridge with freon system
Yeah, nobody creates anything anymore…
Mac Realist: Uninformed dork du jour.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060730-7383.html
And yes, that means that files can be recovered too.
The tech is already on XP and will be on Vista. However, most people don’t even know it’s there, much less know how to use it; heck, a lot of people don’t know about System Restore either.
Note that this “versioning” idea goes further back than Windows too, so it’s not original on either side.
Time Machine just makes it simpler to understand for the average user. It arguably “just works” (although the demo did crash–but not as bad as that speech recognition fiasco Microsoft had).
And remember, neither Time Machine or the Vista equivalent are final yet. I’ll reserve judgement as to which is better when both are in their final versions.
The cool thing is not the backup and restore. We’ve had that all along from various vendors, including all kinds of freeware and shareware solutions (not to mention Apple’s Backup app that comes with .Mac). The great thing is how easy it is to use, especially for recovering a single file or data item. This is NOT (apparently) an app for recovering a totally hosed system, at least from the demos. It’s the kind of application I could have used many times over the years, and Apple alone has had the ingenuity to bring it to light.
To all you “it’s just a pretty interface” people: When will you learn that the interface is EVERYTHING (provided the functionality is there) when it comes to usability? Dorky interfaces are not just ugly, they reduce productivity and discourage people from even trying.
There’s a stunning lack of imagination going on here.
Saying that Time Machine is a competitor to System Restore is to wholly misunderstand the nature of System Restore and an insult to some of the more imaginative Windows ISVs like Altiris.
Time Machine is actually a competitor to Altiris’ Client Recovery Solution (which was acquired as part of the Previo acquisition). CRS allows a user or systems admin to roll back either the operating system, an application or the data (so long as it was a static document) on a given client system (so long as that system was/is a Windows system).
Time Machine improves on the concept of most client recovery solutions by, as is the way with many Apple OS developments, having a published API that directly allows Apple and third-party ISVs to incorporate Time Machine functionality into their applications so long as, presumably, they adhere to the Core Data persistence mechanics.
The interesting questions that Time Machine raises are as follows…
1) Will Time Machine have a server version available in Leopard Server?
2) Is Time Machine likely to be capable of dealing with ‘transactional’ data, from applications such as 4D, Oracle or Sybase Adaptive Server. Logically, there’s no reason why such apps should not generate logfile dumps on a regular basis that can be integrated into Time Machine either allowing a company to ‘rollback’ or – more helpfully – recover in the event of systems failure or data corruption.
3) Are Apple providing – via stealth – a mechanism that allows backup software developers (like EMC Dantz) to easily create plug-ins for apps that either don’t like being open when being backed-up or – for commercial reasons (like 24/7 web storefronts) – can’t be shut down for an indeterminate period whilst the data is secured.
I swear to God that the next dumb-ass post I read comparing this to System Restore – which only exists because Windows users have to install around 150 hotfixes a year – will cause me to embrace voodoo and send out very negative thoughts.
Excellent post, Fanatic Realist. Thanks for that.
If Apple is ready to release it this spring, then they have been working on it long before Microsoft made any of their announcements of what they may release in the future.
Announcing vaporware does not mean you thought of it first.
The irony of course is that the PocketLint guy doesn’t even realize that XP/Server2003/Vista all have a closer analog to Time Machine than poor, ignored System Restore which has been around forever..are you sure he’s a PC guy?
Love the screen shot comparison btw, that pretty much sums it up as far as user experience goes-which is the real point anyways.
The name “Time Machine” is lame.
Why not call it TARDIS?
Have the icon be the OS X “x” on a blue police box too.
Chris, gforce and Lord Byron took exception to my chiding of MDN about getting so upset over one arguable point then missing an obvious point. Chris said: Backups have been around as long as computers have. That doesn’t make the latest backup system a copy of the one before it. The key difference is as it is with most software: how easily and accurately can you get the job done? Are you claiming that MS’s System Restore can help you find and restore a single file as quickly and easily as Time Machine? If it can’t then Time Machine can’t be a copy.
I’ve been working around computers – as in “an IT guy” – for decades. Darn near as long as there have been backups. Time Machine isn’t precisely “a backup”. While it certainly involves “a backup”, it does so much more that calling it that is degrading it. System Restore does the same things – to a more limited set of files, and without the pretty interface.
gforce suggested that it’s “just a backup, so Apple must be copying …” … garbage! Apple has another program, typically named “Backup”, that might fit that mode. This is an “automagic” indiscriminate save that works without schedule or user interaction … no real comparison.
Lord Byron came close with “System Restore is no where near Time Machine” – I can’t argue that and I hope it’s true. It looks to me like Time Machine is what System Restore would have been if they were designed for the same purpose. They weren’t. SR was designed to solve the problem of restoring a hacked/infested system to a usable form – a problem in the Windows world that we in the Mac world arrogantly find amusing. TM was designed to solve the problem of air-head users shooting themselves in the foot – repeatedly – and STILL not being bright enough to use the FREE Backup program or one of the in-expensive options to it. Who knows how high up in Apple management that incentive raised its blushing head.
