“My recent video, which tweaked Microsoft for crowing about its ‘innovation’ in Windows Vista (without acknowledging its huge debt to Mac OS X), triggered plenty of reaction. It probably comes as no surprise that your comments quickly devolved into ‘which is better’ bickering, which will proably never end,” David Pogue blogs for The New York Timest.
“Some of you claim, with much anger and swearing, that Apple steals from Microsoft just as much as the other way,” Pogue writes. “My response to one such response: ‘You’re right–very few things were actually invented wholesale by Apple. The mouse, menus, overlapping windows, the CD drive, Wi-Fi wireless, and so on–all of these things were developed elsewhere.
‘But Apple *standardized* them. Chose them, recognized their potential, perfected them, made them over in its own way, and brought them to the masses.
‘In Vista, on the other hand, Microsoft did not select unrecognized features, did not have any particular vision in knowing what would work and what wouldn’t, did not put its own stamp on anything. It simply waited for Apple to recognize and perfect good technologies, then duplicated them bit for bit. Oh, and then claim to be a leader in innovation. That’s quite a difference!’”
Full article, with another example of Microsoft’s blatant copying, here.
MacDailyNews Take: Only the most severely deluded would think that Microsoft innovates. There is simply no record of sustained innovation coming out of Redmond. The fact is, we all use a Mac today in one form (the real thing) or another (the upside-down and backwards insecure kludge that is Windows). The Mac won long ago, even if the wrong guys did grab the bulk of the money. Windows Vista is yet another a poor copy of features from a combination of Mac OS X versions dating back over five years grafted onto the same old rusty Windows undercarriage. Microsoft’s not-long-for-this-world Zune is a particularly bad copy of Apple’s iPod+iTunes (bigger, thicker and uglier with the added bonus of poorer battery life + Zune software that won’t even install properly). The list of Microsoft’s appropriations from Apple and others goes on and on. Apple leads, Microsoft follows. As usual.
For those that misunderstand the whole “Apple Mac and Xerox PARC” thing, an essay discussing the relationship was written by Bruce Horn in 1996. Bruce was one of the main designers of the Macintosh software, and he worked at Xerox for years before that, so he’s uniquely qualified to discuss their relationship. Full article here.
Related articles:
NY Times video: Did Microsoft rip-off Apple’s Mac OS X in Windows Vista? – December 14, 2006
NY Times’ Pogue reviews Microsoft’s Windows Vista: ‘Looks, Locks, Lacks’ – December 14, 2006
Forbes: Microsoft Windows Vista boss suffers from Mac envy – December 12, 2006
Unlike Microsoft’s Windows Vista, Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard will create no new jobs – December 12, 2006
Microsoft’s Windows Vista: obsolete on arrival? – December 04, 2006
InformationWeek: Now that Vista is the past, let’s look at the future: Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard – December 02, 2006
Microsoft’s Windows Vista and Office 2007 releases generate yawns – December 02, 2006
Dave Winer: ‘Microsoft isn’t an innovator, and never was – they are always playing catch-up’ – December 01, 2006
Microsoft’s Windows Vista vulnerable to malware from 2004 – November 30, 2006
Microsoft Windows Vista developers used Apple Macs for inspiration – November 27, 2006
Microsoft’s Windows Vista is basically Microsoft’s version of Mac OS 9.3 – October 11, 2006
Microsoft Windows Vista: If you can’t innovate… try to impersonate Apple’s Mac OS X – August 10, 2006
Ballmer: I’m Microsoft’s ‘primary champion of innovation’ – July 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 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
Apple’s talent and innovation vs. Microsoft’s hype – October 25, 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
PC World: Microsoft innovation – an oxymoron – September 14, 2005
As usual, Apple leads, Microsoft tries to follow – June 02, 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
Where Apple leads, Wintel follows years later – January 31, 2005
Novell CEO: ‘Microsoft sucked $60 billion out of IT industry that could have used for innovation’ – September 13, 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
Charles Arthur: Microsoft’s definition of ‘innovation’ different from everyone else’s – April 27, 2004
Windows ‘Longhorn’ to add translucent windows that ripple and shrink by 2005 – May 19, 2003
Koolaid: Forcing users to use your OS by holding Windows to their head as a prerequisite for their employment is hardly something to be proud of. Then again, the fine distinction between individuals buying your OS, and corporate purchasers buying your OS and forcing it on hundreds of people at once, is something I don’t think you’ll ever grasp. That’s the fundamental problem with Windows supporters — they celebrate the lack of freedom in corporate environments and then wonder why they’re perceived as stodgy, authoritarian, and out-of-touch.
