What's so bad

in taking inspiration from one of your competitors or anything else for that matter. I'm a designer and the one thing I am aware of is that new stuff doesn't come from nowhere, it's an amalgam of old ideas, personal influences and customer requirements etc.

So 7 stole a bit from Mac OS (as did Vista and XP et al) So what? It's about time that Windows users got a better environment to work in. Not all PC users are nerdy boys - in fact I would say the vast majority of users are just normal people trying to do their thing, it's just that they unfortunately in many cases have to work on a window-box and that's their lot in life. Bout time things got better looking and easier to understand and if Apple was in part an inspiration for the change then that's a positive thing. Why M$ can't even admit a grudging admiration for Apple's UI design is beyond me.

BTW I am a mac user and always have been but I've got a PC (it makes me feel shitty just looking at it) and I don't enjoy using it as I do my mac. This is what MS needs to inject into their operating system ENJOYMENT and it's been missing for soooooooo long.

Also, if they could only get rid of that fat dancing monkey and but someone at the helm that was likable to top it all off they could really get things moving again.

..it's on linkedin so it must be true

he lists

* career opportunities * new ventures * job inquiries * expertise requests

* reference requests * getting back in touch

well "getting back in touch" is already covered by Brandon LeBlanc so what one is next?

LinkedIn - if its there it's true

Bet he's off to call one of his Facebook Friends

ps Now taking orders for Norfolk Browns for Xmas - the original 3 breasted turkey

Look what happens when somebody doesn't copy Apple...

...there's ugly, and ugly and Ubuntu!

What I find hilarious...

in the Telegraph article where they put some business analyst as the project manager, with the comment that new Office IDE was well received, and so she was moved on to Windows 7. The Office IDE sucks balls.

I always suspected that someone who enjoyed technical stuff, but when they got into the business, discovered they couldn't compete with the real techies, thus giving up moving into business analysis, where they then proceeded to throw half arsed ideas into the hat to justify their existence was behind all the stupid sh*t coming from MS these days.

How much faster could they have made it, if Microsoft had pulled into project management a techie who was actually good enough to still do tech, instead of someone who wanted to be there because of a zero chance career up against everyone else.

Windows 7 is great for children playing with powerpoint, who have a week to deliver a document, but I'm still working on getting to the things I do a hundred times a day into one click, like I could with XP.

Instead of allowing power users to speed up the things they do a hundred times a day, they've delivered something that lets ordinary users speed up something they do once a month.

I do however acknowledge that it's faster than Vista and much better, if not XP. I don't believe for a second though, that anyone could have failed to do it.

As for the comments everywhere that it's so good it's breaking all records, this is just laughable. It's more a case that people are desperate to get rid of Vista.

Vista : Lock it in a draw, and never mention it again.

Inspired?

Inspired they may be, but inspiration is pointless without application & Windows 7 'looks' similar to a Mac, but thats where similarities end. rap[idly.

Underneath its just the same old Vista shite

Funny that

I was under the impression that every version of Windows prior to Windows 3.1 was based on the Mac GUI of the time...

...which, as everyone knows, was itself an imitation of the classic Amiga Workbench! :-)

C< because for some bizarre reason El Reg haven't got a Commodore icon.

I would have thought...

They would be more eager to hush down the fact that Windows 7 uses the same core software as [spit] Vista [/spit]

Is this a Monty Python skit?

"This came from a Microsoft employee who was not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7"

Calling Windows 7 "designed" is even more off-the-wall than calling Vista "stable" ... so am I to assume the next bit is where Inspector Fox of the Light Entertainment Squad walks in and hits them both with a hammer?

Boy, that's a relief!

For a moment there, though I was dreaming. (Yeah, pull the other one.)

@ Steven Jack: It wasn't just the 'Mac Fanbois' luving it, it was the Windows Fanbois, the Linux Fanbois and any other OS Fanbois that read the article especially that bit about the 'built on that very stable core Vista technology' quote. That was a pearler. Anyway, if he likes the sound of hie own voice, he could be a news or weather broad-caster or maybe ... a polly.

@Joey

Nice one. An article about Windows and Apple, and you managed to slag off a Linux distro. Good work.

Except do you mean Gnome or KDE? Because Ubuntu can have either (or indeed many other gdm's) and you haven't specified which one.

KDE?

What I found most startling was when the Win7 prerelease came out, well, look at screenshots of it and KDE4. It's startling how similar they look, if the shot doesn't show the corner with the Windows logo it would be difficult to tell which is which in some cases. I don't think Microsoft copied KDE in particular either, I kind of think Win7 and KDE both copied OSXs look to some extent. I'm surprised a Microsoft spokesman would admit to it though.

So?

