Dear God, the worst headline ever! But yeah, I promised Christoffer Alm I would tell him in no unsure terms why I think Windows Vista likes goats, and by golly here we go (screenshots from Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows, where you will find not only more screenshots, but also Paul’s insightful commentary on the status of Windows Vista Beta 2):
First of all, I don’t hate the transparent windows as much as some people; I do think they make the feel of the UI a bit lighter. That said, I can also understand why they need to add a hefty dropshadow to outline the window… But the sight of an almost fully transparent pane of glass with such a strong dropshadow just feels off. Also, check out the accessibility icon… Ehm… Not very accessible, is it?
Bonjour much? (Fair enough, it’s about damn time the Windows crowd gets a taste of the sweet nectar of zero-config networking, but then hey, buy a Mac and you won’t have to wait for Vista).
No, the media player button needs to be MORE like OS X’s aqua interface. No, no you’re right, we can’t just rip it off… Alright, make it tastelessly blue. I mean supernaturally so! Great! Oh, and add sharing support to your library, cuz iTunes also has that…
Now I know all of this is beta and all, but holy Christ on a skateboard going downhill in San Francisco, that is one fugly Start Menu.
Forget about the transparent windows for a minute, this is a usability travesty! Not only is this an Exposé rip-off (come on, it’s SO a rip-off), but it’s called (help me now!) Flip 3D!… Flip… 3-fucking-D… Not to evangelize, but I do think Steve Jobs said it best. Either way, here’s a pretty crappy video of Flip 3D, it was the best I could do just now.
So what’s wrong with Flip 3D then? Well, I’ll tell you. the brilliance of OS X’s Exposé is that when you activate it, all your windows slide away from each other, revealing not only their entire content, but also showing you the absolute number of open windows. What Flip 3D does is pile up all you windows into a stack, which you’re then shown in an orthogonal view where each window is slightly offset from the other and you can then scroll back and forward through the strack.
There are two major problems with this, in comparison with Exposé and a single advantage. First of all the windows, despite being spaced out a bit, do cover up each other quite a bit, so you’re reliant on recognizing your windows either by a fraction of its surface or by scrolling it to the front, which of course takes time. Secondly, and this is much much worse, the on-screen stack contains only a certain number of windows at any given time, maybe 15 or so. So say you have 30 windows open, you have to scroll through the first 15 to get to the other 15. Bang, you just lost your overview. And to add insult to injury, the stack scrolls infinitely, so you alsbo just lost your spacial awareness.
Dang.
There is one advantage though, as Joen recently pointed out to me, Flip 3D does allow you to have 4000 windows open and still cope with it… Sorta.
It’s still in beta, but do you think it’ll turn around? I sure as hell don’t. In fact I think Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot big time, and despite having eagerly followed the progress of Vista, it seems they just can’t catch a break.
Update: Following Paul Thurrott’s outburst about me having ‘stolen’ his screenshots (and the ensuing discussion), he was kind enough to clarify some of my points on his ‘Internet Nexus‘ site, and I would like to just take the chance to respond in full here.
[…] he has the balls to rip off my screenshots, describe them as being “supplied” by me (as if worked together on this project), and then spells my name wrong. Grr.
An unfortunate choice of word(s) and a stupid error on my part. Both have been rectified.
2. People Near Me is not Bonjour, sorry. It’s about setting up ad-hoc wireless meetings without a nearby wireless network, using just the wireless cards in your laptops.
From what you’re saying and what the text in the screenshot says, it’s basically an amalgamation of OS X’s Create Network and Bonjour, yes?
3. WMP 11’s visual display is far nicer than anything in iTunes’ dBASE III-era UI.
By visual display I’m guessing you mean interface? I’ll grant you as much as WMP11’s interface uses album covers in its browser, which is something iTunes should have had a looong time ago. Mind you, I used WMP for a few years up until iTunes was released for Windows (back when I was still on PC), and by and large it works pretty well. Among other things it has a nice little feature where, if you seperate multiple artists with commas, it will recognize them as being different artists. Take heed Apple!
4. The new Start Menu is far more usable than that of XP, sorry. And if you want, you can configure it to your heart’s content.
I wasn’t talking usability, I was talking fugliness. Big difference. As I said to Blake:
Don’t mistake layout for ugliness factor. I do think the XP start menu was a step up from 9x, but the current beta start menu (which I don’t think they will ship with) is just plain ugly. The colors or bad, the spacing is bad, the portrait which sticks out and is glass-like… It’s just bad. #
Back to Paul.
5. Flip3D is absolutely not an Expose rip-off. Flip3D and Expose do two completely different things. If anything, Flip3D is far more limited. It’s just a more graphical way of switching apps (used to be ALT-TAB). That’s it. Nothing more.
Two different things, eh? Damn, I must be using Exposé wrong, I could have sworn it was pretty good at being a graphical way of switching apps…
6. Oh, and you ripped off my screenshots and had the gall to add them to your Flickr site. Please remove them, thanks. —Paul
The above text was also copied and pasted from your site with a credited link telling readers where I got it… Tell me, is that also ripping you off? Or is there a distinction between the text and the images you publish? I’ll just go right ahead and steal some content from myself then:
Since you have no permalinks to the individual images, the only other option I have is linking directly to the individual image, but then you’d be over here talking about bandwidth theft. #
Maybe I should have just taken a screenshot of the screenshot in the browser window, then where would we be?
Things that make you hmmmmm…..
Why is it that every application in the start menu except I.E. and Outlook has Windows in the name? Hmmmmm?
EDIT: That would be every application except I.E.
Hmmmmm?