Busting: Apple’s done a fine job of convincing so called artistic people that OSX is the platform of choice. Why can’t it convince the business majority of it’s superiority? Answer: because it isn’t.
Think different? What a joke. Apple’s copying of others could fill a set of encyclopedias.
You drones, not unlike those in the 1984 commercial, have swallowed the Cupertino BS hook line and sinker.
George Bush: Forcing Americans to support your war with fear and lies as a prerequisite for their support is hardly something to be proud of. Then again, the fine distinction between individuals thinking for themselves, and Republicans thinking for you and forcing it on hundreds of people at once, is something I don’t think you’ll ever grasp. That’s the fundamental problem with Bush supporters — they celebrate the lack of rights in America and then wonder why they’re perceived as stodgy, authoritarian, and out-of-touch.
I believe the original Windows (1.0) did NOT copy the mac. Windows 3 copied the mac and that’s when it got popular and mainstream.
IIRC, the original windows did not even have overlapping windows, just divided the screen into panes. (Imagine an 80×24 DOS screen divided up into four panes. Yep. Pretty. Not.)
And that shows the nature of MS; when they do innovate they often get it very very wrong. I don’t think Vista was originally supposed to be an OS X clone, it just became that because the “innovations” wound up on the cutting room floor.
(Please someone correct my history if I am wrong.)
I’m an Apple fan and I clearly don’t think of Microsoft as an innovation center.
That said, Microsoft has innovated – they helped to create SOAP and some other Internet standards.
Ok, Zune Tang, the 2nd Buster response was fantastically funny.
Nice to see you applying the shtick in new ways. 😀
Sure beats Tom Cruise posts.
Yo, Big BJ! How’s IT hangin’? You don’y know how good the Cupertino BS tastes ’til you’ve tasted it! Mmmmm! Good. Not like that MS BS you get out of that tin can you call a computer. Chopped up animal guts and chicken pieces thrown out of a huge Haitian Voodoo Zombie party. Welcome to the Social? Ha! Welcome, my son. Welcome to the Machine! It’s all right, we know where you’ve been. Like some Kool Aid? Ballmer-sweat flavored! You’ll love it!
@Don’t pass the koolaid,
If I were you I wouldn’t tempt fate, the business community is going to get tired of the costs of running Windows just like individuals and small businesses have.. (and by the way, I assume you think Apple secretly runs its business on PEE-CEE’s do you??). Indiduals will make these decisions before big corporations do, as is happening now, but more and more MacBookPro’s are the Trojan Horses which are infecting businesses round the world with their OSX goodness…
Just you wait and see…
Welcome aboard, Buster. When can you come up to Redmond for training? I’ll have Zune Tang squirt you around the Microsoft campus.
You’re gonna love it here!
An article at Macworld online regarding flash memory was followed with speculation about how Leopard might use flash to its full potential. I found the following at Microsoft:
“Windows Vista is designed to help make you more productive as you work with your PC throughout the day with new features like Sleep, Windows SuperFetch, Windows ReadyBoost, and Windows ReadyDrive.
Windows SuperFetch helps manage memory to get the most out of available RAM while Windows ReadyBoost helps make PCs more responsive by using flash memory devices (like USB thumb drives) to boost performance. Windows ReadyDrive takes advantage of new hybrid hard disks—hard disks with integrated flash memory—to help improve battery life, performance, and reliability. With Windows Vista, your system is ready when you are.”
I hope Leopard incorporates these features.
