“Apple has touted itself as the innovator in OS software; it has suggested that all the new additions in Windows Vista already exist in the most recent Mac OS X, Tiger. Microsoft might take issue with that, but there’s no denying that it has struggled somewhat with Vista, which has had features cut and seen a series of delays. To find out what people on the street make of it, we asked our Vista Views panel, made up of ordinary readers, this question: Which feature in Leopard would you like to see in Vista?”
Vista doesn’t even match Tigers capabilities much less leopard. That aero interface is a pale imitation of the capabilities already built into Tiger. Vista is a pig and needs some serious optimization wheres OS X often runs faster or at least as well in each major version. Even with dual core cpus’ Vista does not multi-task as well as OS X because OS X. System restore requires you to choose a specific date and thats it wheres time mahcine in Leopard can restore anything you choose. Vista has way too many pop ups and warnings for the average user. The virtual desktop with the ability to drag apps between them (spaces) in Leopard is far better than Vista. Mac users will rush to upgrade to Leopard while individuals and certainly businesses are likely to upgrade to Vista only if they have to. That pretty much says it all.
Vista doesn’t even match Tigers capabilities much less leopard. That aero interface is a pale imitation of the capabilities already built into Tiger. Vista is a pig and needs some serious optimization wheres OS X often runs faster or at least as well in each major version. Even with dual core cpus’ Vista does not multi-task as well as OS X because OS X. System restore requires you to choose a specific date and thats it wheres time mahcine in Leopard can restore anything you choose. Vista has way too many pop ups and warnings for the average user. The virtual desktop with the ability to drag apps between them (spaces) in Leopard is far better than Vista. Mac users will rush to upgrade to Leopard while individuals and certainly businesses are likely to upgrade to Vista only if they have to. That pretty much says it all.
This post is naive at best. WPF offers a superset of the functionality in Tiger and Leopard. Current builds of Vista are almost on par with XP in performance (unlike Apple did with 10.0, MS optimizs before release). UAC dialogs appear less often, and neither System Restore nor VSS/Previous Versions limits you to date-based granularity for snapshots. Snapshots can be copy-on-write or tied to an event of your choosing. You can pick through individual files and/or perform full system backups. Apple offers nothing different in this area besides the UI. Vista has no default UI for virtual desktops. Just as in previous versions of Windows, there’s a standard API that MS and others can (and have) built UI atop. As far as upgrades, MS will likely sell more licenses for Vista in the first week of release than Apple does during the supported lifetime of Leopard. Plus MS actually sells upgrade versions of their OS rather than demanding full price each time.
Edited 2006-08-09 23:51
Interesting that the Windows “Upgrade” versions have a similar price tag as OS X releases.
Interesting that the Windows “Upgrade” versions have a similar price tag as OS X releases.
Depends on the SKU.
Well since there is only one SKU for OSX as they give you the complete package not a toned down version such as Home. The cheapest upgrade for XP was $99 for Home and $149 for Pro. I don’t think prices have been announced yet for the upgrades to Vista, if they have post a link as I would like to see them. But OS X is $129 for a FULL version, not an upgrade.
OSX has the worst multi-tasking of any desktop OS that I’ve used in the five years. Though in some cases I’m thinking the problem is threading. For example, if I hold down the scrollbar in Safari, why do all the GIF animations stop? Why can’t I click on a button to cancel a file upload to .Mac?
“OS X has the worst multi-tasking…” I guess you haven’t
used Windows XP. Just about anything you do bogs that puppy down.
uh huh. My XP machine doesn’t bog down very often
But neither does my OSX machine. guess its a case of “YMMV”…
*rolls eyes*
depends on what you do, and what you expect of a machine. I can get into trouble on Linux with the -ck patchset, doing way more than I should 😉
Linux can survive 2 or 3 heavy compiles while starting and using apps, windows can’t even do an INSTALLATION while you try to browse the web – you can’t install MS Office and seriously USE your computer. Sorry, but that’s too silly for words… As I’m used to do far more at the same time on my linux workhorse, I don’t consider XP an OS ready for serious use. And I think someone who thinks it is should try Linux, to see what multitasking means (as you simply can’t multitask on windows).