Regarding Microsoft, Windows Vista, WinFX and so on and on… I personally think, you are right. This piece of crap won’t make it. And that means, it’ll be a really big time failure, after all that years of promises and waiting. And when the waiting is over (probably next year, right?), everyone will be euphoristic… “Wow, look at those new icons” and “Yeah, I got new games on my machine”, but there will not be any “value” to the market. I mean, face it, Vista is becoming more and more a super-polished rip-off of WinXP, since everything it brings are new applications (and icons and themes), but essentially nothing new to the core of the OS. And this is major! So, all I have to say: “Good luck, Microsoft!”
Hey, at least they didn’t put lens flare on the edge of the windows. There was a point where I was worried they would do that.
The Start Menu does look awful and I don’t like the way it stays looking like that and the menus don’t open up as they do in XP. That just seems stupid to me. Why would I want to scroll through a box when I could look down a list?
Having never used OSX I can’t really comment on any feature copying. If I have Vista then I’ll probably set it to Classic like I do with XP.
When you have to add a bit of white blur under the window title text so that it can actually be read on a light desktop background, you know that transparent windows may not have been that good an idea in the first place…
Well well now.
I’m glad you quoted my inferior defence of Flip 3D, but I’d like to add one tiny thing: I think Flip 3D is a good alternative to Alt Tab, which is still there. And Alt Tab is improved (meaning it’s now got a tiny preview), if I’m not mistaken.
Well, I won’t defend Windows Vista (even though I’m an avid Windows user). In fact, I agree with you.
In short, I’m with you on this, and I’m not particularly excited about Windows Vista.
Even so, I still prefer Windows over MacOSX any day of the week. Some of the reasons I have elaborated on before. Some reasons have little to do with Windows, or Mac for that matter. Some reasons are possibly due to ignorance, i.e. I haven’t yet found that missing feature in OSX, but I’m sure you’ll correct me in these cases).
Some reasons:
What the hell? DOS had this, Windows 3.0 had this (possibly 2 had also, but I never tried that one).
Oh, and don’t give me that Pseudo full-screen crap, the “plus” button behaves inconsistently, and fullscreen isn’t fullscren until borderchrome is gone.
Does mac have an equivalent?
What, it’s an arrow in the dock? Or is it in the Apple menu or what?
Argue all you want, but this bugs me.
These are my most pressing issues. Now what makes me different from the regular OSX flamer?
1: I despise Windows (but I despise OSX more).
2: I REALLY like aspects of OSX (huge simplicity systemwide, lots more)
3: I love the hardware and that I can run windows on it. If it wasn’t for OSX, I’d be a potential switcher.
Please keep the above 3 in mind when responding to me.
Now what’s really important in an OS (and what I would like to see added/removed from XP / Vista / OSX):
I hate that my Windows has a halflife. I hate that I do not try new programs because if I have to uninstall them, they’ll still leave an imprint.
Dos could rename with wildcards… why can’t Windows?
Can also be relieve using software, but it shouldn’t have to.
Bottomline: To me it’s not so much about what’s cool in Vista or about Flip3D. It’s that a new OS is coming, one that hopefully sucks less than XP (and hence, to me, much less than OSX).
All that gloss is making me nauseous..
I feel this is an overreaction on your part, Michael. The design is quite friendly and lightyears beyond the XP look – perhaps lacking in neutrality, but it could’ve been worse. My major gripe is that Vista isn’t revolutionary enough – it just looks and feel like a somewhat updated version of XP.
I’ve downloaded the public beta of vista from microsoft but so far i’ve not bothered to try it. What surprised me is the Minimum recommended specs given by Microsoft for Vista.
800 MHz processor.
512 MB of RAM.
A 20 GB hard drive with 15 GB of free space.
and a GFX card with 128Meg ram and pixel shader 2 support if you want Aero.
That’s quite a hefty requirement for just an operating system alone.
Anyone remember trying to run Windows XP on a machine that only just met it’s minimum specs?
Guys, I prefer Linux than Windows, if it were not for my PC only gaming, windows would be long gone from my workstations. Having said that Win2K is a decent OS, I much prefer it to the cartoony WinXP.
I thought I can stay with win2k “forever” but no… the almighty windows marketing machine “twisted” the arms of game developers to stop supporting win2k (yes, to a certain extent, all of ya who voluntarily bought WinXP also caused me pain, but on the flip side, most of the people out there do not have the choice, the cartoony (did I mention that already??) XP came with every new machines sold.
So, it doesn’t matter if you like Vista or not, MS will cram it down our throat anyways. Unless enough people wake up and realize that they (as buyers) have the power to fend of brutish practices from MS. But I won’t hold my breath for that to happen.
Like Will said, it doesn’t matter how good or bad Vista is, as M$ know that most of their current customers will upgrade just because it’s an upgrade, and as well all know, upgrade = better in the hive mind.
Still, the more like OSX windows gets, the better. Personally, I use XP at home, and that’s got nothing to do with the actual operating system itself, simply that if you’re building your own PC, it’s either that or Linux, and Linux doesn’t support enough software out of the box to make it worthwhile.
In Italian Vista actually means “view” ;-)
Speaking about Vista I don’t really what to think. I tried the Beta and it doesn’t impress me at all. Probably because of the slow hardware or the “all new cutting edge feature” that I happily use on my Mac since 2003.
I’m a Windows user, always have been (well since DOS anyway). I’m with Michael on this though.
I hated the cartoon interface of XP and have always used the classic interface. I’ve not played with Vista yet, and frankly I don’t want to. Everything I’ve seen and heard about it makes me want to use it less and less.
The next time I buy a computer it will be a Mac. It will be my first Mac and hopefully not my last.
