“When Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs the week of Aug. 7 showed features of the forthcoming OS X 10.5, code-named (and most likely also to be trade-named) Leopard, he showed no sign of lowering the strength of the reality distortion field that he’s famous for generating around his product and technology announcements,” Peter Coffee writes for eWeek.
“If anything, Jobs actually turned the knob up to 11 by claiming that next spring’s general release of Leopard would steal a march on Microsoft, delivering to Apple users the equivalent of ‘Vista 2.0.’ That kind of claim, now that Apple and Microsoft have become direct rivals on essentially identical hardware platforms, represents a challenge that eWEEK Labs will not hesitate to take up,” Coffee writes.
Coffee writes, “We feel obligated to ask: What should enterprise and other mainstream system buyers expect to get from Vista 1.0 when it ships at about the same time as Leopard, and is it remotely plausible for Jobs to suggest that Leopard will be a left-of-decimal jump ahead within the same quarter of next year?”
Coffee writes, “Whether Jobs has gone over the top or not, we have to begin by saying that Microsoft has seriously drained (and perhaps even poisoned) the once-overflowing well of good will that it has long enjoyed among application developers. To look back at past Microsoft Professional Developers Conference presentations, and to ruminate on the bent or broken promises of the so-called ‘three pillars of Longhorn,’ is to marvel at how far short of those goals the company has now reconfigured its aims.”
Coffee writes, “Vista was formerly envisioned as a sophisticated reinvention of associative storage, coupled to networked resources with powerful communication frameworks and made accessible to users with dramatic new data and multimedia visualizations.”
Coffee writes, “What’s now promised for 2007 is a radically de-featured Windows XP upgrade… Better security? With User Account Control, Microsoft finally gets to a point that Apple reached years ago… Microsoft also promises that Vista will offer dramatically more convenient backup tools, a prospective play that’s been somewhat trumped by Apple’s elegant and apparently well-conceived Time Machine… Vista’s speech recognition options, along with its Sidebar and Gadgets, likewise aim at targets that Apple has already hit… ervasive and largely automatic search, dubbed Spotlight by Apple and Instant Search (with Search Folders) by Microsoft, has likewise failed to transform our manner of using our machines…”
MacDailyNews Note: It has for some Mac users who can let go of years of ingrained thought processes and embrace a new way of working.
“Microsoft, meanwhile, is thoroughly annoying its users with badly implemented and clumsily presented anti-piracy measures and an exhausting pace of security patches. Being a conscientious Windows user, putting it simply, just isn’t very much fun, while being an OS X user seems much less onerous… Apple is certainly setting the pace in security, usability and visual attractiveness of the desktop and mobile computing experience; it is also continuing to set the bar high for industrial design and aesthetic appeal in hardware,” Coffee writes. “To claim, though, that Leopard represents ‘Vista 2.0’ is excessive.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Coffee says that Apple’s claim that Leopard represents ‘Vista 2.0’ is excessive? Did Peter Coffee read his own piece? Windows Vista is a “radically de-featured Windows XP upgrade” that plays catch up to Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger (released April 2005) in every way. Plus, Coffee knows nothing of Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard beyond a few carefully selected features that Steve Jobs decided to divulge at WWDC. There is no way Coffee can know if Apple is being “excessive” or not, but his need to claim it anyway is quite telling. Does Coffee hope against hope (and against his very own characterizations of the two OSes) that Apple’s claims are “excessive?” He must, otherwise, why would he have written it when all other evidence, including his own, says that, no, Apple is not being “excessive?” Face it, Peter, Microsoft is years behind, as usual. You know it. We know it. Readers of your piece know it, despite your unfounded conclusion. And anyone else who’s being honest with themselves knows it, too.
