MacDailyNews Take: We’d be remiss if we did not point out that Rizzo’s “but” does absolutely nothing to disprove Steve Jobs’ contention.
Rizzo continues, “Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard each contain features that originated in the other OS. Some features were stolen so long ago that they’ve become part of the computing landscape, and it’s difficult to remember who invented what. Here we give credit to Microsoft where credit is due.”
1. Finder Sidebar: Windows Navigation pane
2. The Mac Path bar: Windows Address bar
3. Back and Forward navigation buttons in folder windows
4. Minimizing to document windows into app icon
5. Screen Sharing: Remote Desktop Connection
6. Time Machine: Backup and Restore (Rizzo admits, “Apple didn’t steal Time Machine from Windows, just the concept of including backup capability with the operating system.”)
7. System Preferences: Control Panel (Rizzo calls Windows’ Control Panel “one convenient place,” thereby proving he’s never used Windows.)
8. ActiveSync and Exchange 2007 support (Rizzo’s run out of “thefts” already.)
9. Command-Tab: Alt-Tab
10. Terminal: Command Prompt
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Mostly a list of minor concepts and features, most of which can be disputed, as Rizzo himself does in many of his descriptions. Overall, this is quite a silly list that, if anything, proves just how little in Windows is worth “stealing.”
With bated breath, we now await Computerworld’s followup articles: “Top 1,000 features that Microsoft stole from Macintosh,” “Top 100 ideas Microsoft stole from iPod, iPod touch, and iPhone,” and “Top 50 concepts that Microsoft stole from Apple’s Retail Stores.”
See also: Rizzo’s “Top 10 features Microsoft stole from Mac OS X,” also from last October, here.
We covered this all the first time around here: Apple’s Mac vs. Microsoft’s Windows: The top 20 stolen ideas of the OS wars – October 12, 2009
Wasn’t there a command prompt line on the Apple 1?
Rizzo is a clueless, clickwhore asswipe
How people forget Apple’s First Control Panel was a single place with all the System settings in it was not until System 7 that Apple divided the control Panel up into a control Panel for each function. What Microsoft Copied was that. Steve never liked the division of the control Panel up into separate control panels. That is why in Next the Control Panel was one integrate System Control Panel. When Next became OS X the Next Control Panel stayed in place. So, Basically Apple Copied not from Microsoft but from Apple’s earlier OS’s. Now Tech Floggers forget their Tech History in-order to write a story.
Microsoft didn’t invent Remote desktop or screen sharing either Microsoft copied it from Solaris were Sun got the Idea from X-Windows that was Remote log-in to the GUI it’s what Microsoft was shooting for but failed so bad that they gave up and Licensed the remote desktop frameworks and engine from Cytrix. That’s right all you MS fans and Tech Flogger Microsoft’s remote desktop is not written or driven by Microsoft’s code, it’s mostly a Cytrix product that Microsoft has skinned to look like a Microsoft product.
I could go on but when he listed that Apple had stolen Active Sync and Exchange support I busted out laughing. As he was so desperate to fine 10 things that included technology that Apple Licensed from Microsoft so that the Mac OS could play nice in a Windows World. It was just so funny that it is just insane!
Demon,
Yeah I though the same thing about several items on the list, he seems not to know the real history of many of the features he is claiming ms “invented”.
I was thinking about using command tab to switch between running applications, didn’t I use that to switch apps in multifinder in like -1986-??? (and really even before in Hertzfelds “switcher”) That was back when virtually every ms-dos jockey was claiming that having a mouse on a computer made it a toy and was useless for “real work” and the mouse was just another “stupid apple invention” (even though the original concept of a mouse was actually developed at MIT)
“6. Time Machine: Backup and Restore (Rizzo admits, “Apple didn’t steal Time Machine from Windows, just the concept of including backup capability with the operating system.”)”