uh huh. I use debian a lot, and NEXTSTEP, and various other OSes and windows multitasks just fine, for ‘me’. An d I use it a lot while installing apps. I had several torrents going, IMs, PuTTY, firefox AND was installing office 2007 beta the other night. and it was fine. Maybe I just have magical hardware
well, it might indeed depend on hardware as well, tough the hardware i tried windows on wasn’t that sucky. and i might have done more than just installing office – doing a virusscan, windows update… what i also felt is windows, just like my linux system at home, can be very unresponsive for a few seconds, or even longer now and then. but when linux does this, it’s very very busy (eg doing several big compiles, which fill up memory, so it starts to trash swap). windows can do this at random – an app becomes unresponsive, and you can’t do anything anymore – you’ll have to wait. you can’t minimize the app, or move it out of sight, no, you wait. period.
and i hate that…
ok, i must admit, linux has a weakness which windows doesn’t have – disk access. copying a big file from one filesystem to another filesystem can slow you down, and if you copy 3 of these files at the same time, the machine can become almost unusable. Microsoft fixed that problem a long time ago… apparently, its a hard problem, as some kernel hackers (eg jens axboe) are working on this for some time, and made it less worse, but have been unable to fix it yet.
Mac OS upgrades tend to be faster than their previous versions and run on hardware that is many years old whereas Vista is a pig. They are going to have a hard time getting adoption going if they don’t do something a obut this but I’m betting Microsoft cannot optimize Vista to this level.
System Restore is usually the first thing I turn off when I install my machine.
If you loose that important manual/essay/assignment you were writing, there is no way to verify that a System Restore will fix it, or get back the file you want until you actually do the restore.
I’ve found System Restore to make more problems than it solves, and generally makes the system more unstable.
I’ve had it work once or twice, but had it cause more problems than its solved.
Comparing them is ludicrous, they aren’t even in the same league.
One thing I would like to see in Vista they could learn from OS X ?
Learn to not annoy it’s customers by putting in Genuine advantage programs, Activation, and hopefully implement some more security.
Stop accusing everyone as pirates, it just causes problems for the legitimate users, because the pirates will always find a way around it.
Drop the price.
Apple offer family packs etc, buy 1 copy, install it on up to 5 machines at home.
That’s my personal opinions anyway.
Edited 2006-08-09 22:06
By Finchwizard (1.56) on 2006-08-09 22:04:43 UTC
System Restore is usually the first thing I turn off when I install my machine.
If you loose that important manual/essay/assignment you were writing, there is no way to verify that a System Restore will fix it, or get back the file you want until you actually do the restore.
System restore is great, but it’s not for restoring your documents. It’s for restoring the windows files/registry back to a previous state. It has nothing to do with your other documents/files at all.
Sorry that System Restore didn’t work for you; I’m starting to lose count of the number of times it has saved a customer’s bacon, after they have installed some weird piece of software, the origins of which they are often loath to tell me.
If you loose that important manual/essay/assignment you were writing, there is no way to verify that a System Restore will fix it, or get back the file you want until you actually do the restore.
Ah; there’s the problem; you don’t understand what the system restore is actually for. As the name implies, it’s for restoring the operating system to it’s previous state; not your data. If the OS gets damaged by a dodgy fixpack or something, then you use that to back out.
Now as far as I can tell, Leopard still won’t have this functionality, which is a shame, because I’ve had to back out of Apple service pack once. The only way to do it was to reinstall from disk, and then reapply all the patches again. Yep, disappointed not to see this coming in the new version, but I guess there is still time for them to include it.
As I was saying though, to back up data on Windows, you use the supplied backup restore application, which you should find under the accessories–>system tools menu; where you should also find the system restore.
How do you backup on the Mac though? Up until this week, Apple has not supplied a backup program with its OS.
Stop accusing everyone as pirates, it just causes problems for the legitimate users, because the pirates will always find a way around it.
Just going to correct a little myth here. Nowhere in the WGA, has MS accused anyone of being a pirate. This seems to be something the press likes to put in their column spaces because it will drive masses of Mac/Linux users to their sites. If the WGA fails it doesn’t say ‘you are a pirate’; what it actually says is ‘you may be a victim of software piracy’. That doesn’t sound like anyone is being accused of anything to me.
Having seen the last Apple keynote, then I haven’t seen anything so far that will encourage me to upgrade from Tiger; but there is still a lot of time for Apple to pull out of the hat. I will agree that MS’s licensing model is ridiculous. Complelely incomprehensible by any home user and half the sysadmins who have to deal with it. With this ridiculous explosion of different Vista versions, it’ll only get worse.
I guess the problem is that MS wants Vista to run on everything, but since they have no control over what machines folk are going to buy, then they have to make sure that they hit as many configurations as possible.