Related articles:
Microsoft Windows Vista: If you can’t innovate… try to impersonate Apple’s Mac OS X – August 10, 2006
Analyst: Apple’s new Mac OS X Leopard sets new bar, leaves Microsoft’s Vista in the dust – August 08, 2006
Apple WWDC banner: ‘Mac OS X Leopard. Introducing Vista 2.0’ – August 07, 2006
Leopard attack on Vista: Apple taunts Microsoft with much faster operating system launches – July 05, 2006
What Microsoft has chopped from Windows Vista, and when – June 27, 2006
Microsoft botches another copy job: Windows Vista Flip3D vs. Apple Mac OS X Exposé – June 26, 2006
Windows Vista rips-off Mac OS X at great hardware cost (and Apple gains in the end) – June 13, 2006
Computerworld: Microsoft Windows Vista a distant second-best to Apple Mac OS X – June 02, 2006
Thurrott: Microsoft collapsing under its own weight, Gates has driven Windows Vista into the ground – April 20, 2006
Thurrott: Microsoft going to get eaten alive over Windows Vista’s resemblance to Apple’s Mac OS X – March 09, 2006
NY Times’ Pogue on Gates’ CES demo: Most of Vista features unadulterated ripoffs from Apple Mac OS X – January 05, 2006
Analyst: Windows Vista may still impress many consumers because they have not seen Apple’s Mac OS X – January 05, 2006
Gartner: Ignore Microsoft Windows Vista until 2008 (why not just get Apple Mac OS X Tiger today?) – November 12, 2005
Microsoft’s Windows Vista strives to deliver what Apple’s Mac OS X already offers – October 10, 2005
Thurrott: many of Windows Vista’s upcoming features appeared first in Apple’s Mac OS X – September 26, 2005
Microsoft’s Ballmer: It’s true, some of Windows Vista’s features are ‘kissing cousins’ to Mac OS X – September 18, 2005
Windows tech writer Thurrott: ‘In many ways, Mac OS X Tiger is simply better than Windows’ – May 07, 2005
Thurrott: Longhorn demos ‘unimpressive, fall short of graphical excellence found today in Mac OS X’ – April 26, 2005
eWEEK Editor Coursey: Longhorn so far ‘looks shockingly like a Macintosh’ – April 25, 2005
Due in late 2006, many of Windows Longhorn’s features have been in Mac OS X since 2001 – April 25, 2005
Microsoft’s new mantra: ‘It Just Works’ ripped straight from Apple’s ‘Switch’ campaign – April 22, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Microsoft’s Longhorn: ‘They are shamelessly copying us’ – April 21, 2005
Microsoft’s Windows Longhorn will bear more than just a passing resemblance to Apple’s Mac OS X – April 15, 2005
Steve Jobs: Microsoft copied original Apple Mac with Windows 95, now they’re copying us again – February 08, 2005
The Age: ‘Apple’s Mac OS X at least a generation ahead of Windows XP, iMac G5 clearly the best’ – December 15, 2004
Silicon Valley: Apple CEO Steve Jobs previews ‘Longhorn’ – June 29, 2004
Apple CEO Steve Jobs: Mac OS X Tiger ‘is going to drive the copycats crazy – June 28, 2004
PC Magazine: Microsoft ‘Longhorn’ preview shows ‘an Apple look’ – May 06, 2004
Windows ‘Longhorn’ to add translucent windows that ripple and shrink by 2005 – May 19, 2003
Apple leads; Wintel follows as usual – November 11, 2002
“Journalism” at it’s apex here people. All these college degrees and people still cannot write well.
People need to learn to take a joke. Talk about thin-skinned!
Hello! You can’t actually “photocopy” software features. It’s all meant tongue-in-cheek.
MDN,
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Sometimes you get a little over the top when it comes to talking about Apple. But here, I think you were right on the money. When eWeek tries to speak out of both sides of the mouth, they just dribble.
It seems to be happening more and more lately, too. Writers complaining about Apple but having nothing to show vs Microsoft.
— Hey, have a nice weekend.
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N.
strange. why write an article, and then essentially say that you don’t agree with yourself?
RELAX MDN!
You are too touchy (That’s why I believe others on this site are correct when they have said that they suspect the editors here to be right leaning).
Which is fine, but I have always observed that the farther right the lean, the more and louder the bluster, to cover up the insecurity, which is exponentially greater.
THE AUTHOR WAS NOT BEING LITERAL.
He meant, I believe, the choice of terminoligy to be not of his liking?