As for Will’s comment about MS cramming Vista down our throats, I don’t see how they can. The only way they’d get me to buy Vista is for games, and since I refuse to spend money on cutting edge components any longer that’s not going to happen. I’ll be getting myself a Wii instead.
“but then hey, buy a Mac” – I did, today. Ever so slightly excited :-)
Vista looks a bit messy to me, but I’d need to use it for a while to really decide.
“The design is quite friendly and lightyears beyond the XP look”
All that proves is that the XP look really sucks. And since I’m typing this on a computer running Windows XP Professional, I’m testifying from firsthand experience.
—R.J.
Things that make you hmmmmm…..
Why is it that every application in the start menu except I.E. and Outlook has Windows in the name? Hmmmmm?
EDIT: That would be every application except I.E.
Hmmmmm?
Because they couldn’t think of another word to replace “My” and they knew, damnit they just knew it had to change.
As an aside, I’ve never really minded the standard Windows XP interface. It’s not great (on my home PC I replaced it with Flyakite), but I’m quite happy to sit at work and use it all day.
“The design is quite friendly and lightyears beyond the XP look”
All that proves is that the XP look really sucks. And since I’m typing this on a computer running Windows XP Professional, I’m testifying from firsthand experience.
—R.J.
Lightyears beyond the XP look is actually not bad, even if I agree with you that the blue Luna skin (or indeed all bundled XP skins) is nothing short of appallingly ugly. But that’s the problem with skins… creating a skin that’s timeless, i.e. stands the test of several months of use, is not easy. I’m not saying the new look is timeless, in fact, that velour thing they’ve got going on in the glass is going to bite them in their ass when people start turning off the transparency. Even so, the look IS a LOT better than Luna.
In my honest opinion, Windows XP “Classic style” (the Windows 2000) look, was pretty good and timeless. Even if it doesn’t look as spiffy as OSX, sometimes I think it’s better.
Why is the Vista start menu “fugly” in your opinion? It looks okay to me, but I guess that I am part of a small minority of your readers that actually likes the default winXP start menu. Sure, it took some getting used to, but after a while everything that I used most was easily accesible, and I never have to minimize all my windows to get to “My Computer” or “My Documents”. This alone makes it a strong improvement over the win2k inteferace.
Am I the only Apple user who’s disappointed that Vista looks like it won’t be particularly exciting? I really want Windows to add value in terms of usability and features.
I want there to be multiple operating systems that are each really good, and I want Apple to play catch-up and be forced to innovate, and when I take a job in an office running Vista, I want it to work impressively well.
A less feature-competitive Vista just means that Apple will remain satisfied with, for example, the Dock, which isn’t particularly great, or the lack of a full-screen mode — those are two good points made by Joen, above.
I’d like to see a post on the features of Vista that are actually cool. How’s the Sidebar, for example? I haven’t used it, but it seems like you can have the sidebar always show on the desktop, Stattoo style. That sounds handy.
If you’re going to steal my screenshots, at least spell my name right: It’s “Thurrott.” Also, please remove my screenshots from your site. You don’t have permission to republish them here. Thanks,
Paul
pwned by the Paul. :D
Paul is a tool. He sold his iMac because he wanted to dual-boot Windows, then Boot Camp came out like a week later. He acts like he uses Macs and has some balanced opinion, then he makes flamebait statements meant to piss Apple users off.
Yeah, have fun waiting until next year for a minor update to your six year old operating system, Paul. I’ll be using Leopard. Microsoft is a deflated relic from the 90s trying hard to ape Apple’s hip design.
You know, the default Luna interface in Windows XP interface was pretty gaudy, which is why I always switch to Silver when I set up XP. Vista right off the bat is a lot nicer, but there’s still something about which screams “LOOK AT ME!!! LOOK AT HOW COOL I AM!!!” Leave it Microsoft to think that shouting “I’m cool” actually makes you cool. It’s the opposite.
Mac OS X started out brilliant but slightly gaudy, and it’s since been refined into something very tasteful, elegant, and understated. In fact, OS X basically says “Look at how cool you are. Look at how cool your creative endeavors are.” Now THAT is something I like.
One thing I’m certain of: first thing I’ll do when I get Vista is turn of that dang translucent glass. Ugh.
Jared
If you’re going to steal my screenshots, at least spell my name right: It’s “Thurrott.” Also, please remove my screenshots from your site. You don’t have permission to republish them here. Thanks,
My apologies for misspelling your name, having a slightly off last name myself I’ve also had it misspelled on numerous occasions.
Since there is no artistic involvement on your side with these screenshots, I’ll keep them where they are for the time being.
Paul is whining like a little girl about those screenshots. How amusing. Nice of you to correct the spelling of his name, though.
I LOVE WINDOWS VISTA…
Paul is whining like a little girl about those screenshots. How amusing. Nice of you to correct the spelling of his name, though.
It’s not whining, Jeffrey, it’s just a simple matter of content theft. But hey, at least he pretends to be polite while doing it.
Take your own screen shots instead of copying someone else’s. It doesn’t have to be art to be protected from unauthorized redistribution.
Just quit comparing Vista with MacOSX, Vista is far more visual than OSX, sorry, it will be better than OSX, sorry, it will beat OSX. Windows rules now and will rule tomorrow.
And Paul: way to go! http://www.internet-nexus.com/
typical M$ they release something and only catch up. While most mac users have been using vista capabilitis for 3 years. Windows users suffer from the “beatin windows sindrome”. Like ei7 . The add for that should be “Look suckers we finally got it”. Vista wont even be fully functional till 2008, I develop on it,lol. Keep buying M$ lemmins we love it.