So … of course they are not equal … any more than the truck/SUV used to go shopping is the same as the truck/PickUp used to haul the family yacht – even if 90% of the mechanicals are identical! Here, they aren’t … but maybe you get my point.
“Why not call it TARDIS?”
Good idea.. and let’s give that new Alex voice a british accent to match!
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MDN MW – “provide” as in please provide any reason to stay with Microsoft once 10.5 comes out…
let’s give that new Alex voice a british accent to match!
Here’s my vote for a secret new Rose voice…
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please provide any reason to stay with Microsoft once 10.5 comes out…
Masochism?
Building off what Fanatic Realist said (somewhat), does anyone else here think that Time Machine bodes very well for Spotlight 2.0? TM is obviously an implementation of Spotlight.
I’ve used System Restore. All Time Machine has to do to beat it is actually work.
I want to know that if I go back to a restore of files from 3 days ago, what happens to all the files created since that time? I mean System Restore takes you back to a file collection that replaces everything newer (I mean that’s the point right?). Time Machine apparently allows you to bring back discrete files to ADD back to your current file group.
I could have used that this past weekend. I created a layerd PS file and then started a new file based on the original. You guessed it. I hit SAVE instead of Save As and over wrote my cool artwork. Of course, unless Time Machine operates in real time (vs a daily backup routine), it wouldn’t have helped me while screwing myself within a quarter of an hour.
Regardless, while I will probably continue to use a product like Retrospect for my office backup of my servers and network. Time Machine looks like a great solution of the home computers.
Many of you completely missed the point: “Time Machine” does not do the slow clumpsy cuts in your hard drive system, always eating your space and leaving you with the sense that the space will end just now. “Time Machine” leaves your hard-drive free and works fast with the best UI possible.
Tubes: “(Time Machine) has been available on Windows and Linux for years!”
No, Windows and Linux did not ever had that flexible and fast system yet.
DLMeyer: “Face it Apple copies ideas from others all the time.”
That is stupid
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Because Apple always innovates with whatever idea it implements. And if You know anything about copying, then You know that copy can be never better than the original — the same at best, or more typically of worse quality.
So You just can not mix Microsoft and Apple, those attempst are pathetic.
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Time Machine is less about the backing up of information (making a copy of files on your hard drive on a regular basis) and appears to be more about the restoration of files from previously generated backups.
It will allow you to go through all the files that may have been erased or moved (or changed) between backups.
It sounds like there will be two portions. The user interface for restore (Time Machine) and the backup software (which must be an auto-run bacup program)
My concern would be how the system decides when things should be backed up. If I delete a file, is that file automatically added to the backup? If I move a file, is there a pointer to that file generated for the old location (so if I am opening the window for the old location and using time machine it shows the files position before I moved it, but without generating another copy of that file)
I would rather a new copy of each program not be created (and taking up hard drive space) just because I moved it from one folder to another.
Time Machine is light years beyond System Restore. Note the second example: in it, the user searches for “Rose” in the Address Book. Doesn’t find anything. They then click the time machine WITH THE QUERY STILL LIVE. The system rolls back JUST the address book, while STILL DOING THE QUERY, and turns up the first time that record appears in the address book in the past. Then one click, and the record is copied back into the CURRENT address book! No file copies, or even viewing a file system involved– it all happens right within Address Book. (Or iPhoto, or any other Time Machine aware app.)
This is highly cool, and has not been done before by any software company on any platform I’ve ever seen.
Well.. damn, where to start?
System Restore has nothing to do with File Backups. Period. Let it go. It’s for repairing a fsked up Registry… It can not, will not restore lost or damaged family photos.
As far as the Win 2003/XP Shadow Volume issue? For one, Google it and tell me how it really has anything in common with Time machine. Seriously.
Tell me how a common user, not a L33T guru like any of you, would actually get it to work, given that 90% of users have never even heard of it. Hell, 90% of users don’t even know about System Restore..
<<hears crickets>>
Ok then.
STFU
Hmmm, before Win2003/XP had Shadow Volume, PowerOn Software had Rewind for MacOS 9.. Google it. They never made a MacOS X version.
While i think the idea and the way time machine works is great, i cant say i like whole appearance of the feature. it looks like they are tryin to hard. (with that space background and all !!) seriously !
and what if i deleted the file a year ago? do i have to sit through a days worth of that silly window flicking animation till i get to it.
come on apple, this is the sort of overdone animation i expect from M$. doesn’t this remind anyone of that silly take on expose; aeroglass ?
can we keep it simple please.
This is Apple’s way of encouraging users to be purdent and do backups. Microsoft System Restore exists because Windows is so flakey; sometimes, the only way to uninstall or recover from a botched install is to take your system back to a previous state. But hard drives are not made by Apple Computer and they will fail for Mac users as often as for Windows users. This is a good way to get Mac users to do their backups.