Perhaps he himself could have chosen better words to convey his thought.
Funny, when I saw the Vista2.0 banner I thought it was a bad move by Apple because it automatically dumbed down the value of Leopard.
I think it was excessive. Excessively stupid. Vista is Tubgirl. Why would you want to call yourself Tubgirl 2.0?
We’ll eventually see Vista 2.0 around 2012 or 2013.
It’s funny how this guy seems to undermine his whole argument.
Fool!
Apple’s claim that Leopard represents ‘Vista 2.0’ is excessive
Excessive indeed, there is no way Vista 2 can be anything like Mac OS X Lepoard.
Vista 2.0 will be issued as a service pack 5 minutes after Vista 1.0 will be released, if ever.
I can’t wait to see what Apple can do with a nearly 2 year development cycle on a stable, solid code base. WWDC was nothing – Leopard is going to rock!
To quote Sgt. Hulka: “Lighten up, Francis.”
“we have to begin by saying that Microsoft has seriously drained (and perhaps even poisoned) the once-overflowing well of good will that it has long enjoyed among application developers.”
I like to have fun as much as the next guy, and so I comment on lots of stuff here on MDN. A lot of it does not matter much, and a lot of what we Macheads think and feel don’t amount to much at all.
But what is seriously going on in the computer industry re Microsoft is summed up in the above quote from our friendly author. Microsoft has seriously drained and poisoned the good will they once enjoyed.
Fact is, things are changing, have changed – it’s a new day. Long live Apple, long live Macintosh.
We shall see. These arguments are stupid, though, until they’re both out in the wild. This is like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
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I say eight.
Apple’s claim that Leopard represents ‘Vista 2.0’ is excessive
First off, Vista 1.0 has to ship.
And second, it’ll take until Vista 3.0 for MS to catch Leopard. By then it’ll be 2018.
So saying Leopard represents Vista 2.0 is excessive. MS can only dream to catch up that soon.
Im quite excited to see the features that were omitted from the WWDC keynote. I just have a feeling that Apple has a nukyaler bomb up their sleeve.
New Tagline:
Leopard – The unVista
I think the guys got a good point.
How could Jobs lower himself to compare the elegance and power of Leopard to Vaporware 2.0?
Heck Tiger is 15 months old now, is way beter than Vaporware 1.0 ever will be when it hits the streets, and will in all likelihood be way better than Vaporware 2.0 no matter how many years IT takes to hit the street.
Imagine how many generations ahead Leopard’s successor will be to DistantVista 1 & 2.0….
The wait for Vista has been excessive, for sure.
Anybody touches my stuff? I’ll kill ya!
(re: To quote Sgt. Hulka: “Lighten up, Francis.”)
Great lines.
And from the article:
“ervasive and largely automatic search”
Does that mean it stutters? Ers everywhere!
How do these guys get jobs writing?!!!!!! If I promise to spell correctly can I get published too??
3.0?
Me thinks Windows weenies are taking the Vista 2.0 jab a little too seriously.
It’s always instructive to walk into the other camp, and ask questions. Like all of us here, I’ve got many diehard PC/Windows friends, and some are actually sane.
Very few have advanced any statements about Vista. But few complain about re-builiding their systems either. I listened mutely to a conversation between two such fellows a while back, and they were comparing notes verbally about Registry use, and maintenance thereof. There was a suggestion of “this is a valuable skill,” much as you might discuss synchronizing carbs on a high performance aviation engine.
I wheeled away.
Oil and water.
Vista version 2.0 is a bigger fantasy than releasing Vista at all. The Planet of the Ballmers in the distant future will hurl feces at Vista 2.0 beta and poke it with sticks to rid it from infection. Those sticks run fifty bananas a month on a very fair rental plan. A stone monolith must figure into this somehow.
Jobs in WRONG & it’s just plain nonsense to suggest that Leopard is equal to Vista 2. It is more like Vista 5.
The day Vista ships is the day Ballmer leaves a chair intact.
P.S. re: A stone monolith must figure into this somehow.
Thus spake Zunathustra?