LOL. That’s why there are so much mac users. O_o
I just realized the point you are trying to make is that Vista is a shoddy rip-off of Mac OS X. To prove your point, you rip-off someone else’s screen shots then act like a jerk about it. Is it ironic, or simply immature?
Paul is whining like a little girl about those screenshots. How amusing. Nice of you to correct the spelling of his name, though.
Oh come on and grow up. Paul is making a living as a journalist and is dependent on his credibility. Using his screenshots without asking and then falsely claiming he supplied them is just very bad style. So i think him asking for them to be removed is pretty ok.
The Vista-bashing is pretty old stuff, but hey, go over to Paul’s site and start reading some of his articles instead of just using his screenshots. Might learn something… :-)
The rest of your site.. nice ;)
[blockquote removed]
It’s not whining, Jeffrey, it’s just a simple matter of content theft. But hey, at least he pretends to be polite while doing it.
In much the same way that you are pretending to be a real prick right now? Or am I reading you wrong?
I don’t consider screenshots of a non-costumized window on a non-costumized background in a product you haven’t had a hand in developing to be unique content in any way form or manner. Hell, even if you had been a part of the Vista development, I would still consider Vista screenshots fair game in much the same way that I would never expect any screenshot I put on this site to be protected in any way.
Had I been mocking you or ‘stolen’ your screenshots without credit I could perhaps have understood your reaction. And had you even asked politely I would have thought about it. But gosh darnit, I do hate me some rudeness.
Theft is when you remove something from someone else’s possession. Obviously what I’ve done is ‘credited content duplication’. Since you have no permalinks to the individual images, the only other option I have is linking directly to the individual image, but then you’d be over here talking about bandwidth theft.
And really, me linking to you before you came in here acting all crazy, probably favored you and your position as a Windows Supersite much more so than it does now.
But maybe that’s just me.
wtf is up with the white corners on the start menu?
“New modern Rounded corner look*”
*when using white wallpaper only.
Paul: Take a hike, you just pressed “printscreen” a couple of times.
wtf is up with the white corners on the start menu?
I think it’s a beta-glitch. If they retain the current look of the start menu, it will definitely be gone for final.
Even so, I still prefer Windows over MacOSX any day of the week. Some of the reasons I have elaborated on before. Some reasons have little to do with Windows, or Mac for that matter. Some reasons are possibly due to ignorance, i.e. I haven’t yet found that missing feature in OSX, but I’m sure you’ll correct me in these cases).
I’d actually like to stick to a minimum of OS X vs. Vista in-so-far as I haven’t tried Vista at all, so it would be an unfair fight for both parties. That said, I do think your expectations for the fullscreen to act the way it does in Windows is what is making it hard for you to accept the way it works in OS X. What it does is make OS X windows feel less ‘locked’, as you can always move them even when they’re ‘fullscreen’.
I don’t even think about it any more, and I honestly don’t really miss it either. But to each his own of course.
What surprised me is the Minimum recommended specs given by Microsoft for Vista.
I’ve gotta admit that this doesn’t bother me in the slightest. People need to stop expecting miracles on machines that’re 5+ years old.
In Italian Vista actually means “view” ;-)
I know, that’s why I chose the title ;)
As an aside, I’ve never really minded the standard Windows XP interface. It’s not great (on my home PC I replaced it with Flyakite), but I’m quite happy to sit at work and use it all day.
Looks-wise I tend to agree (with the silver style, which is the only thing I can use). But usability-wise there’s a lot lacking. I personally can’t stand the classic style; it almost makes me nauseous.
Blake Johnson said :
Why is the Vista start menu “fugly” in your opinion? It looks okay to me, but I guess that I am part of a small minority of your readers that actually likes the default winXP start menu. Sure, it took some getting used to, but after a while everything that I used most was easily accesible, and I never have to minimize all my windows to get to “My Computer” or “My Documents”. This alone makes it a strong improvement over the win2k inteferace.
Don’t mistake layout for ugliness factor. I do think the XP start menu was a step up from 9x, but the current beta start menu (which I don’t think they will ship with) is just plain ugly. The colors or bad, the spacing is bad, the portrait which sticks out and is glass-like… It’s just bad.
I want there to be multiple operating systems that are each really good, and I want Apple to play catch-up and be forced to innovate, and when I take a job in an office running Vista, I want it to work impressively well.
I simply could not agree more! Well said!
I LOVE WINDOWS VISTA…
… Okay :)
Having seen these feuds escalate before, I’m going to go ahead and close down the comments on this entry for the time being. Also I’ve got no real interest in providing a ‘back alley’ for ‘types’ from either side of the fence to come and do their shady mud-slinging business in.
Paul, while you may think I was pretending to be polite, I do like to think a little higher of people than that. Except for you of course, since you have shown yourself to contain neither tact, nor measure. Expecting instead people to have the worst intentions towards you instead of the best. You should try honey rather than vinegar next time.
Once I’ve got some more time on my hands I’ll probably look into replacing the shots, not because I give a flying hoot about Paul and his temper, but because I find myself not wanting to be associated with him after all.
After a short cooling-off period, I have opened up for comments again. Please keep it civil, regardless of your stance. I generally do not delete comments unless they’re offtopic, but I will place comments with an overtly aggressive stance into the moderation queue.
Having installed Vista onto a 2.2Ghz P4 just today I can, hand on heart, say that it is a step up from XP in most departments, but it is a step down in others.
The big issue for me is this “glass” nonsense. I’m sorry but after opening my standard compliment of programs and windows I was left with a mighty headache trying to find the right toolbar buttons to hit and just checking I had the right window selected was more awkward than it should have been.