Uh, so what are dump/restor, tar and cpio from UNIX, knishes? And indeed, the Command Prompt is a dumbed down counterpart to the Shell (Bourne, C, et.al.) that lots of us old UNIX hands were using years before Windows. And Screen Sharing was found in X Windows before MS Windows. And … Well, you get the idea.
But why should we be surprised? UNIX was developed by Ph.D. computer scientists. DOS and Windows was developed by college dropouts.
How about the features that apple and microsh*t stole from Xerox? That’s probably more appropriate…
Though I must say I hate the stupid I’m a PC ads where some dillhole raves on about windows 7 and you sit there yelling at the TV OSX had that very feature they’re raving on about 10 YEARS ago. Time for more getamac ads!!!
@Saldin,
Try any mainframe from the 60s and 70s, including IBM 360 OS and DOS. Yes DOS existed on mainframes before Little Billy was even a glint in his father’s eyes.
By the way, take a look at Digital RT-11 and you’ll see many of the PC-DOS commands.
@ Brulek,
That list would be shorter than you might think.
While PARC had the germ of an idea (mouse controlled GUI), when Apple saw it their prototype was lacking a lot of things we think of as basic to a GUI. Like icons for files, a desktop, a menu bar.
Apple basically invented what we think of as the modern GUI.
1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, & 10 are clearly wrong.
2 & 4 are arguable.
I might give him #9.
What a waste. Doesn’t anyone review this stuff before it’s published?
I stopped reading after “windows”.
Not that this list ever had potential, but the author might have considering putting the Windoz implementation of said theft if he wanted to make any point. Probably knew how laughable the M$ version would look in comparison – except for maybe the command prompt.
Oh man, ok…
1. Finder Sidebar: Windows Navigation pane
Um, I think Windows “stole” it from countless tree directory navigation software apps that go back to at least DOS and unix before. Hardly an innovation on MS’s part.
2. The Mac Path bar: Windows Address bar
I’m so not caring about this one to even look up prior art, but anyway, boy what a “feature”…
3. Back and Forward navigation buttons in folder windows
“Stolen” from Netscape Navigator and it’s ilk. More from Bill’s “whoops” whiplash from almost missing the internet. And BTW, Netscape and most other browsers “stole” this from HyperCard, an Apple property. Tim Berners Lee was a big fan of HC and implemented this from it into his browsers, so indeed, if anything MS actually stole this one from Apple.
4. Minimizing to document windows into app icon
Seriously?? This after Win 7 just all but stole the whole dock thing from OS X/Next? Okey dokey.
5. Screen Sharing: Remote Desktop Connection
I was using remote desktop software for the mac 15+ years ago. Timbuktu. Hardly an MS innovation. Apple just liked to leave things for other developers when they could and concentrate on the OS but they could have easily included it a long time ago.
6. Time Machine: Backup and Restore (Rizzo admits, “Apple didn’t steal Time Machine from Windows, just the concept of including backup capability with the operating system.”)
Are you kidding me?? Were they innovative because they included an internet browser too?? Or was that just to kill the competition at the time? The ipod was not the first mp3 player. It’s the implementation of a product, not the product. Apple also had to do this imho. Again they used to like to leave it up to independent developers but with once excellent companies like Dantz doing a cluster fsck these days they really had no choice.
7. System Preferences: Control Panel (Rizzo calls Windows’ Control Panel “one convenient place,” thereby proving he’s never used Windows.)
BS. My freakin’ Mac Finder 1.0 1984 had the “Control Panels” window long before windows ever did. Give me a break. MS even cleverly took a whole “s” off the name to disguise their theft…
8. ActiveSync and Exchange 2007 support (Rizzo’s run out of “thefts” already.)
WTF?? Since these are MS properties, how would Apple have had them??? They’re hardly new ideas though, just MS’s implemention of them that Apple needed to license. So what? He totally ignores the fact that MS probably owes it’s very existence to Sculley being stupid enought to license parts of the Mac OS interface to MS in the first place. This guy is just dense.