It’s called cheerleading for your developers. Analyzing the decimal point to death and saying the Vista is more like Panther 1.0 and Leopard is more like Vista 1.2 than 2.0 is missing the point.
Take it easy, Mr. Coffee (try some de-caf). You don’t need to go into an exhaustive analysis of the Leopard = Vista 2.0 comment. It’s just a marketing one-liner. How can Leopard be Vista 2.0 when we don’t even know what Vista 1.0 will look like? It may turn out that even Tiger = Vista 2.0, by the time Microsoft gets done gutting what is actually released. Then Leopard will be Vista 3.0.
Does this guy not realise that the claim of Leopard being Vista 2.0 is meant to be humorous? It’s a joke, tongue-in-cheek. Most Mac fans realise that it’s likely to be true but even if it’s not they realise that it’s a playful taunt, preaching to the faithful as much as it is a definite statement.
Okay… make it Vista v1.9
Or just make it Vis. This would have been Longho if they hadn’t changed the project name.
As Leopard is a quad binary (32 bit, 64 bit, PPC and Intel) I’d say it’ll still be ahead of VISTA 4.5…
Great take MDN, congrats.
Ampar – <u>Planet of the Ballmers<u>
Scene from end of movie:
Steve Jobs riding horse down desolate beach with hot babe…
After a minute, Steve looks up and suddenly dismounts…
He stares up at something (not yet shown), then falls to the ground on hands and knees screaming:
THIS
What did he see??? –
A tattered OS X Leopard Banner that was on a high pole, now buired almost up to the top with sand……
[Ballmer had to use the nuke on Cupertino]
Sound of waves crashing on shore…
Fade to black……………………….
^^^ Correction: [Ballmer had to use the nuke on Cupertino. It was his only option after releasing Vista to critical failure]
^^Uh-oh, MacDUDE”S BACK^^
@Always Right…
“You are too touchy (That’s why I believe others on this site are correct when they have said that they suspect the editors here to be right leaning)”
Lol… and certainly the left is never touchy or thin skinned.
S-
“The unVista”
ROTFLMFAO!!!!!!
This clown is making comparisons between two operating systems that have yet to ship.
What an idiot.
“To claim, though, that Leopard represents ‘Vista 2.0’ is excessive.”
haha… why? the best features of leopard won’t be released until next year… and you think Vista can keep up?
*whoooooosh*
Vista 2.0 excessive?? I think Apple is being kind.
VISTASCHMISTA…..
“Vista 2.0 excessive?? I think Apple is being kind.”
No.
Apple is being generous.
To a fault.
“Coffee writes, ‘Vista was formerly envisioned as a sophisticated reinvention of associative storage, coupled to networked resources with powerful communication frameworks and made accessible to users with dramatic new data and multimedia visualizations.'”
Dear God that made my head hurt.
Go easy on Coffee, I read eWeek and he is a regular user of Macs & speaks well of them often. Granted, the magazine is an enterprize IT publication so Macs aren’t written about every week, but Apple has the respect of most everyone at eWeek that writes about Macs.
I’ve used macs since ’84 & depend on them for my business, so I dig ’em just fine, but the kneejerk rabid stuff in comments here these days is a bit over the top. I think kids who failed English in school shouldn’t slam jouralists just for not being enthusiastic enough about an operating system…
I mean get real.
I tend to agree with his article. I, like a lot of others, was looking forward to seeing what Apple did this time with its O/S, quite frankly I was left very underwhelmed, and uninspired. Every feature show seems to have been done somewhere else before, and none of them particularly endeared me towards its purchase next year. I like the idea of ‘Time Machine’ but I think it looked absolutely tacky in its presentation, is it little wonder this platform is limited to creative types instead of the masses.
… LEOPARD is the ANTIVISTA! Shreeeeeeeek!
Actually, I think “Vista 2.0” is a really good way to describe Leopard.
As many have pointed out, there are some features of Leopard that have similar features in Vista or Windows XP. Time Machine is everyone’s favorite example, so let’s use that.