The Flip 3d thing is a poor attempt at remaking Expose and trying too hard at concealing the fact. It’s too slow to start working and really not needed, you have the good ol’ Windows start bar at the bottom which tells you what windows you have open, unlike OS X’s dock which just gives you the program, and Expose fills the gap on OS X just fine, infact it has become my staple way of switching from program to program, window to window.
Media Center was the one thing I was looking forward to, MCE 2005 is good but lacks in a few areas, and Vista doesn’t really make up for it and in turn ruins the clean look that MCE 2005 had.
There are 4 computers in the house, one which runs OS X (my Mac Mini), my MCE machine running 2005, and a laptop and pc of my parents. The bill to upgrade the 3 Windows based PCs to Vista was going to be around £800 and that doesn’t include the hardware changes on my dad’s pc to give it the same level of performance it has under XP under Vista. And really unless anything major changes I don’t see the £800 going to MS I see it going to Apple for a Mac Mini for my dad and the rest staying in the bank.
Michael, flip 3d (ugh, that name) is not a crappy expose. It’s got everything in common with the regular alt-tab switcher and nothing in common with expose, other than the live-preview thing, which is the natural evolution of the icon preview in alt-tab when you have hardware-based scaling and compositing.
Linking to screenshots that Paul created is theft in as much as he spent the time installing the build, setting up the whole environment to be able to get the screenshot, taking the screenshot, uploading/publishing the screenshot. If you want to have a hissy fit as you seem well capable of doing, then fine, but if you’re so bothered about providing information on the Vista Beta, at least put half an ounce of effort into doing something.
I vote for the screenshot of the browser with the screenshot loaded. Then you at least went through the effort of installing your browser, browsing to the site and hitting the screenshot button, uploading and writing about it.
I feel like I can offer a fairly balanced opinion about Windows and OSX as I use them both extensively on a daily basis. I personally think that Microsoft has done a lot lately to impress me, product wise. The Xbox 360 is a gem. From the UI to Live, it has really set the bar high and it will be a daunting task for Nintendo and Sony to knock them off the perch.
Office 2007 is also really impressive to me for a beta. I think the new ribbon UI is highly intuitive and while it takes time getting used to, I believe it is the best version of Office to date.
But this post is about Vista, so I will comment on Vista now. I have installed beta 2 on my work machine and after using it for some time I really believe it has promise. There were a number of bugs that made it impossible to run it full time, but I’m not going to complain much aout bugs in a beta. I want to focus on how I feel about Vista versus OSX.
I believe both operating systems have their advantages. When I see the die-hard Mac people claiming that Vista is a blantant ripoff of OSX I wonder how they draw that conclusion. There are definitely features similar to OSX in Vista. But OSX borrowed the idea of fast user switching from XP.
For the most part I really like the Vista UI. Some of the icons I really detest, but I like the aero look and feel. In fact I believe that with all of the eye candy in Vista, it is prettier than OSX in my opinion. This of course isn’t really that important to me. I am just saying that if you like eye candy, Vista has a lot of it.
I have 2 iPods and have hated all versions of WMP until 11 which is what will ship with Vista and as a stand alone. I now have stopped using iTunes in lieu of WMP11. They have really made it a top notch player.
The one thing about OSX I really like is that there are so many talented artist types working on Macs that most software really seems to have a lot of care when it comes to the UI and functionality. I do get frustrated sometimes with the sheer number of windows that I have to open in OSX that I can seem to do with less in Vista or XP for that matter.
And there are many applications on XP that there just isn’t an application on the Mac side that does it all. The opposite is certainly true as well. iLife is an amazing package to be bundled. There definitely is nothing like that for Windows, and despite there being some nicely upgraded apps in Vista, they don’t hold a candle to iLife.
I don’t think I will be able to be a full time switcher at least at home until application support surpasses XP/Vista. The one thing many Mac people don’t consider is that when you have a product that owns such a huge amount of marketshare, it is foolish to write off that entire market segment. So many developers will choose Windows as their primary development platform for that reason alone. Plus, I haven’t seen an IDE on OSX yet that compares to the latest version of Visual Studio.
I think you have some valid gripes Michael. I think the Flip-3D thing is a complete waste. To me it seemed to be added just to add more style with no substance. About the only thing I thought was sorta neat was you can click any of the titled images when you are flipping through them and it will take you directly to that application, but how useful is that?
To be honest I wish I could have a lot of the functionalities of both operating systems in a single one. But I know that isn’t possible so I will continue to have both at home and used my switchbox often. :)
Thanks for posting your thoughts Michael, it was a interesting read.
On a side note, I can remember (in the good old days) when you got hold of a public beta of Windows XP and was hyped over how cool this new OS from Microsoft was. I remember you even sending me a bunch of screenshots showing the new parts that you liked (you really like the screen dimming to black and white when opening the switch user window ;-).
So, even if you probably won’t admit it now caugh you thought that XP was the first really good OS from Microsoft. Of course, that was like 100 years ago – and nowadays when you got your Macs running OS X you couldn’t care less about XP or its interface, which is understandandble.
I don’t run XP because I like it, I run it because it’s the only OS which lets me does all things need to and want to do. I think OS X looks really swank, and I would gladely switch if there were more games or support for games – which may come true soon now that its running on the Intel architecture.
But for now, I’ll just have to stick with XP. Which is fine by me. I’ll probably give Vista a whirl soon too, just to see if I like it – or not.
I would like to make a commment on my earlier post. I am a windows developer so whatever Microsoft produce i will develope for that platform as that is my job. Like it or not, windows is my future.
i should have been more clear about my comment about the minimum specs of windows.
I have an old G3 imac here and the latest version of OSX will run on this machine without a problem. Try running windows on a machine of the same age and you will have an OS that takes 20 minutes to boot up.