One other thing though; there is no point in Apple implementing a WGA, because they really don’t care how many illegal copies of OSX are running, as long as you have to buy a Mac to run it. If cracks to run OSX reliably, lead to a fall in hardware sales, then Apple will implement their own WGA faster than you can say ‘pirate’.
Leopard is more flash than reality.
The reason why it is faster than the betas is that there wasn’t really any work done.
Leopard is really more like a service pack than any real upgrade.
The only thing Microsoft could learn from Leopard is to make everything flashy and graphical and that is about it.
Windows Vista is almost a complete re-write other than the Kernal. Leopard is a small upgrade and nothing more.
That is why I can’t stand when people make stupid comments and think that all that Microsoft did was put a new interface on and that was it. Stupid, very stupid trolls.
It amazes me how far the internet I.Q. has dropped once they let everyone in the world on. In order to log on to the internet you should have to take an I.Q. test.
Vista isn’t a rewrite of the kernel. It’s a rewrite of: Network stack, audio stack, and some more important components. It’s more of a maintenence release in my eyes. Cleans up the mess they had with XP and adds some wanted features.
What the retards at apple need to learn is that software evolves naturally, no one copies anyone and hell even if they DID copy you I’d be proud because it shows your idea is solid and chances are you implement it better.
To me, when a company needs to make stupid jokes and retarded commercial to try to gain some fame it’s a sign that they are running out of features.
Windows isn’t perfect either but Apple is far from it.
a ha that is what microsoft has to learn from apple a sense of humor.
Vista isn’t a rewrite of the kernel. It’s a rewrite of: Network stack, audio stack, and some more important components. It’s more of a maintenence release in my eyes. Cleans up the mess they had with XP and adds some wanted features.
Just to make it clear, the kernel isn’t new, but it’s not the same as the one in XP either. I understand that they have used the new kernel from Server2003, and moved re-engineered most of the code to deal with security and driver crashes.
Maintenance release? Rubbish; but this does show where MS is going wrong with respect to marketing. Apple shows a lot of new eye candy and a few new apps, and folk believe they’re seeing something new. MS completely revamps the underlying operating system, adds the Windows Presentation Foundation, rewrites the network stack, audio system, revamps the gaming engine, adds support for using USB drives as RAM, support for software gadgets running on supplementary hardware modules … and folk see it as a maintenance release?
I guess the problem is, there are not enough people who can see things from a developer’s perspective.
Well the only thing on what I agree with you is about the I.Q…
Leopard is more flash than reality.
I don’t think that release dates between Vista and Leopard are going to be that different, for all developers at WWDC Leopard is very real.
The reason why it is faster than the betas is that there wasn’t really any work done.
Actually I am attending WWDC and cannot speak about details because of the signed NDA but I can safely say that what have been shown at the keynote are only some applications that use some new capabilities of 10.5 but not the underlying architectural changes which are immense.
The only thing Microsoft could learn from Leopard is to make everything flashy and graphical and that is about it.
Well it seems that Microsoft is already copying the GUI stuff (see calendar), but they could learn about clean system design, search technologies (since their new filesystem did not come along), security and embracing open standards (PDF) instead of reinventing the wheel.
Windows Vista is almost a complete re-write other than the Kernal. Leopard is a small upgrade and nothing more.
Calling Leopard a small upgrade is just wrong. I believe you will agree when more specs are made public and even new features are disclosed over time.
That is why I can’t stand when people make stupid comments and think that all that Microsoft did was put a new interface on and that was it. Stupid, very stupid trolls.
Sure, Vista changes more than the interface, but mostly it does thinks that other systems have done before and as far as I know multiprocessor (multicore) performance is still far away from good and security will not be as good as it should be because of compatibility concerns.
I do not like that NDA stuff. There are probably developers over there from the Microsoft mac unit so if Microsoft knows anyway why cant i know? so that is what apple can learn from ms
Edited 2006-08-09 23:21
Isn’t that what he said? “rewrite other than the kernel”.
It amazes me how far the internet I.Q. has dropped once they let everyone in the world on. In order to log on to the internet you should have to take an I.Q. test.
There is nothing wrong with the IQ of the internet; it’s just that most people do not understand what is involved in completely rewriting an OS. The only way they can make a judgement is by what they see on the screen. Apple understands this, which is why they can make a service pack, look like a major OS update. MS doesn’t understand this, which is why they can make a major OS update, look like they’ve been sitting on their collective cans for five years.
Windows Vista is almost a complete re-write other than the Kernal. Leopard is a small upgrade and nothing more.
And how old is that kernel? At least 6-8 years.
