MS exec gets shot down after 'inaccurate' Windows 7 spiel Apple might agree that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, but Microsoft has slammed suggestions that its Windows 7 operating system was inspired by Mac OS X. Microsoft's UK partner group manager Simon Aldous reportedly said that the software giant had effectively created “a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics” in …
When I read the first article about Simon Aidous’s comments I did think that this guy was talking out of his bottom. I know all the Mac Fanbois loved it. But it sounds to me like this guy likes the sound of his on voice and speaking to the press. When he had the opportunity to get his picture on a website and his name under “Microsoft’s new vision” he allowed himself to make up a whole pile of drivel!
But hey it fed the Mac fan bois and allowed them to feel all self righteous however I don’t imagine it’s done very much for Mr Aidous’s future prospects at Microsoft.
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.
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
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.
Well said sir - some adepts of the Church of Jobs push the gospel that Apple invented the PC, digital music player and anything else in vogue at the moment. It's about time someone reminded them that their beloved worship objects are built on ideas from other places, (and this spoken as someone who's got more iPod's than I can use).
Re: What's so bad
Phew I thought it was just me, I've used XP, Vista and now Windows 7, and I've got to say that whereas Vista makes me want to throw the keyboard in frustration after about 15 minutes, Windows 7 has been pretty good (apart from the nonsense about adding a specific Canon printer driver). But personally, I didn't think the MacOS-X was as 'superior' as some folks make out. Although if I had the money to waste, the Mac Mini on special in the local computer supermarket would be winging it's way homebound with me.
I can quite easily find something to like in most GUI's these days, even Vista if I try really hard. ;)
Personally I don't care where the ideas came from, let's be honest - these things are all designed for humans, so you're going to end up with a very similar set of ideas, (because humans are basically similar).
This post has been deleted by its author
"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?
True, Apple copied Xerox sometime back in the 80s and probably bought up a lot of smaller companies with good ideas, but on the whole Apple have done more to innovate than Microsoft who seem to be a bunch of talented programmers that think in binary rather than wondering how to make computers more usable. Can anyone cite what Xerox Parc has invented in the last decade?
At the end of the day, it's hard to argue with the general consensus that Apple innovate a lot more than Microsoft. The iPod and the iPhone are perfect examples of where thinking differently (or stealing ideas that aren't publicly known to fruition) have revolutionised the industry. Microsoft are equally equipped intellectually and better financially placed to do the same, but they don't.
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.
This is pretty unfair of M$ because in one of the early expo demonstrations of windows7, where the touch screen was being demonstrated, the M$ representative was talking about the similarities with "another company, whose logo is a fruit". I doubt they have told anyone to avoid the comparisons with apple. After all, that would be completely fruitless ;)
Jesus this is getting tedious
People need to get over this, the OS is a tool - if it lets you do what you want then happy days, if not then either get better at what you're trying to do or get another tool
It's like having endless repetitive arguments over who has the best spanner
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.
Gee, if W7 is imitating OS X then I don't want to see W7. I hate the OS X interface, can't stand it. And I've tried, we have a Mac Mini in the lab for projection and lab meetings. Apparently there is a certain proportion of people who can't get to like the Mac interface, and it would seem I'm included.
I just hope the Linux DE stop trying to ape Mac. The "dumbification" of KDE is getting annoying already.
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.
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.
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.
MS need to be seen to distance themselves from the these “rogue” comments about the Win7 design. If they endorse them, they could open a whole legal minefield. Wouldn’t surprise me if the legal team were pouring over these comments and the possible implications, the second they were published.
All very amusing to say the least!
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.
...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.
More than Mac, rather KDE. Everything about Vista/Windows 7 screams KDE4. Matthias Ettrich should have gotten the Microsoft Federal Cross of Merit too. And it took the magic .3 to make KDE work, quite similar to the proverbial 3-times-right Microsoft doctrine.
But in reality, as all things go, it's a hybrid fusion casserole (dump the look-a-like conspiracy theories) -- mix everything in, port in Windows tech, run by focus groups and expensively overrated R&D theory guys, stir-up something silly, microwave, reheat, serve and then Service Pack. But all the Tablet functions are pure Microsoft, which is to say, weak.
But regardless of how it looks, it actually RUNS. First Microsoft OS that hasn't CPU dead-zoned on some of my heavy renders. So all this nah-nah Mac vs. Windows fluff is mere noise, OS wars are pointless, each has uses and pros/cons.
"...there's ugly, and ugly and Ubuntu!"
I have to agree the fact that it looks so crap!
It makes me want to gouge out my eyes, sell my soul, and beg forgiveness for ever deviating from the one true path.
Thankfully I know how to tart it up, to fanboi drooling levels. Shame it doesn't come out of the box, err... download, that way.
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.
"OS X is a very beautiful looking desktop but IMO it's hobbled by its single button mouse heritage"
Why does this ridiculous myth persist? OS X has supported multi-button mice since the beginning and previous incarnations of the Apple OS did too. Every single Apple app makes use of a right click in some way.
"The dock just doesn't work when you run lots of apps"
Huh? I have plenty of apps on my dock, and it works fine for me.
"even worse because you have to play hunt the app first to make its menu active."
You mean like clicking on one of it's windows, using cmd+tab, expose or clicking on the dock or typing a couple of letters into Spotlight? C'mon how hard is that?
