Vista=Copy of OS X
Ever seen that old bumper sticker [Apple 89 = Win 95]? Well, it might be time to update it because apparently Microsoft is going back to its favorite source of ideas, Apple! It would seem that Vista is going to be mildly similar to OS X. And I for one am just shocked! Microsoft, copying Apple? Say it isn’t so!
How many of us compared OS 7.5 and Win 95 and got really pissed? I mean, Microsoft moved the icons from the right side of the screen to the left and then moved the menu bar from the top to the bottom and then they called it a brand new innovative product! And I talked to plenty of people who thought that MS had come up with the idea themselves and saw no similarities between it and Apple’s OS. Congratulations MS you blatantly stole Apple’s ideas and made them your own and now, a decade later, it looks like they are trying to do it again.
Clicking on that link will take you to some screen shots of Vista. In several of them, if you look closely, you will see that they have an integrated search field. And what icon did they use? A magnifying glass of course, only they flipped it around.
Son of a b*$&% they did it again!
I can at least understand the original arguements about how Apple and MS both borrowed ideas from Xerox to create their original GUI based OSes but how can you ignore this? What excuse could MS possibly come up with to explain how similar these features are? Other features that Microsoft has “innovated” are translucent windows, drop shadows, smart folders, embossed icons etc. Hell, I am surprised they didn’t rename Longhorn “Prairie Dog” or some horrible knock off name like that. It at least would have fit their theme.
Oh, and did I mention that IE would have tabs? Hot damn, the innovations are coming fast and furious now! So, how many other features do you think Microsoft will borrow from Tiger? I for one can’t wait until 2012 when it’s released so I can compare the two and see just how “innovative” Microsoft really is. Of course, by the time it’s finally released OS XI Condor (they will have run out of cat names by 10.9 and 11.0 will start using bird names) will be out and MS will have a whole new OS full of features to steal.
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I think the point of the article is that It seems like MS is purposefully making Vista look as similar to OS X as tauntingly possible when they have the option to choose differentiation.
If it’s just about general look and feel, I don’t think Vista resembles OS X all that much. Vista seems to be aiming, rightly or wrongly, at a slick, dark corporate look, much less friendly than the default XP or OS X look, IMO. They are obviously trying to make it LOOK more secure, whether or not it actually is (and I honestly don’t know and don’t really care).
But the point of Jame’s article seems to be about specific rip-offs that MS stole from Apple; nevermind that Apple either borrowed or stole them from someone else or that Apple steals many of its other features from elsewhere.
If you like the way OS-X looks and functions relax and enjoy it. Why the high-blood pressure musings of how MS Vista is doing this and copying that from OS-X? It’s not impinging on your personal character or pocketbook is it? Let Microsoft copy away - OS-X still has the strength of underlying Unix, a huge advantage. So smile and be happy! I am a Windows user but not a very devoted one. Actually looking seriously at an Intel-Mac machine in late 2006 - but sorry, my whole life doesn’t hang in the balance because of it.
“Industrial Strength” is rather too generous for a system that puts its device drivers in Kernel space and crashes along misbehaving ones (I’ve had to suffer some). “No legacy” and 21th Century is going too far for old creaky Unix (is Unix the most adequate OS for a home computer user? Is the all too common FSCK recommendation a reasonable one for maintaining a home computer).
Look, OS X can be the best personal computer OS out there right now, but that can’t hide some truths: that it is becoming incredibly crufty, that its GUI is a mess, and that it is ridiculously un-snappy at basic things like simple text editing. Tiger is so full of holes and Spotlight so limited and limiting that I’d laugh if not for the fact that I have to work with it every day. And the Finder is an utter disaster.
WinXP is terribly uneven, and I rather keep using a Mac, but there are a lot of ideas in it that makes me wish Apple started their photocopiers real now (a decent Help facility, for a start). Truth be told, Apple started photocopying them and others a long time ago. System-wide audio plug-in architecture? OS-level Web render engine API? Web browser-style Finder navigation? Copy-Paste Finder items (but no Cut-Paste, rats!)? App switch key-combo? Contextual menus? Konfabulator widgets’ look and feel (the real crux of that debate)? Watson channels in Sherlock?
Not to deny Apple’s great merit in defining the key principles of current PC GUIs, but frankly, guys, the age of innocence is way past gone.
