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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The worst part of it is I was reading the “first look” on PCworld.com or PCmag.com or something… they actually referred to these things (smart folders, etc) as Microsoft innovations! I about shit my pants! Hell, some of the “innovations” were already in PANTHER!
Top-right search fields with a magnifying glass icon have been featured in some web browsers for years, I think. It’s not such an originalty.
Also, Smart Folders is a decades-old concept which Microsoft has been publicising about for quite a lot of time (that they have taken so long to provide an actual implementation instead of vaporware is another thing entirely). Again, what’s new?
So the stable and base features that we already have are in Beta 1 and won’t be out for at least another year. By that time we’ll have yet another FULL OS Release, not just patches.
So Microsoft is saying “Give us 1 year and we can give you what they already have now”. Fine, I’ll take that. We also get stability and security for free, where they can’t even pay for it. Now we just need to use this year to get as many as possible over to Mac. Shine bright, little iPod halo….
Oh, and the Opera browser was the first one I saw with Tabs, and that was 7 or 8 years ago. I don’t think Apple invented that.
Sean
grawr i hate having to register >_<
I don’t understand why everyone gets so “pissed off” at this. heck, I can make my winXP look exactly like the MacOS with a few themes/skins/programs if I wanted to. I’m sure you can easily skin or modify OSX to make it look like winXP if you wanted. I had a few friends that had a “MacOS” theme on their winXP machines and were able to fool quite a lot of people into thinking they had Macs (some of their reactions were hilarious.), most of them have since moved onto the Royale XP theme, which I consider is the best looking OS skin to date (I hate both the original OSX and WinXP skins—OSX looked like a one of those kids games, while WinXP looked like someone went overboard with emboss effect in photoshop)
Some of the features quoted as evidence of this copying is just plain dumb as well. Magnifying glass for a search button? I have that in windows 98. That’s like saying all cars are copies of each other because they use the same snowflake icon for the AC button -.-;
If Longhorn (I still refuse to call it Vista) has the same theme/skinability options as XP, I know I wouldn’t even care what it looks like out of the box; I’ll just customize everything to suit me. Same for OSX.
Finally, at the end of the day, I don’t even care who copies who. What matters is who does it better.
It’s not so much the “look” as it is the “feel”, though. Yes, I can make my buttons and windows look like anything I want. However, the functionality that is built into every application (i.e. the Spotlight search) is very OS X. They didn’t invent searching, and they didn’t invent putting a text box into an application. What they did do, however, was put the ability to do computer-wide and target intelligent searches, and put it in every application. The fact that they even made it LOOK the same is just arrogant.
Um. Where to begin…
And what icon did they use? A magnifying glass of course, only they flipped it around.
The magnifying glass has been a search icon in Windows for as long as I can remember. It’s in XP right now and it looks almost exactly like the icon in Vista. And the placement of it in the corner is another dubious argument since I’m looking right now at the search window in upper right corner of my Firefox browser. But I’m sure if I were to suggest the possibility that Apple stole…nah, ridiculous. Apple never, ever steals ideas.
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’m not sure if this is intentional, but you seem to by implying here that Tiger “innovated” tabbed browsing. That’s either a mistake or your reality distortion field is set to “Maximum warp.” Tabbed browsing existed long before Safari, although I don’t remember any articles about how Safari stole just about everything in it from somewhere else.
In fact, in regards to tabbed browsing and search windows, the fact is that everyone copies from everyone as certain interface features become ubiquitous. ALL browsers have “back” buttons and url windows. But someone had to be the first to invent that.
That said, there’s no question that MS steals ideas from Apple, just like there’s no question that Apple steals from others (Konfabulator anyone?). But I agree with makken. If it makes the product better, then there’s only so much I complain. Apple’s blatant stealing of Konfabulator to make Dashboard improved the OS, and as long as they didn’t take actual code but only the look-and-feel, then I begrudgingly accept it.