Personally i would like to see Micrsotft produce a cutting edge os but i just don’t see that happening. To me an OS is something that allows me to use the computers hardware to it’s potential. If i want to do something on that pc i will buy the software to do it.
As for using the Vista screenshots on this post i think micheal is ok, as claiming screenshots as your property is stupid. given microsofts history, any screenshots of vista are property of microsoft so claiming ownership of them is pointless anyway.
Having used about 90% of operating system on the market i would say that no one system is the answer. All systems have hier good and bad points. it’s just a matter of choosing what works for you.
Closing comments down with the reason that things might escalate is a strange move if you ask me. When an Apple-user as big as Michael posts negative things about a Microsoft OS, you’re pretty much asking for things to get hot.
So basically, by starting this whole thread, you should be ready for some criticism and not get all defensive and stubborn when asked to remove screenshots you didnt make.
Getting back on track, I’m sure that Apple too has “borrowed” things and ideas from other companies when making their operating systems…including Microsoft. I’ve tried Beta2 and it runs wonderfully on my rig at home. Much better than any XP/2000 installation i’ve ever done. Stable, fast and more user-friendly.
All the gloat and eye-candy is a natural development in the OS business. Dont forget that a huge percentage of Windows users are home users who are not computer experts. And why not make it look more attractive to this target group just like Mac OSX does in a way? All the “geeks” will know how to remove the eyecandy and customize their Vista installation anyway.
Closing comments down with the reason that things might escalate is a strange move if you ask me. When an Apple-user as big as Michael posts negative things about a Microsoft OS, you’re pretty much asking for things to get hot.
There’s hot and there’s ugly. I don’t mind hot, but nobody likes ugly.
Oh for sure, though I will wager that their innovation to inspiration quotient is considerably better than that of Vista, which was one of my points. I want to see Vista do well, as Apple could easily end up in a reactionary position, like Microsoft, if they aren’t challenged.
It’s just “dangerous” to post a thread like this, when the subject is about Apple vs. MS. You can be 100% sure that people from both camps will argue that their OS is the better one. Thats why i dont quite get why comments were closed and then reopened the next day. If one ugly post appears, then i’ll understand.
And I must say, it’s clear that you with a somewhat snobby and stubborn attitude, started this feud with Paul (grabbing screenshots + the way you replied when he confronted you with it). But I guess you wont let a Windows guy tell you what you can or cant do :-)
I think I’ve explained my stance in full in both the updated entry and the comments above. That you read it as being snobby and stubborn is unfortunate, but I guess I can’t win them all.
Full credit was given, linking back to Paul’s article. How does that differ from qouting a piece of writing? Had I quoted Paul’s writing, should I then have taken down that quote on his request?
The danger by the way, doesn’t lie in Apple vs. MS. I’ve had many civilized debates both here and other places on that subject. The problem lies in people who aggressively antagonize others simply because they’re behind a keyboard.
Because with sleep and work, I’m out of it for a good long while, and I don’t want to see my blog get turned into a mud-slinging area behind my back.
As I’ve already explained.
Well we obviously have different views on how ugly things need to get before it’s no longer in a civil tone.
I am getting so amazingly tired of these debates.
1) It’s rare to objectively prove that one choice or another is “better usability”
2) Most of the debaters are people who are so deeply trained in one or another gui system that what makes most sense to a newbie is deeply irrelevant. Most of these points are entirely moot after an action has been performed a few hundred times.
3) The few things that can subjectively be proved to be better usability by some widely accepted standards (like time it takes to perform an action), are old hat because we have already read them in a thousand debates (such as Fitts law backing that the apple menu placement is faster to use).
4) Rarely are any of the arguments people come up with backed by actual research, but rather seems to be the results of afterrationalization of their habit-based preferences.
Like trying to prove it’s better to put the window control buttons on either side of the window.
5) It is so god damned irrelevant what is objectively better if one finds something subjectively better and is happy to use it.
Personally, I find Finder to be the worst piece of crap file manager, but I am not seriously going to argue to a mac owner that they are by some objective metric wrong for liking it better than, say, directory opus.
6) There is a smugness among even adult, intelligent mac os x owners that is so amazingly tiresome (like claiming that flip 3d is a bad ripoff of expose) that even though I believe mac os x to be the nicer, better operating system, I become quite annoyed at them.
The whole mac vs pc debate is so unbelievably pointless. Crying about PCs ripping off mac ui ideas is kind of retarded when you are comparing two OSes that owe 99% of their usability ideas to other, forgotten systems.
On the mac side, it smacks of mac owners being afraid of losing their precious differentness.
Arguing that button placement is better in windows because you are used to windows is also retarded and seems like you just have to nitpick about some irrelevant, highly subjective detail because you are jealous that mac os x currenly looks considerably more high tech than Windows.
Why not admit that most of what you are saying is just your own preference? Isn’t that good enough? Are your egos so frail that you can’t just be satisfied with “I like x better than y”, but need to make it into “according to these universal axioms, my preference is better than yours”?
I’d love these discussions if people could actually provide some kind of interesting reference material to back up their tired claims, so I could learn something.
Personally, I’d prefer to throw the entire lot of current OS’ and their nearly non-existant differences out the door, and go for an entirely different basic operating paradigm. That would be my preference.
Oh, and incidentally, who the fuck cares that Windows media player makes a bigger, centered play/pause button?
Yes, it exists in itunes, but itunes probably got it from someone elses design of a VCR front panel.
Apparently, it works and makes sense to people, so why the hell should microsoft decide to “innovate” something else? That would be downright stupid. They took some established arrangement in much the same way as Apple just ripped the play symbol from old tapeplayers like everyone else, because it’s an established symbol, rather than deciding to “innovate” a new symbol, just because they have to do everything differently.