(By the way, Vista’s skin is a provisional one. They look like they are playing with concepts until release time, and there are some very interesting ones, such as stack icons’ “thickness” expressing content quantity, or non-graphic files thumbnailing)
Vista, or more accurately, Vista’s visual UI designers are simply influenced by Mac OS X visual designers.
They are (Mac OS X designers) are the defacto style and trend setters for UI design. Not a bad place to be. A recent steal for Apple was to hire on the designer of Delicious Library, a very young, very talented guy. Yet his “style” is vastly influenced by the Mac OS X look and feel.
The reason Delicious Library is so cool is that he took the Mac OS X look and feel to the next level. Unfortuntely for Delicious Monster, he was stolen away but I look forward to him influencing the influencer.
Why doesn’t MS just hire better designers?
Why can’t GM just hire the same car designers as Ferrari or Mercedes?
Well, thankfully its just not that easy (being a designer, I’d be out of a job if it was as one-dimensional as that) A lot of it seems to be the organization: if the organization values design (and not just hires design) then the results will show beyond just the look.
Great design imbues the whole product - whether it is an Italian sports car, or an operating system. And it can’t imbue the product without being an integral part of the company.
I think Steve Jobs has set up a company that can value design at all levels - and MS just does not. We see a similiar thing happening at Samsung: they are basing their future on design, and I bet they will overtake Sony because of it.
If MS realizes the real difference between hiring a great skin designer, and re-organizing the way his software is built, designed, and validated… then Apple has a real problem.
On the Dashboard vs. Konfabulator commentary: No one really was attempting to defend Apple by saying they had no knowledge of Konfab - but were saying that they had every right to come out and say that mini-desktop applications was an Apple originated idea.
That said, its clearly a situation where Konfab extended an existing idea with a new technology: and Apple could only do something similiar (what were they to do? Build Widgets with AppleScript instead of JavaScript?).
Konfab default widgets were also yet another visual designer being vastly influenced by the original Aqua look and feel. The designer took an existing look, extended to the app’s need, and came out with something very beautiful. Dashboard widgets are thereby influenced by its own environment: the Mac OS. Let’s stop the hoohah over Dashboard being a complete rip of Konfab. it is, but only partially.
Let’s stop the hoohah over Dashboard being a complete rip of Konfab. it is, but only partially.
Yes because god forbid we acknowledge the fact that Apple actually ripped off someone else’s idea. In fact, let’s turn it around in such a way that it appears like Konfab actually borrowed from Apple. Yeah, that’s the ticket! Hell, I’m not even so sure Xerox Parc invented the GUI. I’m pretty sure I can come up with some incredible way to credit THAT to Apple as well.
Thinking…
Nope. Nathan, you do it. How can we rewrite history so that Apple actually invented the GUI. The computer. The vaccum tube. And bonus points if you can credit Steve Jobs with the invention of the wheel.
Beeb,
I sense that this whole Dashboard vs Konfabulator thing has caused you no end of pain so let us try and get to the bottom of it now so we can all move on, ok? So here and now lets list what we know:
The Idea ~ Konfabulator did not come up with the idea for having small applications that do one specific tasks. The classic Mac OS as well as various versions of Windows have both had similar things at one point or another. So, can we all stop pretending that these guys came up with this idea first? Their implementation was different but the idea is old.
The Implementation ~ Konfabulator and Dashboard aren’t the same things. They perform similar tasks but while Konfabulator is a platform Dashboard is only an extentsion of OS X’s built in systems. This is the reason Apple didn’t “do the right thing” (as it is so often said) and buy Konfabulator because the two are very different pieces of technology and it would have required a lot of work to make Konfabulator into what they wanted Dashboard to be. One can clearly see the difference by looking at the resources used in each case. Konfabulator uses quite a bit of resources, Dashboard uses next to none, why? Well, like I said before, Konfabulator is a platform upon which widgets run, Dashboard is just an extension of OS X.
The Look ~ One of the designers of Konfabulator use to work for Apple’s human interface desgin team. So, it really shouldn’t be that much of a surprise when he made something that looks like a product Apple would themselves create. What is unfair is to become upset when Apple releases a product that fits in with their theme. They have created a very specific “look” as it were to their operating system thus it shouldn’t come as any surprise that when they added a piece onto their OS they kept the same look and feel. The Konfabulator team can’t cry because Apple is designing software that looks like software designed by Apple.