Microsoft are always coming with excellent ideas, the stuff on channel9 and other research labs are brilliant (WinFS was an excellent idea, it’s a shame they could get it to the public).
I think the problem Microsoft have is not the ideas it’s the implementation, Microsoft really needs to work on how it presents these ideas/technologies to the end user, as they are generally not as intuitive as apple.
You hit it spot on! I am typing this on a MacBook and I have a nice PC next to me with XP. MS does make good software, no doubt about it. Personally all the Apple and MS bashing is very tiresome reading. Why can’t people acknowledge strengths of each?
Microsoft does have good ideas and so does Apple. They copy each other, and features from other OS platforms. Apple does have a knack for making everything “just work” and making it easy and intuitive. Take iMove vs. Windows Movie Maker. There is no comparison here, iMovie is so much easier and offers much better results.
In the same breath, Outlook is a much more capable email app then Apple Mail, at least for all the features you get.
That is the problem, firmly nailed on the head. That was apparently one of the problems with WinFS; couldn’t figure out an interface for it.
Come on, now?! What’s so revolutionary about WinFS? The ideas of a db based file system is an old hat. Just because something shows up on the dev list of a mass market OS (Windows, OSX) does not make it an ‘excellent idea’.
that MS got ideas from Apple in a lot of cases, even if the ideas didn’t always come from Apple. Look at the way they have implemented Mail and Calendar and so on. Apple didn’t invent either, but MS sure liked the way Apple did it I think. Actually in a lot of cases, there has been ideas flowing both ways.
Apple does the same thing too. Spaces and Time Machine were taken from *nix (I wonder if they got the idea from someone else, probably). I like the way Apple has implemented these. I’ve never used virtual screens too much as it always ends up being more of a chore than a help, but being able to select an app from the Dock no matter which “space” it is in is pretty handy. The dragging between spaces and so on we have all seen before (the dock one too might have come from somewhere else, but I hadn’t seen it before anyway).
I also wish Vista would steal Expose. What it has now with that stupid 3d thing is the silliest thing. I tried to like it, but it’s just dumb. Just take Expose guys, you don’t have a problem taking everything else…
By the way, I did expect to hate the sidebar and though Dashboard was the better way to do it. I prefer Dashboard, but don’t hate the sidebar thing, in fact, I don’t mind it at all…
I think Bono said it best, we’re stealing from the thieves 🙂
that MS got ideas from Apple in a lot of cases, even if the ideas didn’t always come from Apple. Look at the way they have implemented Mail and Calendar and so on.
Kind of like Outlook, actually.
Spaces and Time Machine were taken from *nix (I wonder if they got the idea from someone else, probably)
Virtual desktops have been around for much longer than UNIX has had X (since AmigaOS at least). Versioning file systems have been available since the late 1960s. Windows and *nix didn’t pick it up until decades later.
I’ve never used virtual screens too much as it always ends up being more of a chore than a help, but being able to select an app from the Dock no matter which “space” it is in is pretty handy. The dragging between spaces and so on we have all seen before (the dock one too might have come from somewhere else, but I hadn’t seen it before anyway).
Virtual Dimension (my preferred workspace manager for Win32) offers this. I’m pretty sure IceWM (my preferred window manager on *nix) does so as well. I always disable this “feature” however.
I also wish Vista would steal Expose. What it has now with that stupid 3d thing is the silliest thing. I tried to like it, but it’s just dumb.
Agreed.
Bono said it best, we’re stealing from the thieves
Indeed. It’s foolish to argue over who is innovative and who is derivative — if we really try, we find that most everything can be traced back to long-obsoleted, niche products, not Gnome or Microsoft or Apple.
There seems to be much attention on these two words:
– copying
– innovation
What can one say other than:
– Ford-T was an automobile
– BMW is also an automobile, just much much better
Wheels, engine, body, image -> and: cash
The main thing that Windows XP needed and Vista needs is MUCH better virus and spyware security without nagging users. If Microsoft can’t figure out how to keep Windows safe then what are those 40,000 MS employees doing?
Security should be job one. But then that would be (falsely) assuming that MS even cares one bit about its customers. Either than or they are enept security wise. It can only be one or the other. Which is it?
The other thing I would change in Windows is the task bar. The fact that you can re-order then like you can on Apple’s Dock is amazingly stupid. You can pretty much re-organize everything else in Windows but you can change which order things show up in the task bar (currently running apps) without closing them and then opening them in the order that you want them. Which of course is messed up when explorer (not IE) stops responding and has to restart. Then you get a random order of apps. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The main thing that Windows XP needed and Vista needs is MUCH better virus and spyware security without nagging users. If Microsoft can’t figure out how to keep Windows safe then what are those 40,000 MS employees doing?