Fanboism aside, let's face it, if something works well then is copying it so wrong? Deliberately avoiding the best solution just for the sake of originality is nonsense. Look how many people have copied the wheel for a start.

stick to the facts

It's been obvious windows copies mac for decades. Microsoft has never once done it better...they just do it cheaper. That's the whole point of a p.c., you can do it cheaper. That's the whole reason I switched to p.c. in the first place...does mac cheaper. They should shut the F up and stick to the first story. If they would just cop to it, rather than trying to be the spoiled little kid that doesn't know any better they would be better off. Just say "yeah, we did it cheaper", and shut the F up all ready.

GUI's

Who.Gives.a.Shit?

It's under the hood where Windows falls down and where OSX doesn't.

Next!

RE: @Jimmy Floyd.

AC, you said "The original Mac GUI was basically the same as the Apple Lisa GUI which (launched in 1978). the Amiga was launched in 1985, some 7 years later.

I think you have your history a bit skewed.".

I think you might have your history a little screwed. The Lisa project was initiated in 1978, but the Lisa (with it's GUI) launched in 1983.

Xerox had a GUI in 1978, to which the Lisa GUI bore a (apparently entirely unintentional) staggering resemblance.

Windows 7 takes elements of OS X but not a great deal

I don't know why anyone would claim Windows 7 apes OS X. About the closest thing between the two operating systems are the desktop widgets, which OS X ripped off itself. Most of the other stuff has a fairly obvious Windows heritage. W7 has gained some Expose like refinements but again, its done pretty differently.

Of course Windows has taken from the Mac over the years, including the general concept of a spatial desktop but I don't believe it's ever gotten any closer. The W7 desktop is obviously a refinement of the Vista desktop which aside from Aero improvements and the perennial start menu redesign is obviously a refinement of XP and so on. The story is the same with the rest of the UI.

I'm quite happy that W7 hasn't ripped off OS X too much. OS X is a very beautiful looking desktop but IMO it's hobbled by its single button mouse heritage as well as the stupid single menu bar and the dock. The dock just doesn't work when you run lots of apps and the menu is the strangest usability throwback of all. Maybe it made sense back in MacOS but it doesn't in the modern world. Having to mouse ALLLLL the way to the top to perform a menu operation and then ALLLLL the way back down, to where you were is a huge pain in the butt made even worse because you have to play hunt the app first to make its menu active. Having to memorize keystrokes to avoid this isn't particularly user friendly either.

Windows isn't perfect by any stretch but I consider it more useful for day to work. The UI hides the advanced stuff but its still there and available. It's a pity that some things that should have been fixed years ago are still prevalent. For example Windows shortcuts are as broken as ever and why exactly do apps need to be installed to program files? It would be nice if Windows did have something equivalent to a .App that meant apps could be moved and run from anywhere. That's the sort of thing it should take from OS X instead of the desktop.

@Geoff Mackenzie.

No, I have the best spanner, clearly.

Alto from Xerox came out in 1973

Look at these fancy graphics:

http://toastytech.com/guis/alto3.html

Pah, and they say we are evolving, with the rate we are going we should be primordial ooze by 2012.

copying

I don't mind copying too much but what I do object to is Microsoft taking other people's ideas and pretending they invented them. A perfect example was Bill Gates claiming that Vista was the first and only OS to have parental controls despite Apple having introduced that feature to OS X nearly two years earlier.

Anyway, Microsoft copying Apple forces the fruity company to push OS X further. It's all good for consumers.

I don't imagine...

...that it'll change anyone's mind, but I regularly use and administer MS and OS systems. Guess what - they all have crappy little problems and all of their developers talk and compete, which is why they look similar. The holy wars between them are pathetic, as are the people who fight them. You're not even fighting the same battles, FFS.

The story here is that a drone spoke out of turn. Given the commercial impact, I'd just love to be a fly on the wall to see the dry slap he gets. And that's about all.

Rumours

Standard Civil Service policy:

Don't believe any rumours until they have been offically denied.

@magnetik

"A perfect example was Bill Gates claiming that Vista was the first and only OS to have parental controls despite Apple having introduced that feature to OS X nearly two years earlier."

I think it was introduced much earlier than that - possibly in OS 10.1

The mac ain't perfect.

But it sure as hell beats vista :P But let's bash Apple's UI for a bit shall we?

Points I dislike about the mac UI

1. 1 button mouse

2. Menubar... why is it you can only have it at the top eh?

3. 1 button mouse

4. Did I say 1 button mouse?

5. 1 button mouse.

6. Apple recurrently sticking to a 1 button mouse laptop design.

7. Yes I said 1 button mouse.

8. Where the F$@@# are the pageup and pagedown keys?

Truth be told, this is being typed on a mac.