Conclusion ~ The idea for Konfabulator isn’t new so Apple didn’t steal it from the Konfabulator developers. The implementation for it differs dramatically from Dashboard so Apple didn’t steal the guts of it either. And it looks like something Apple would design. And that certainly isn’t something Apple stole (since OS X came out before Konfabulator) because they are entitled to make things that fit in with OS X’s theme.
Apple made a better product than Konfabulator did. Apple followed its own interface design rules and thus created something similar. Apple created a different implementation of an old idea. None of that is illegal!
It is bad news for the Konfabulator creators because they probably won’t be able to compete on OS X anymore but given the choice between Apple making a better product and keeping the Konfabulator guys happy I choose a better product.
And Beeb, I just have one final question for you, ready cause it’s a tough one?
Apple creates a similar product (Dashboard/Konfabulator) and you are enraged, call them theives and demand that they compensate the Konfabulator team. However when Microsoft creates a similar product (Spotlight/integrated search) suddenly “clearly every GUI borrows from every other GUI” to quote you. So why the double standard? Why is Apple’s idea a rip off but Microsoft’s idea A-OK?
I sense that this whole Dashboard vs Konfabulator thing has caused you no end of pain so let us try and get to the bottom of it now so we can all move on, ok? So here and now lets list what we know:
I’ve said repeatedly that I think Dashboard is better than Konfab. My ire is with the zealous apologist Apple sycophants (like you) who jump through hoops to find the most inane defense of Apple’s blatant stealing of another idea, but who expend entire articles (like this one) because Microsoft is using a spyglass for a SEARCH ICON. That seems, as the very least, disproportionate.
That you guys refer to Windows-users as “sheep” after falling absolutely in line with every single little thing Apple tells you without so much as a question is ironic and grossly hypocritical.
In answer to your question: However when Microsoft creates a similar product (Spotlight/integrated search) suddenly “clearly every GUI borrows from every other GUI” to quote you. So why the double standard? Why is Apple’s idea a rip off but Microsoft’s idea A-OK?
Your question might be relevant if I actually did hold Microsoft to the same double-standard you do Apple. But I don’t. Microsoft steals from Apple. I’ve never claimed otherwise. You and the other blathering sycophants, however, refuse to even entertain the possibility that Apple steals from anyone else (other than in the most general sense that yes, maybe, at some point in the past, they might have borrowed someone else’s ideas, but then you will argue to the death at any specific example).
Apple’s rip off of Konfab, as I said before, improved OS X and is a better implementation of that feature. But it’s STILL OF A RIP OFF.
In the same way, Microsoft’s rip offs of OS X will improve Vista and that’s fine with me. There are features I wish Apple would rip off of Windows, and probably will at some point, like previewing images and documents inside of folders on the folder icon. And when and if they do, there’s a zero percent chance you’ll write a raving maniacal article like this one about it.
Beeblebrox, I love that you commnet so much on my friend’s site, I really do. In fact, I have finally gave up on being the most commented member here on AM.
But I don’t really appreciate your zealotry. You mask your arguments in being fair, but constantly you mention how you said this or that to fit the point your trying to make. Right now you are the cult of Breeble, and it is wearing thin.
I think you can agree, Dashboard is not a complete rip. They used the positives of Konfab (like utilizing web coding languages easily understood by many devs) but made them even better - like not needing a complete JavaScript runtime outside of the existing borwser rendering engine. They made better documentation, a better development environment, lower resource requirements, better widget management, Core Graphics capable, the list goes on.
If Konfab could do all that, AND we could prove that Apple reversed engineered some critical components of Konfab then heck yeah, we’d have an argument on copying.
To be pretty blunt, Konfab was languishing until they brought out the Windows version, and until Yahoo! bought them. I will shed no tears for a 3 person company that probably just made millions in stock and cash.
And why aren’t you yelling that the Mighty Mouse ripped off the multi-button idea? Or least the name….
That you guys refer to Windows-users as “sheep”
Point to one example of anyone but you calling Windows users sheep on this site.
I did a text search on the most commented on articles on the site and didn’t find one instance of anyone but you using the word sheep in a post (not including these last two, of course).
You know, it will be especially funny, knowing that Microsoft seems to be making Vista into an answer for Tiger, because when Vista sees the light of day, Apple will be releasing Leopard.
June 2006 at the WWDC seems like the most likely time Steve Jobs will let the world get a peek at Leopard, and if history tells us anything, I’m sure he’s waiting until then to pull out the big guns, blazing away, on an unsuspecting Vista.