Thinking of this debate some more while I washed the dishes, I realized that I can’t seem to think of a single thing that Apple has “innovated”.
Not that I can think of a thing that microsoft innovated either, but I think it’s curious that even though apples proponents talk about innovation a lot, I am hard pressed to find a single thing they have innovated.
The refine and integrate a lot, but what have they invented recently?
The nice hardware design existed is something B&O did before them, the basic desktop metaphor is from XEROX PARC, ambient light sensitivity and adjusting display brightness is something that has existed in expensive car dashboards for a long time, iTunes is basically a nicer version of winamp, with an integrated shopping interface, the iPod is just a large capacity music player which existed before iPod. Airport express type systems existed before as crappy cordless a/v transfer systems, and so on and so forth.
What they seem to have, is a knack for going that extra mile and making things seem more polished, plus they have a single person (Steve) who is anal and adamant enough about what he wants so that he bothers to push that idea all the way through to the end user (I have a strong feeling that Apple has corporate culture of ‘get onboard with Steves vision or get the fuck out of here’).
They also have a knack for integrating things really nicely, like iTunes and Airport Express, which is something that is so important to them that they prefer to produce both the hardware and software side of things.
So I think talking about stealing their innovations is a load of horseshit, since they do nothing but take ideas from everywhere, make them work together and coat them all with the same look & feel brush.
Not that that’s not a cool and valuable thing, but it kind of makes the point of who-“stole”-what-from-Apple a little ridiculous.
Michael, i did notice that you’ve linked back to Pauls article etc. but i was merely commenting on your first reactions, thats all.
And i agree with Brian to some extent. Apple– and MS users will never agree. But I guess that since this is Michaels blog, its to assume that whatever he writes here is his opinion about stuff. That he sometimes fails to remind people of that and instead writes in such strong words that it’d seem like all those flaws are the general opinion of everyone…is another matter :)
I am getting so amazingly tired of these debates.
1) It’s rare to objectively prove that one choice or another is “better usability”
I’ve boiled your answer down to your first bulletpoint, as the rest was mostly backing up of that statement, and I present to you a multiple choice answer:
a) So ergo we shouldn’t talk about it at all.
b) That’s what Real thinks too (well more so in the old days).
c) It’s also rare to objectively prove that red is any given tone of red. Nonetheless red is red is red, and we can talk about it, since it sure as hell isn’t green.
I didn’t comment on it being bigger, centered or combining play and pause. I commented on the color of it being a horrible blue and it’s glass surface being very aqua-like.
You know I love to debate with you, but that does require for you to get your facts straight :)
Sounds like what you really want is Research Report #324 from the Scientific Institute on Cognitive Interpretation and Response Situations as Formulated by Dr. S. Omething. Chillax dude. The way this works is, I make some observations, I throw in references where I think it helps my case and you do the same. We go back and forth for a while and hopefully learn something in the process.
Comparing and contrasting. Car enthusiasts do it, architects do it, game designers do it. It’s what we do man.
As for you definition of innovation and your view that Apple hasn’t done any of it lately, I think those two may be connected. Innovation is something as small as saying, you know what, let’s build well. And not just well, let’s make it SO good, that people will fall in love with it.
It doesn’t have to be a measure by empirical standards to be innovation.
And while you may be tired of the discussion, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a discussion to be had. Microsoft and Apple are two very different companies, and so is their output.
As for inspiration or no, there are trends and generally good ideas, and then there’s similarities that are hard to dismiss.
And no, of course MS and Apple fanboys will never agree, just like Amiga vs. PC, Coke vs. Pepsi, MacD vs. Burger King. But that’s part of the fun! Where conflict exists, lessons are to be learned!
Since both Rane and Michael misunderstood the target of my disdain (I wasn’t clear), here is a clarification:
My comments (from the first comment about the debate itself) were regarding the ensuing debate in the comments more than your original article.
The following comments I made were more towards the article and your replies.
Having spent the last 18 hours using Vista I think it’s time for the opinion of a Mac user who has immersed themselves in Vista.
For reference the spec of the computer I installed it on is: AMD64 3000, 512Mb RAM, Radeon 9500 Graphics Card and a 40Gb hard drive.
Firstly the good bits for Vista.
1) It is pretty quick once you get it running, it is faster than XP.
2) Stability wise, even as a beta it is more solid than any XP or MCE machine I have come across.
3) The transparency can be turned off (thank goodness)
4) In game performance is slightly improved over XP however that could be down to a fresh install more than anything else.
And the bad bits.
1) It’s awkward to get around, I know this doesn’t really say much but the operating system itself is difficult to use, in places it is overly simple and in others it is needlessly complex. Like the Control Panel, it may be sectioned off, trying to find something is still an absolute pig.
2) Speed at loading applications can be atrocious, CS Source takes a little over 7 minutes to go from clicking the Source icon on the desktop to being at the main menu. On my dad’s Celeron (2.4Ghz, 256Mb RAM) it takes about 5, it isn’t just games which take a long time to load, Photoshop, InDesign, any major application takes around 2 to 3 minutes longer to load than it does under XP.
3) The glass theme is truly awful, it’s a half assed attempt at taking XP’s candy interface, Apple’s OS X, and trying to add a bit of pizzaz and cool to it by making it see through, it doesn’t work, it make window chrome very messy and for your average user they will get really confused. I sat my dad down and got him to try out Vista, see what he thought of it and his comment was much the same as mine, spend the money on a Vista license on a Mac, the few things which keep him tied to Windows at the moment are not worth keeping when Vista becomes the norm, and he is looking at upgrading his computer in the next 2 years anyway and if he doesn’t want Vista it’s a Mac or nothing (do not bring Linux into this, it is not really suitable for a non-geek’s desktop)
4) Media Center is a farce, I know for a beta product it wont be perfect, but the speed difference between MCE 2005 and MCE Vista is horrific, after reading that Microsoft were working hard at speeding up MCE and making it easier to use I am disappointed. Apart from the speed it is an absolute pig to navigate, really 20 steps backward.
