siliconvalleysleuth.com — As Microsoft shows more of Windows Vista, it becomes clear that there are little few actual innovations in the software. Most "new" features are just rip-offs of existing applications that Microsoft copied. In the end, Vista won't do anything that Windows XP can't do already with a little help from third party prodocuts.
Jan 28, 2006 View in Crawl 4
carmelsteveJan 28, 2006
The thing that has to be remembered is that Windows cannot make large moves quickly, like Apple for instance. With nearly every business PC in the world running on Windows, it would be suicidal to make a change that outdates applications quickly. Windows, by its sheer scale, is obliged to move slowly and deliberately, while still making progress. Many people said the same things about Windows XP being not very revolutionary when it came out, but would any of us like to go back to the instability of Windows 9x?
digitaldudJan 28, 2006
Yes and again, "X stole Y from Z" arguments are so incredibly lame. Guess what? Apple stole the 3-D accelerated GUI concept that makes their eye candy work from SGI's IRIX? A similar setup powers Windows Vista. Windows NT stole from VMS. Apple stole the BSD kernel from Berkeley. But who really gives a s**t?If there's any related features between Operating Systems it's simply because the same market forces that drives one, drives the other. It's a response to a demand for such features and an attempt to add value to the product. Why is this so difficult to understand? Software engineers don't think "hmm, let's steal X from Y for no apparent reason," they think "How do I solve X problem? Let's do Y."
silentbobscJan 28, 2006
"...just one more failed product by MS..."*Cough* Lisa *Cough* Newton *Cough* Bicycle
darksideofmoonJan 28, 2006
"Microsoft builds platforms, not shiny buttons"I totally agree with you (and I'm a Mac user, so kinda mixed emotions on that comment LOL) The sad part is, the average user doesn't give a flying fsck about the platform it's built on. Seriously. When XP came out over 4 years ago, I remember seeing my friends (myself included, I was an MS fanboy at the time) oggle and "oooh" and "aww" all over the new Start button. And plenty of teachers and staff across the globe probably did the exact same thing. Does the average person care about a new TCP/IP stack? Do they even know what TCP/IP stands for?? Or would they care about WinFS? (if it came out that is) Unfortunately, the sad part about programming (in my mind) is that the core and most important parts of the OS that take the most development will be the least appreciated. But that's the whole point: the user isn't supposed to know what's going on. All they should worry about is how pretty their buttons and effects are.As a Mac user, I love the neat little things that Apple thinks of: Expose, Genie Effect, Dashboard transition, User account cube tranistion, etc... I know you'll say that it's all fluff and s**t, but I realize there's more stuff to the OS than that. It's just a little more shine and that extra detail Apple always adds...
inkswampJan 28, 2006
> paying for service packs would s**t me to tearsFirst you complain about someone else making comments that prove he's a douche and then do the same yourself.You don't pay for "service packs" on OS X. You're not the first person I've heard assume that but Apple doesn't do things the way MS does. Apple's major revisions are signified in .x increments (10.1, 10.2, etc.) Those updates include major new features and software and come out about every year-and-a-half. The Apple equivalent of "service packs" are the .x.x increments. (10.3.5, 10.3.6, etc.) and you pay nothing for them.
inkswampJan 28, 2006
>What we pay for in OSX upgrades, we make up for >by not having to pay for antivirus and anti-spyware programs.That's one of many hidden costs of using a "cheaper" Windows PC. The person you're responding to however assumed wrongly that Apple charged for "service packs." The Mac equivalent of a service pack is the incremental update you get through the software update control panel... for free. So even what he was complaining about is a nonissue.