The problem with Microsoft “innovation” today is that they are always looking backwards for ideas. The strategy has been to allow other companies to take the risk in introducing something new, copy the hell out of it and then put them out of business with monopoly power.
The problem is that such a strategy only works if your competitor stops innovating. But if your competition continues to relentlessly improve their products and come up with entirely new one, then the copying-after-the-fact business model ends up leaving one mired in soon-to-be-obsoleted technologies. Just look at how futile Microsoft has been trying to copy Google with MSN Search while Google has been introducing innovative things like satellite maps.
Or look at how unsuccessful Microsoft has been trying to duplicate iTMS, where it’s still trying to work the bugs out of creating a simple, seemless buying experience for digital songs while Apple has already “been there, done that” and moving into the unexplored but potentially lucrative frontier of podcasts. And how long will it be before Microsoft’s legion of programmers can get together to add podcasting support in Windows Media Player? I can probably tell you that by the time Microsoft gets around to copying that, Apple will have moved to the next frontier.
And that’s Microsoft’s problem. Apple is moving so fast that they simply can’t copy fast enough. Just look at how the intense effort to finish Vista is sucking away from all their other copying efforts. When was the last upgrade to MovieMaker? When was the last non-security patch WMP update? Is Microsoft still trying to convince us that using the XP file system is the best way to manage our photo collections as opposed to a dedicated database-oriented app like iPhoto? Microsoft still has no answer to GarageBand.
The copying-as-business-model strategy is falling apart at the seems.
So here is Microsoft, copying the hell out of Tiger. The marketing execs are probably all snickering over themselves in glee at the prospect of “beating Tiger” when Vista makes its debut in Decmeber 2006. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone if Apple manages to completely blindside Microsoft with Leopard, and the results will be like watching a semi running into a Yugo at 60 mph.
That’s what the real story will be. “Leopard Leaps Over Vista” and not “Vista Offers Answer to Tiger.”
Apple is misunderstood by so many people. I frequently hear the small minded response “I don’t like Macs”. I then ask if they have ever used one. Almost invariably they reply “No, I just don’t like them.” So you know SQUAT about them but don’t like them huh? You must be happy with what you already know and since you must be mentally lazy, you resist learning anything new. Kinda like the ostrich with his head in the ground thing.
I learned long ago that the public in general has a taste for crap. They don’t want GOOD, they want CHEAP. This is the appeal of the PC. Personally, I am not happy with Apples impending switch to Intel processors. Was anyone out there paying the least bit of attention when indepentant testing proved that a measly 60mhz PPC 601 was FASTER than a 90mhz Pentium? Why do you think Apple stayed away from Intel all these years since ‘84? Not fast enough baby. Intel chips are STILL not faster. What Apple is planning has not been noticed by many so I’ll spell it out for all of you. Surely when Apple switched from SCSI drives to IDE that should have been a clue. The Mac hardware was slowly evolving to become a PC. Same PCI bus, USB, drives, displays, memory, and the Mac ROM has gone away. Now the processor too. Mac OS will be offered to Windows PC users as a alternative to Billy Gates meager offering. Device drivers are all thats missing and they are easy to recreate. Yes, the Mac OS on your PC. Throw you Windows install CDs in the trash. You will have a REAL OS instead.
I learned long ago that the public in general has a taste for crap. They don’t want GOOD, they want CHEAP. This is the appeal of the PC.
And apparently the appeal of the Mac is that users like you get to feel superior and smarter with little more effort than buying a different consumer product than everyone else. And hey, it may be a little more expensive, but isn’t that smugness and feeling of superiority worth it?! You just can’t measure that in dollars.
Why do you think Apple stayed away from Intel all these years since ‘84? Not fast enough baby.
I guess you haven’t been paying the slightest bit of attention, but reports from the Macintel front show that the Macintels are much faster than their PPC counterparts. “But how can that be?!” you ask, since you’ve been led to believe all this time that clock speed doesn’t mean anything and that Intel chips are garbage? Simple, you’ve been lied to. Or rather, the zealots have exploited tiny little differences between systems and blown them way out of proportion.
But not to worry. Soon you’ll obediently come around and start loyally believing that PPC was the garbage and that Intel is the greatest chip ever created in the history of man. In other words, “Think different” means thinking exactly the same as every other Mac zealot.