Vista/XP have a back-up utility. You can back up and restore files that you may have lost. Leopard’s Time Machine does the same thing. However, Leopard also allows you access to the back-up from the application whose information you are trying to retrieve.
Jobs’ demo was a perfect example. Suppose you accidentally delete a person from your contact list in Windows Mail/Outlook Express/whatever. How would you get it back? How would you know what file your contact list is in? Vista/XP’s restore is pretty useless in a situation like that. Whereas, in Time Machine, you hit the magic “Time Machine” button from within the application and you search through your changes until you find the right one.
I’m sure some future release of Vista will have a feature akin to this because it just makes sense. There are plenty of other examples and, to me, that’s why Leopard really deserves the “Vista 2.0” moniker.
Dave, it’s true neither have been released but with one small difference. We are sure one of the two OSes will ship next spring. Not entirely sure of the other.
©: Get your hands off me, you damn, dirty Ballmers.
A point-by-point comparison is the ONLY thing a Windows advocate can do, but they are completely missing the primary and fundamental differences between the operating systems. It is sad to see that they are able to drag Mac users into their senseless arguments.
The primary strength of Mac OS X is in its overall usability and friendliness. Even IF Vista had all of the exact features of Panther, it would still be a difficult and virus prone OS. Windows users honestly believe that the Mac experience is the same as the Windows experience. They have no clue what they are missing, as such they engage in these point-by-point arguments; an feeble attempt at comparing just the limbs of their sick old elephant to a healthy young leopard.
And when their arguments begin to fall apart, they usually end up with the final undeniable fact that there are 20 times more elephants than leopards. While true, it is totally pointless and has no bearing upon quality, just as more people are willing to breather the air of Los Angeles doesn’t make the air better than that in Vail, Colorado.
While ease-of-use could save corporations millions of dollars in employee productivity (in IT departments alone), it remains to be the elephant in the room that Microsoft doesn’t want anyone to see.
Could it be that Mr. Coffee was insinuating that Jobs was overstating the point?
Vista 2.0 < OSX10.5
Taken in this context, the article seems to make sense?
I agree with Machead.
BTW, I don’t think there will ever be a “Vista 2.0”. MS never realy used that numeric system since the Win95 OS came out. They had “second edition” for Win98, and service releases for the WinXP and Win2K OSes. When a major upgrade is planned, they come up with a new name.
Who would like to guess what the post-Vista MS-made OS will be called?
@M di L Bounarroti
“just as more people are willing to breather the air of Los Angeles doesn’t make the air better than that in Vail, Colorado.”
Best refutation I’ve ever heard of the argument that more must equal better.
This article is correct. Leopard won’t be vista 2.0. Leopard will be more like windows Vienna (the code name for the version of windows after vista). It might be another 5 years for MS to copy all the current features of os X and a few things that google throws out there. Isn’t it great that all you need to do to peek into the future of MS is the look at the current mac os?
With friends like Microsoft, who needs enemas?
Well, Coffee is right. I was uing hyperbole. Funny a writer didn’t recognize it. But be that as it may, his point is well taken.
Vista 1.0 isn’t really Vista 1.0. And Vista 2.0 is really going to be the true Vista 1.0. The first release of Vista is more like Vista 0.3. But getting out of Alpha. At best, it’s Vista β.
Bozos
S.
Mr. Coffee’s comments must be viewed in the proper context. I am sure Steve Jobs is well versed on exactly what features Windows Vista’s is going to bring to their users and like us, Mr. Coffee is not being allowed to see all of Leopard’s features just yet.
It should also be mentioned that Microsoft has continued to shed features in the operating system in an effort to get it out the door. It is quite possible that more features will be shed before Vista sees the light of day.
Although Apple says that they are holding back on showing us some of Leopard’s exciting features in an effort to keep Microsoft from copying them so quickly, I would tend to bet that Apple is preparing to release Leopard a couple of weeks before Vista in a show of one upmanship.
There may also be features in Leopard that Apple does not want to show until Vista programming is completed because Microsoft could change some of the code and screw up some compatability that Apple is depending on.
http://www.seewindowsvista.com/
Good for some laughs… if you can stand the stupidity. Some of these “features” have been around since Windows 98 and MacOS8. What a pile of fluff….