ZT is right, I get it REGULARLY heh heh.
My only complaint about ZT is that he is repetitive. Other than that I am sure he is a good person, sort of like a farmer, a man outstanding in his field.
Ballmer…ugh…the horrible image of Zune Tang squirting me around…now I won’t be able to fall asleep tonoight without the light on and someone holding my hand.
Anyone who doesn’t believe that Mafia$oft rips off Apple should read David Pogue’s full article, including the account from a former MS employee. Very telling, indeed!
Maybe Vista’s term “Gadgets” for Widgets is not so original either?
From the Daring Fireball site (2004)
[Nomenclatural note: Konfabulator calls its applets “widgets”. Apple’s Dashboard developer documentation refers to its applets as “gadgets”. However, at the WWDC keynote and at the Tiger Preview section of Apple.com, Apple refers to Dashboard’s applets as “widgets”. Until this is clarified, I’ll use “widgets” to refer to Konfabulator’s dinguses; and “gadgets” for Dashboard’s.]
<http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/dashboard_vs_konfabulator>
I’m sorry, I know this isn’t the place for it, but since someone already used the words “short bus,” I can’t help taking the opportunity to plug a really amazing film. If you’re at all on the prudish side, then forget it. Don’t see it. Let this be a warning. But for anyone with an open mind, who would like to see cinematic history in the making, see the film, Shortbus. (Unfortunately, even though it has already played in “select” theaters in the U.S., I very much doubt it will get widespread distribution. But it was in all the major theaters here in Paris….)
http://www.shortbusthemovie.com
Hey, Zune Tang, don’t you have some gay porn to watch?
1-Apple was putting computers in the hands of the masses when Bill Gates was collecting traffic tickets out in Albuquerque.
2-Apple is the company that got the home computer off of cassette tapes an onto practical storage devices.
3-Apple was the company that actually put the GUI and mouse in the hands of consumers (Lisa) and on a large scale (Macintosh). This was when PCs were running homebrew shell programs to access their text only files.
4-Apple was the force that led to the development of TrueType Fonts, which still inhabit PC to this day. Without TrueType, the desktop revolution (which, along with VisiCalc, drove the early adoption of PCs).
5-AppleTalk was common when PCs had a hard time talking to their own (hosted) devices.
6-NeXT (now part of Apple- founded and headed by Steve Jobs) is where the Internet, as we know it, started. TBL and others did all the early work using the direct predecessor of Mac OS X.
7-Plug and Play was on the Mac eons before it ever appeared on ANY PC.
8-Modern connections like USB (Intel developed) and FireWire (Apple Developed) were commonplace on the lowliest iMac even as high end PCs were using outmoded and outdated connections. Likewise, Apple was shipping iMacs with Ethernet and internal Fax Modems when PCs that cost twice their price came with none.
9-QuickTime is what gave the desktop video revolution traction and is still the monster in content creation.
10-The Newton was so far ahead of it’s time that a recent comparison rated it higher than a current popular PocketPC device.
11-The iBook is the product that moved the laptop into the mainstream of student and home computing.
12-iTunes (built on QuickTime) and the iPod launched and essentially created the online digital media marketplace (legal). While everyone else fretted, griped and complained. Apple rolled the dice and made it happen.
These is more- a lot more. By comparison, a great deal of what MS sells and owns (IP) is the result of spending it’s ill gotten gains buying up other companies.
Microsoft does innovate, but rarely. I have to say XBOX 360 and its marketplace is very well tuned and innovative, and no other console has got it as right as MS.
I confess, I’m really a Mac Nut pretending to diss Mac products. Zune sucks bigguns. I like the attention.
I forgot to add that I suffer from microphallia as well.
Didn’t Microsoft steal the photocopying idea from Xerox?
Cheers,
Tim.
Don’t pick a fight with someone as level-headed and articulate as David Pogue!
I forgot to mention that my breath smells like an elephant’s butt.
Zune Tang is out of control and we will have to cancel his account.
Zune Tang has an account? With what? The sperm bank? Need a withdrawal, ZT?