While I find MS’s continuing GUI “innovations” amusing, it’s the underlying structure that’s important. I’m actually happy that MS is making the Windows interface more Mac-like, just in case Apple does eventually die (although I don’t really believe it will, unless Jobs dies and can’t be replaced).
The key for me, however, is being able to fix things when they break. While having an understanding of UNIX is important for tweaking MacOS X, it’s not really necessary for fixing user issues. MacOS X’s pieces are so modular, that most issues can be fixed by replacing bits and pieces that aren’t working. The old stand-bys of deleting preferences files for offending applications still works just fine. My point is that I don’t have to attend $20K worth of certification training to keep all my Macs operating in top shape, as I had to do to keep WinNT going back in the nineties. When something doesn’t work on the Mac, it’s almost always easily fixed, sometimes with simply a reboot. When something breaks in WIndows, it’s look for an uninstaller so you can start over.
To keep my Macs up to snuff, I ALWAYS assure my directory structure is pristine before updating anything (at least Disk Utility Repair Permissions), then run DIsk Warrior and iDefrag every month or two, just in case. This regimen has NEVER failed me. It’s as simple as that.
Dave, someone really suckered you out of some perfectly good money. I haven’t spent any money on training, much less $20,000, and my XP machines run just fine.
My brother, on the other hand, had to fix his crashing dual-G5 because of bad memory. But to be fair, that wasn’t the fault of the OS and it didn’t cost him $20,000.
Sorry for any confusion regarding the tabbed browsing statement. I was not trying to indicate that Safari was the first one to come up with tabbed browsing.
As for the spotlight reference, what I found so annoying was not that MS decided to use a magnifying glass as a search icon. Rather it was that they are using it as a search icon, it looks amazing similar to spotlight, it is used for a system wide search, it is in the same location and the only real difference is that it is on the right side instead of the left (in the search field) and the glass is flipped around.
Furthermore, it is frustrating because imagine this scenario: A small company creates a web broswer called Internet Extrapolator. The icon for that program is a dark blue ‘e’ with a circle going around it starting at the top left and ending at the bottom right of the ‘e’. And, when you start it up its interface looks surprisingly familiar. So, what do you think MS would do? Lament about how everybody copies everybody else and so it’s just ok?
I think I understand where James is coming from, though I’m not certain it bothers me as much.
Win XP incorporated many Aqua-like elements, but I think Mac fans weren’t as upset because in XP large parts of it were done wrong. It overuses color so it looks more clown-like than even the first incarnations of Aqua.
Now that Apple has had some time to refinie its own Aqua controls to be more subtle, Windows is following suit. It’s only natural that some Mac fans be upset, but I see it as a fairly natural progression.
Everyone went a little nuts with the candy colors at first and now they’re stepping it back.
That said, it’s the small things I note that seem oddly similar… It’s not just that Vista uses a magnifiying glass (which is a common icon) it’s just that it look almost identical to the one used on Safari since 10.2 and all over the OS in 10.4. Ok, so maybe there are only so many ways to pixelate a magnifying glass…
But then did you notice the picture iconography next to the “Claudia” user name on the start menu? It looks eerily familiar. As a matter of fact, it appears from the screen shots that the pixel dimesions are the exact same size as user pics in OS X. I almost expect to see a butterfly, lightning bolt, dragonfly, parrot, dog, car and bird’s nest in the Vista user manager as well.
In OS X, our trash became a metal wire basket that gets paper put in it when filled. Now theirs looks the same. They could have chosen from any number of trashcan iconography… but they picked one that looks almost exactly the same.
We get transparency and a brushed metal window look… Now they are doing a similar brushed metal style.
It’s not that any one element is “owned” by Apple… and alone, it could be argued that each feature is only similar by coincidence (or natural industry convergence). But when you take the step back and look at all the little touches that Vista uses together, it’s fairly apparent that MS engineers are taking large clues from the Apple playbook.