However I think MDN read too much into Paul Coffee because they were drinking too much coffee, Paul.
MDN word: overreaction
As in “oh, no you didn’t!”
sixty-first post
The MDN note concerning my comments on search (BTW, I wrote “pervasive,” which lost its “p” during MDN’s excerpting) is a cheap shot: MDN admonishes that Spotlight et al. are useful to “Mac users who can let go of years of ingrained thought processes and embrace a new way of working,” as if that possibility had escaped me, but first MDN had to clip off my own acknowledgment that “future generations of users, not forced to develop their own schemes of folder naming and other such hierarchy-oriented behavior,” may find it more valuable than I do.
MDN also asks, “Does Coffee hope against hope (and against his very own characterizations of the two OSes) that Apple’s claims are “excessive?” He must…” I’m sorry, but there’s no logical foundation for this supposed “hope” in the story. A reasoned critique and competitive analysis of the market is not cheerleading for either side. Anyone familiar with my work knows that I own and use both Mac and Windows machines, and that I’m happy to have either one make my life easier at any given time.
January 24, 1984,
“There was a suggestion of “this is a valuable skill,” much as you might discuss synchronizing carbs on a high performance aviation engine.
I wheeled away.
Oil and water.”
This is a valuable observation with both tangible and intangible implications. (I guess intangible implications might be called premonitions.) Anyway, I think it stems from the command-line days when we all hated having to remember the semantics of DOS and et. al., but when we did get practiced and proficient at using the command-line interface it gave us this really weird sense of accomplishment, nay self fullfilment and personal accomplishment. With OS X and its innate ability to interact with humans at the command-line level I see this same phenomenon now on the Mac side for the first time. Otherwise loyal Mac users, once they get a taste of successful interaction with the command-line interface, begin to want to use it more and more. Its strange to say the least. Maybe learning to understand why some computer users want things to be difficult would give us insight into what the real market potential for Apple might be.
By the way, has anyone tried selling a hardcore Windows user on the idea that you can use a command-line interface if you must? Or the general idea that a Mac can be hard to use if you really want it to be?
One of the reasons that I most often hear from deep-dyed Windows users for staying with that platform is that they find it much easier to work on Windows without constant mousing. As a regular user of both UIs, I can’t disagree.
Command-line and keyboard shortcut skills aren’t just arcana that bring their own sense of accomplishment: they’re valuable power tools for doing more while thinking less about the process and focusing on the actual desired work to be done. I have a shelf full of “doing Unix work on OS X” books that testify to OS X’s dual personality in this regard: as I’ve commented in public several times, OS X is probably the most successful single-user Unix on desktops today.
Yes, Apple has scripting and other useful mechanisms, but moving a Windows power user requires more than something that’s better overall — it requires a true superset of what they’re used to having. Now that Windows can run at native speed in a window on an OS X desktop, Apple may finally have that: when I buy my Mac Pro, that’s what I’ll expect to get.
@Peter Coffee (if that is really you):
“One of the reasons that I most often hear from deep-dyed Windows users for staying with that platform is that they find it much easier to work on Windows without constant mousing.”
This is easily done on Apple OS X products.. Under the Keyboard and Mouse System Preference Pane, there is an item named Keyboard Navigation. To navigate to the menu, ^F2 gets you there. If you want to get to the Dock, ^F3 gets you there. Then just use arrow keys to navigate, Return or Enter to select an item, and Escape key to exit.
So maybe you need to do a bit of a retraction on your comments.
To rasterbator:
What part of “they find it much easier” did you not understand?
I was relaying other Windows users’ perception, not my own opinion. So what comment should I retract? If there’s an OS X feature that new or prospective users aren’t readily finding, how is that my fault?
Like many people here, you’re aiming your slings and arrows at someone who’s much more part of your solution than your problem — and like many IT industry journalists, I’ve learned that saying nothing at all about the Mac yields a lot less flak than sharing an opinion that’s not sufficiently idolatrous. But I keep doing my best, unlike some in the business who’ve simply gotten tired of the abuse.