5) The User Protection crap, after 10 minutes I had been warned 43 times about something that might be dangerous. Very handy, but will scare the crap outta someone who doesn’t know what it means. And after those 10 minutes I was ready to kill whoever came up with the idea to lock us out of the OS when the dialog box was up.
As for an OSX vs Vista comparison, it is hard to be completely fair with the amount of time I have had with OSX compared to Vista. But there are some clear advantages to OSX, the simplicity of the operating system is vastly superior to whatever Microsoft can come up with between now and November. Vista gets in the way all the time with it’s User Protection software which warns you when a program might be dangerous, and it flagged up at the first boot to warn me about the Microsoft Network Wizard… something seems odd about that one. Flip3d is a farce compared to Expose, it truly is, anyone who says Flip3d isn’t MS’ version of Expose needs their head checked. The ability to click through onto a Close button without effecting the window focus is something MS need to look at copying, it really annoyed me having to click twice to close a window out of focus.
Michael, and anyone else who wants Vista screenshots with someone hopping down their throat: http://flickr.com/photos/stew/tags/vista/ All shots taken by me this afternoon, if you have any requests get them in quick over at flickr as I need to turn the computer back to my MCE 2005 machine for Friday evening (long list of programs to get recorded over the next few days with 24 ending and a few other programs as well)
Wow, that guy really comes off as being an ass… at least to me. Everyone has their own opinion, and you did link back to him, and didn’t say the screenies were yours.
I consider myself a decent judge of both as I run an iBook for portability and Windows & Linux on my desktop. OS X tends to “just work”. Installs are essentially drag and drop. For that matter, there are things tend to just not work too — and refuse to work no matter what I hackery I throw its way. OS X also features (for the most part) a lovely interface with some cool features such as Expose (way better than alt-tab). It has some serious drawbacks as well. Finder pisses me off on a nearly daily basis because it lacks certain features of Explorer. This is possibly due to my being “used to” Windows, but I’ve had OS X running for a good 6 months now so I don’t think thats the case. Also, I much prefer the way Windows maximize button works, because it is the way to make something take maximum screensize. Its tough to do this on a Mac (and I need it too, being stuck at 1024×768). Windows also has the advantage of having lots of free stuff written for it (but not as much as Linux :p) which makes finding alternative programs a lot easier. A good example is open Canvas, which I prefer over Painter any day and sorely miss on my iBook. In the end, it depends on what you use the computer for.
I initially installed Vista on an old test box (1.5 ghz, 512 mb ram) and in its full blown aero mode the computer slowed down to a crawl. Without aero mode, it felt just like an XP box with a hacked theme dll. Its bells and whistles are nice, but I see no need to “upgrade” my real desktop any time soon.
Slightly tangential, I suppose, but I have to disagree with that. Depending on what you want to do, Linux can be a nice alternative. I set up a Linux box for my parents which they planned to use for web surfing, email, chatting, and writing Word documents. By setup, I mean that I installed Ubuntu and moved their browser/email prefs back into firefox & thunderbird. It was I’m hoping you did a little research before casting out Linux, because the Linux desktop experience has improved quite a bit recently.
XP Home, XP Pro, XP Media Center. I run them all on my various machines. I love the allure of the Mac, but have no idea how to use it. I hear it’s simple and, honestly, I have been successfully converted in spirit to Mac. However, there is the small problem of my obsession in programming. I program for Windows, not Mac.
I think Microsoft will find, as it has for a while, that people will upgrade because it’s what one does when new software comes out. The people won’t really care whether it’s all that much better, faster, or safer. It’s what one does. Then there are those like me who need it and only it for one thing or another. Most notably are all the gamers. Gamers need it because that’s the platform games are written for primarily, developers need it because that’s the platform for which most people buy software. Most people don’t care whether the update is all that much better. They care about whether or not they will still be able to do what they always have. People don’t like change. And that’s what I think will save Microsoft – for one more crap release, anyway.
Just a few short things I have to touch on…
“Why is it that every application in the start menu except I.E. and Outlook has Windows in the name?” – Looking at the Mac… why does every application start with “i”? hmmmm? what a dumb complaint… its called branding.
“XP is cartoony” – blah blah blah… so is OSX… so is Ubuntu… if you don’t want a GUI go back to DOS… lets see what you can complain about with that OS.
“Keep buying M$ lemmins we love it.” – And how many revisions and new versions of OSX have we had to sit through (and PAY for) to get to where we are today? OSX is nice… but it wasn’t that spectacular when it came out YEARS ago.
“What surprised me is the Minimum recommended specs given by Microsoft for Vista.” – Key word being recommended… I suppose you’re driving around in a car that takes leaded gas and runs on bicycle style tires… heaven forbid a company design a product to take advantage of newer technology. And to provide a “better” experience for people running even newer technology.
“Microsoft is a deflated relic from the 90s trying hard to ape Apple’s hip design.” – Since when is iPutting the iLetter “i” in iFront of iEverything considered “iHip”? More like iStupid I iThink. (god a feel my brain melting from pop-culture overload)
“I don’t need access to Windows 3.0 applications.. run them in Emulation.” – AMEN Brotha
“All that gloss is making me nauseous” – All of these computer geeks using Uber-Butch screennames is making me nauseous. And on that note… I’m out