Mary Jo Foley – ZDNet Blogs – June 11, 2007:
What struck me at the June 11 Apple Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) event wasn’t the glitzy demos, the rockstar-like worship of Apple CEO Steve Jobs or the “I’m Steve Jobs” parody video by the “I’m a PC” guy.
Instead, it was the excitement by the 5,000 WWDC attendees about many technologies in the forthcoming Mac OS X “Leopard” release that already exist in Windows Vista.
I’ve sat through countless Microsoft demos of Vista at a variety of consumer and business events. I don’t remember ever hearing thunderous applause when Microsoft showed off Flip 3D or Vista’s ability to preview thumbnails of documents. The “wows” were few and far between. Yet when Jobs put almost identical versions of these features in Leopard through their paces, there were lots of oohs and ahhs.
Here’s what Jobs’ hit list looked like to this Windows user:
1. New Leopard Desktop: Not a whole lot different from Vista’s Aero and Sidebar.
2. New Finder: Many of the same capabilities as the integrated “Instant Search” in Vista (the subsystem that Google is trying to get the Department of Justice to rule as being anti-competitive). The new Leopard Coverflow viewing capability looked almost identical to Vista’s Flip 3D to me.
3. QuickLook: Live file previews — just like the thumbnail preview capability available in Vista.
4. 64-bitness: Leopard is the first 64-bit only version of a desktop client. Vista comes in 32-bit and 64-bit varieties. And most expect Windows Seven will still be available in 32-bit flavors. Until 32-bit machines go away, it seems like a good idea to offer 32-bit operating systems.5. Core animation: Not sure what the Vista comparison is here. The demo reminded me of Microsoft Max photo-sharing application. The WWDC developers attending the Jobs keynote didn’t seem wowed with this functionality.
6. Boot Camp. You can run Vista on your Mac. Apple showed Vista running Solitaire in its WWDC demo. But I bet those downloading the 2.5 million copies of Boot Camp available since last year are running a lot of other Windows business apps and games.
7. Spaces: A feature allowing users to group applications into separate spaces. I haven’t seen anything like in in Vista, but the audience didn’t seem overly impressed by it.
8. Dashboard with widgets. Isn’t this like the Vista Sidebar with gadgets?
9. iChat gets a bunch of fun add-ons (photo-booth effects, backrops, etc.) to make it a more fully-featured videoconferencing product. The “iChat Theater” capability Jobs showed off reminded me of Vista’s Meeting Space and/or the new Microsoft “Shared View” (code-named “Tahiti”) document-sharing/conferencing subsystems.
10. Time Machine automatic backup. Vista has built-in automatic backup (Volume Shadow Copy). It doesn’t look anywhere near as cool as Time Machine. But it seems to provide a lot of the same functionality.
Nice to see True Believers come in MSoft and Mac flavors. This “review” could have been written days and weeks ago. So, the “interpretations and surprises” – aren’t.
Like “discovering” a Dashboard with widgets. What?
The only genuine surprise I’ve read was that most of the growth in attending developers came from folks who previously worked only in the Windows world. About 20% of those at WWDC.
What a complete hack of an article. So the new dock is a rip-off of the Vista sidebar, despite the fact the fact that the dock has existed since OS X 10.0?
And then there’s this:
“Some said they thought developers were let down by Jobs’ failure to discuss the geekier bits, like Leopard’s use of the ZFS file system.”
Leopard doesn’t use ZFS. Does this woman pay attention at all or just make stuff up to fill column space?
Great review. I especially the way she ends up with lambasting John C. Dvorak – “What am I missing? I’m not trying to pull a Dvorak here and use this blog post for click bait” – and links to the engadget article that calls Dvorak an opportunist.
All of the other news I’ve heard is that Apple is moving to ZFS with leopard.
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I’m no rabic mac fan but.. wow this is a bad article.
I don’t even use a Mac regularly, but I know how much bull is in that article… some examples:
1. New Leopard Desktop: Not a whole lot different from Vista’s Aero and Sidebar. Except it’s not new.. it’s just improved, and existed before Vista.
2. New Finder: Ditto.
3. QuickLook: Not “just like” the thumb view, but much more useful. However half a point here, even though it’s not a big feature.
4. 64-bitness Poor argument, especially as OSX is on Apple Hardware. Using the same logic here Windows should come in 8 and 16 bit version as embeded chips use that format all the time… doesn’t make sense.
5. Core animation: Not sure what the Vista comparison is here. Then why list it??. What a hack.
6. Boot Camp. Er… again, why is this a point. “People use this” is what the argument is here… which is sort of the point…
7. Spaces: […]I haven’t seen anything like in in Vista, but the audience didn’t seem overly impressed by it. Sooo… again, what does that have to do with the topic? Not a lot? Nothing at all?
8. Dashboard with widgets. Isn’t this like the Vista Sidebar with gadgets? Yes, Vista complied that idea from Apple who copied it from Konfabulator a few years back. Not new in Leopard.
9. iChat Again, Vista playing catchup with OSX. Not new software for Apple.
10. Time Machine automatic backup. Vista has built-in automatic backup (Volume Shadow Copy). It doesn’t look anywhere near as cool as Time Machine. But it seems to provide a lot of the same functionality. Apple has a better implementation of this, and a better UI, but neither OS is first to market with this sort of functionality.. so again.. why is this here?