9. Command-Tab: Alt-Tab
Seriously?? Shall I get into how MS “stole” keyboard commands from countless other software programs over the years?? Look into the story of control alt delete itself and how MS even “stole” that one.
10. Terminal: Command Prompt
Holy freakin’ hell… Unix had this before windows, dos, and cpm. For that matter, MS DOS was a ripoff of CPM (reportedly even included actually stolen cpm code), so they didn’t even invent that! What, they’re innovative because they put it in a a window?? Again, that was done in unix and dos window shells long before windows came along.
Well, anyway, sorry to rant folks, but I’ve had it up to here with how “innovative” ms is who have no clue about their history.
@ Demon and Uncle Festers cousin:
More great history, thanks, and good point about Apple only needing MS licenses to play in their world, not because of Mac OS shortcomings.
Won’t it be interesting to see what MS has to license to play in Apple’s ipad/iphone world??
And it was a long time ago, but shame on me for forgetting about Switcher too.
But hey, isn’t Spaces a switcher ripoff?? Shame on Apple for stealing from themselves!
If only they would`ve stolen the registry… *sigh
*sarcasm*
@disposableidentity
the Xerox gui had menus, icons, windows. Everything that apple and microsh*t pillaged. It clearly has evolved over time but the basic idea hasn’t changed that much. You can look at the Xerox Gui and see a great deal of what is now in it. It was crude, but the ideas were clearly there. So I think you might be selling xerox short.
Gates once was attributed with saying some like: Apple got annoyed with us because we both saw the neighbor (Xerox) had a flashy tv. We just managed to break in and steal it first.
> Command Prompt
LOL. Pretty desperate to get the number up to “10,” if you need to put that one on the list. The command prompt is hardly a “Windows” feature.
LOL, if this is the best he can come up with for a top 10, then he’s pretty much supporting the fact that Apple has stolen very little of value from Microsoft (and after picking his list apart, it’s at best a list of 3-4 items that really don’t matter).
Yet, I’m sure we could easily write an article with the top 100 or 500 ideas Microsoft stole from Apple over the years. Some of them so blatant, like ctrl+z/x/c/v for undo cut copy and paste where Apple used command. Microsoft’s first implementation was to use modifier keys in combination with insert and delete if memory serves, I could never remember for the life of me which combo did what until they finally switched to Apple’s far more intuitive and easier to reach shortcuts. But yeah, Windows itself is such a complete ripoff of Mac OS in so many ways that to even put together such a reverse list is juvenile (and pathetic).
One point regarding Xerox PARC – Apple didn’t steal, they BOUGHT the ideas, they PAID for it – they even hired many of the people from PARC. Completely different to MS… A friend of mine who works still at Xerox in Rochester (and took part in the developments at MIT) is a great Mac fan for years, but hates MS, because the Mac people actually got it, while the MS people just made Money out of it…
If there’s a specifically patent that is owned by MS and Apple stole it, you are right.
If MS and Apple can’t patent it due to Open Source or for some reason, how can u tell us that Apple stole it. What if MS stole the idea from someone outside MS’s office?
Silly silly! SillY!
So Bill Gates carts out Steve’s stereo system and the grand piano from his house. Steve runs over and takes Bill Gates’ pink flamingos off his lawn. Big whoop.
I see Apple forgot to steal Windows’ accessibility to viruses. Dang, that means I can’t get any of those free programs from the virus programmers.
Funny, I remember a command line on Apple II’s before MS-DOS existed. While Apple has taken some ideas from Microsoft, they are all little things. It really does not matter though. In the end all that matters is that Apple built a better system, the fact that they borrowed a few small features from their largest imitator is irrelevant.
I don’t care if MS gets credit for a few things, so long as I can keep using my Macs!
Funny, I bet when Microsoft looks at things to steal from Apple, they must be like a homeless 5 year old at FAO Schwartz for the first time. When Apple looks to ‘steal’ things from Microsoft, it must be like a man in an armani suit going dumpster diving.
Say (Mac or PC) stole from (PC or Mac) is like saying you stole air from your friend.