But, as we all know from previous court cases, you can’t copyright/patent “look and feel”.
Again, I’m not as concerned. I think MS still doesn’t quite get it and tends to add to many controls, buttons and features into too small an area of real estate in their UI.
We still have a year to wait and see…
I was not trying to indicate that Safari was the first one to come up with tabbed browsing.
So you concede then that Apple stole the idea for tabbed browsing and put it in Safari.
You must have been OUTRAGED. In fact, I remember your article: Apple has “innovated” yet again with their new browser Safari. They’ve even included “tabbed browsing” a feature that Opera has had for years. And the “back” button? Puh-lease. What else is Apple going to “innovate”? Bookmarks?
Remember that, James? And remember how outraged you were about Apple’s blatantly stealing Konfabulator? Remember how you made NO excuses at ALL for that shameless rip off?
As for the spotlight reference, what I found so annoying was not that MS decided to use a magnifying glass as a search icon.
Again, Windows has used the magnifying glass as a search icon for years.
And clearly every GUI borrows from every other GUI. In fact, almost every Linux GUI I’ve seen is an almost direct copy of Windows 95/XP, even the commercial products. But Microsoft hasn’t sued them over it, even though MS isn’t exactly sympathetic to the Linux cause.
In OS X, our trash became a metal wire basket that gets paper put in it when filled. Now theirs looks the same. They could have chosen from any number of trashcan iconography
Now that one I did notice and I basically shook my head. It’s almost identical. At the very least it adds fuel to the fire for users who constantly accuse them of ripping off the Mac, even when most of those claims are dubious.
But if that counts as a rip off, then I go back once again to how anyone could possibly defend Apple over Konfabulator after comparing their widgets to Dashboard widgets. And yet Mac fanatics how gone far out of their way to argue almost as if Apple never even heard of Konfab and developed Dashboard completely on its own based on Desktop accessories from 20 years ago.
Tabbed windows weren’t a brower innovation orginally. Someone here mentioned Opera, but they just got the idea from other applications that used tabs for documents within windows (instead of the one window per document idea). So, it can’t really be claimed that Opera invented the concept either. They may have been the first to use it in a web brower (though I’m not certain on that point), which was then picked up by the Mozilla developers, etc…
All web browsers are descendents of Tim Berners-Lee’s first browser app built on none other than the NeXT cube using the built in developer’s toolkit… So why don’t we call it a day and just give him the credit for the whole browser thing, tabbed or not.
I guess what I’m saying is the “who invented it first” is not really the debate here. 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.
On a little tangent, does it annoy anyone else that Firefox “close tab” X’s aren’t on the tab itself but always to the far right? You always have to double check that you’re closing the correct tab. Safari at least got that part right.
GUI stuff typically gets introduced broadly by many developers across a broad range of applications and finds its way into operating systems through common usage supported by positive reviews and feedback. Neither Apple nor Microsoft invented these ideas, just implemented them in an OS. The really important point to make here is that Mac OS X is a UNIX based operating system, and Windows is not. UNIX has a long track record in many areas of superior performance and security that MS is just not going to be able to match. The Mac GUI makes it easy to use, unlike my SUN workstation with the Terminal command line I use at the office. So get over the Vista interface, it’s still Windows. And Tiger or whatever comes next is still UNIX, and that’s what sets it apart.
As you pointed out, Windows has been on the 5 years behind the Mac plan since the beginning of personal computing age - whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is your personal call.
For any Windows user who doesn’t believe it - you’ll notice that the wonky/leaky Win XP is based on Mac OS 8 and OS 9 - when Apple was at its lowest ebb - then in 2000, OSX, the industrial strength OS for the 21st century came along ... and sure enough 5/6 years later, here comes MS’s attempt at an industral strength/written from the ground up/no legacy (ie: Classic) OS ... coming in 2006. Right on time ... well, if you use a sundial like MS.