So very sloppy.
I agree Gregory. Makes me sad these “reporters” don’t do any research. Having been a Mac and PC user for the last 15 years, seeing these misinformed public articles makes me more furious than the trolls that come through here with their intent to talk smack.
Who cares besides the fanboys? I am slowly but surely moving all my computers to Linux.
#6,
You kept asking “what is the point”, to which I think the point was, the author of the editorial just didn’t find anything that compelling. The specifics of the implementation just didn’t matter to her.
Also on iChat…
MS is not so much playing catch up as they are not even in the race as far as I can tell. I think 99% of computer users (and 90% of Mac users) don’t care a single iota about iChat. iChat has been around for what… 5-6 years now? still no traction at all, anywhere. Time for apple to give it up at this point. Apple shareholders should sue apple for spending money on its development at this point.
6. Sounds like you just made a case against Leopard, nothing new, so why bother? Same as most XP user say about Vista. But Macophiles will bother. Just because. Most Windows people could give a shit.
Poor article, not worth this blog’s time.
However, nice way to spike the hit count… hack.
#6 basically said it all, but I’d like to add 3 things
Core animation does (kinda) have a windows equivalent, windows presentation foundation (although this seems more like Core Image to me), so as a Windows fanboy, he fails.
Also, All these things are not new, Core Animation doesn’t do anything new, it just makes it easier and more accessible. Nothing really exists in Windows or OS X that didn’t in some way exist as an application for either, or in linux, first.
And finally, regarding 64 Bit, Leopard will be the first 32 and 64 bit operating system in that it will run off the same disc on both processors, and all the apps(I think) will take full advantage of both. Basically, Leopard will have 4 versions on the 1 disc (PPC, 64bit PPC, intel and 64bit intel). Leopard will Not be required. My 32 bit Core Duo MacBook will run Leopard just fine, as will a 64 bit G5.
I meant in Leopard 64 bit will Not be required. Sorry for the error and double post.
I’m so sick of these arguments. Mac programmers are a small community compared to MS. Mac users are a small community compared to MS. There tends to be a bond and fellowship in small communities. Extremes from both sides tend to be elitist and condescending. It’s a bloody operating system. It’s suppose to get you to a task in an efficient and pleasant way, not to heaven or nirvana. I worked just as well booting MSDOS 3.1 on an IBM XT or AppleDOS on an Apple ][. Not the Trash 80, I hated that thing. 😉
#13,
As far as I can tell the original editorial is the same point you make. There is nothinre really compelling or new in Leopard… Just like Vista.
To her it seems as if Apple is copying the “nothing really compelling or new” thing from Microsoft.
This is a little like arguing over which Soviet era, East European car was better. Who cares?
I can’t wait for the new mac users who invested a small fortune on their first MacIntels to find out that they have to rebuy ALL of their applications just because they won’t run on Leopard 🙂
17,
DITTO for Vista…
Thats the Main reason I WONT buy it… Its not even compatible with the OLD games…
As usual, you speak nonsense: http://thenewsroom.com/details/396062
#19
lol, another clueless fanboie. You just cited an Apple press release as a news item.
I cannot wait for Time Machine! Backing up will be so much fun.
Speaking of backing up data, on the 100th TwiT, which was amazing, they were talking about an external hard drive setup that did RAID automatically. What was the name of that product?
I’m also somewhat excited Spaces as I tend to have a lot of things open at once.
18. Sorry ECA your wrong about that. I dont have one legacy app that hasnt worked under Vista. Not saying there arent any. I dont care about games.
Ha! I love it when dorks duke it out!
how this person is allowed by a technology focused publication to write is beyond me, heck I can’t figure out how she ties her shoes in ther morning (probably velcrow).
The problem is, she sounds a little too much like a femail John C Dvorak, which leads me to believe that it is in fact John C Dvorak in drag. Stop laughing . . . look at her picture, John always claims you can do ‘anything’ in photoshop, and if John were to become a woman this is somewhat close to what I’d expect.
Confess John, we know what you’re up to.
I am a big fan of the ZDNET news sight, but as of late, most of the blog columnists are clueless buffoons when it comes to the topics they are commenting on. Aside from David Berland, the rest are idiots IMHO.
22,
so Office 2000 works??
She did say that she was not a Mac user and it is a blog; although she should do a little investigating first. I use both X and XP (I am waiting on Vista until my clients request it… I produce language learning software [schools are not exactly switching to Vista in droves, but X took a while as well]).
In her comments, I think she may need a little more exposure to Mac OS. That, or stop commenting on what is not known. Of course, the problem is that most of us do not know what we do not know.
They ALL copy from one another. Hell OSX is nothing but BSD UNIX with shades of SUN’s UI done a bit better. I mean they will even adopt a file system from SUN rather than make their own.
MS lifted from others was well. From DOS to Windows to crud you see in Vista that looks like OSX.
Linux distros are directly lifts of Win and Mac. Its all borrowed junk anyway. No one has done ANYTHING really NEW since DOS. They have just made it faster, easier and shinier.
Cursor_
29,
More bloted, more bells whistles, and CRAP…
In the old days the programmer borrowd from each other, or programmers went AROUND to each place, and you could see the improvements in design…
If Apple and MS ever got in the outs, with each other, can you see the lawsuits…Only differences is the shipset THEY WERE running.
Since DOS, what are you 16 years old?