Yes, because we all know that all 40,000 MS employees are trained security experts. If you think security isn’t job one at Microsoft, you haven’t been keeping up. Here’s a nice starting point:
http://blogs.msdn.com/michael_howard/default.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/security/
.
60.000 employees not 40.000 employees :/
Improvements
NASA employees where 18,693 in 2004
The Manhattan Project was 130,000 employees in 1942-1946
.
Edited 2006-08-10 00:43
Vista is just crap. I have never used a Mac before and I can still admit that Vista is a piece of crap. It is not worth the CD it is delivered on.
I have been running it with an open mind for about a week now and my life has become a nightmare. Vista removes all the acceptable functionality that Windows XP provides and adds in a bunch of useless crap that makes simple tasks take 10x longer to complete. There are no new features in Vista that are worth the upgrade (don’t kid yourself… there really isn’t).
Hardware vendors love the prospects of Vista because only 5% of the worlds computers score over a 3 on the Vista compatability test (not a real statistic, just making a point).
All I can say is, I hope they support XP for a long time, because my organisation will never be upgrading to Vista.
Bring on ReactOS!
Although I wouldn’t quite put it like you, I couldn’t agree more. Simple tasks in XP seems to take so much longer in Vista, opening an MMC and adding a snap-in for example. There are a few nice (but not needed) new features
The hardware specifications are so high that it doesn’t warrant many companies upgrading. Try running this beast on a some of the older Dell workstations out there. As an example, my company has several 2Ghz Celeron Dell Workstations which run nicely with Windows XP. I installed Vista Beta 2 on one of them and nothing worked, the graphics were broken, networking wouldn’t work correctly. Even Office 2007 is sluggish, whereas Office 2003 runs nicely. I know it is still in the beta stage, but it is coming scarily close the final.
I’m sorry, but ppl said that about XP as well, and they had to switch. you’ll be forced to do so, as well, unless you are willing to spend a lot of time and resources on switching to linux with wine, or mac OS X, or indeed reactOS.
Your right about the forced upgrade. Microsoft will do it to us. The difference is, that many people, myself included, were stubborn going from 2000 -> XP, this time most of us realise that its not just in our heads, Vista really is “for the worse”.
Its just a bad operating system. I try to use Linux all I can simply to get away from Windows. I won’t be dishing out for expensive Mac setups any time soon and of course reactOS is still in its infancy… so I guess Linux it is then. Is anyone else coming?
with drivers as sloppy as they are in windows OS, or will we see a limited set of hardware supported by mac os and thus it won’t compete at all with windows based PCs but more with the upcoming PS3 that is supposed to run linux ( any update on it after all ?).
Plus I would like “the XP and/or Vista are craps” comment to be more constructive.
However I apart for no more support from microsoft I didn’t like XP either because the OS seem bloated when compared to say windows 2000 thus less secure for a “pro-windows” user because of all the “almost” useless services.
From here Vista seem a break away from previous windows NT design, by splitting more and more part from the kernel level, making the OS more stable against bad driver, but less performant on these points.
But in the end copying from mac os x seems a pretty bad idea right now as the most edgy OS right now is linux ( performance , stablity , security , redundancy ).
DX10 is nice, and fast, and new, and will make your next GFX card scream. That won’t happen with OpenGL 1.4 (nor 2.0). What Apple needs is to evolve OpenGL to the same level as DX10.
What Vista needs from Leopard on the other hand is *fun*. The Vista beta just isn’t much fun, more like a drag. I was excited to get Vista installed, and it just turned out a dissapointment. There is a good chance that an XP upgrade now spells OS X instead…
Have to agree.
WinXP is the worst multi-tasking system on the market.
Click on a word file, dead in the water.
Download a large file, dead in the water.
Whereas, do the same same thing in OS X,
and I can move on to another application, while these other tasks finish. Does anyone at Microsoft actually use the product? The evidence says no.
wha? Do you people spout off stuff just to get people riled up? Or are the XP installs you use/used THAT messed up?
I find both operating systems performance nearly the same, however I find the Window management in Windows XP much better. For example, when I have several files open in say XCode, it starts to become irritating trying to find the document you want to edit. The dock may look nice, but I wish they would add an option to have a simple taskbar as opposed to the dock.
If anyone knows of any decent programs for Mac OS X that behaves like the Windows Taskbar, then please let me know