"Maybe it made sense back in MacOS but it doesn't in the modern world."
I disagree. I like the way having a single menu doesn't waste any screen real estate. I can't think of a time I've ever wished that an app had its menu embedded in the window.
"Having to memorize keystrokes to avoid this isn't particularly user friendly either."
Most people rarely need more than a few options from the menu, such as save, open, cut, paste, undo, and these are easily remembered. If you need to access the menu itself from the keyboard you can do so by pressing ctrl + f2.
The one and only feature I miss from Windows is being able to resize a window from any corner. There are apps to solve that problem. My favourite is MondoMouse.
There are only so many ways a UI can be made easy to use, inevitably they end up sharing features. It would be moronic to produce a car without a steering wheel just because you didn't want to be seen copying anyone. Apple have had to "borrow" ideas in the past. Mouse wheels, tabbed browsing and Fast User Switch spring to mind. Sometimes a feature is simply too useful to be ignored.
@magnetik, none of those tasks is particularly difficult, but finding an open program with the taskbar is simpler. And when an action has to be repeated often, the extra effort of expose or CMD tabbing becomes infuriating.The single menu doesn't waste screen real estate argument is not true. The bar is there whether applications are open or not. The dock wastes space since the space at the side is not used, and putting it on autohide simply means more mouse travel any time you want to use it.
Apple's mice still are one button in practice. There is no way to press left and right buttons simultaneously. There is no middle click on a trackpad or the Magic Mouse. Sometimes going out of your way to make something different is overlooking the simple usefulness that is present in the device you are trying to replace.
I too can't fathom why the "single-button-mouse-on-Macs" myth persists. There have been multi-button devices for Macs since the 80s, but nowadays, just plug in any bog-standard third-party mouse and right-click right away.
The big mystery here is how the world's fattest software company could take so long to create an OS and emerge with...Vista. A more egregious disgrace is difficult to imagine.
Is it really? I've been a Gnome user for a long time and I was thinking about trying KDE. However, I absolutely despise the Win7 interface, it's crap. If KDE4 is really what Win7's ripping off then I think I'll keep away from KDE after all.
Trouble is, large amounts of information often don't look nice. So how does MS solve that? Any useful information has been ripped clean out of the explorer shell, of course.
Who cares right? The n00bs don't mind that it takes 18 separate clicks to do a task that used to take 1, because they'd just fuck it up either way anyway. And Microsoft seems desperate to appeal to n00bs, as if they don't have enough in their user base already.
Ultimate I moved away from Vista because it was becoming too much of a n00b OS. Holds your hand through easy tasks, and removes complicated (useful) tasks entirely.
"Just like their coders then!" - remind us how the Apple programmers failed to spot the code (having been highlighted as a bug in Leopard) that deleted users data when you logon as a guest? Rather than remove the code they just blindly copied it into the service pack that is Snow Retard.
Apple - the ultimate insult.
" Did I say 1 button mouse?"
Too many times. C'mon, surely you know Apple hasn't sold one button mice in years?
"Where the F$@@# are the pageup and pagedown keys?"
They're the ones with the up and down arrows with two little lines crossed over them, just below F15. If you're using a laptop keyboard you press ctrl + up / down.
"Apple recurrently sticking to a 1 button mouse laptop design."
Turn on "secondary click" in your trackpad preferences and you can do a right-click with two fingers, or alternatively press ctrl when you click. I love the new Apple trackpad - no stupid buttons to take up space.
sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD wrote: " 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?"
Before we even get to your points, let's have a little think about the kind of "sense" that went into each GUI design.
Apple decided that if you wanted to shut your machine down, you should choose "Shut Down" from the menu.
MS decided that if you wanted to shut your machine down, you should first click on "Start"...
Now that we have a glimpse into the minds of the designers, let's take your points one by one ;)
"Points I dislike about the mac UI
1. 1 button mouse"
Nothing to do with the interface and replaced about 10 years ago with multi-mouse buttons, thereby rendering your argument obsolete.
"2. Menubar... why is it you can only have it at the top eh?"
That's what the Amiga did... and as far as I can see MS Office does things this way too... what's your point? Can you reposition the menus on Windows? No.
"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."
Outdated argument.
Did I say Outdated argument?
Outdated argument.
You might as well admit that you haven't used a Mac since the 90s!
"8. Where the F$@@# are the pageup and pagedown keys?"
Exactly where you would expect (or at least they are on my keyboard!)
Truth be told, this is being typed on a mac.
So apart from a small gripe about menu positioning, your argument collapsed. The menu positioning was the same on the Amiga and ST (iirc) and is different depending on which Windows app you choose to examine...
Just to counter the silly comments someone else made about the OSX dock:
I'd rather have the dock in all it's beauty than the windows start bar. As more windows are opened, you're less able to see what they are because the text is lost. OSX has mouse-over for window names and the icon looks like the window itself did (useful when you've got lots of web pages open!)
""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"
Erm, you know what the X stands for in OS X, right? :-) OS 10.1 is/was OS X
...so it's about time to remind them that NO, APPLE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH INVENTING EITH GRAPHICAL UI OR WINDOW-LIKE OR ETHERNET OR GIGABIT OR DIGITAL MUSIC PLAYERS OR FIREWIRE or anything so far.
Apple didn't invent jacksh!t so far - it was always RE-INTERPRETING existing devices, methods, objects.
Ergo it would be hard both not to copy oand copy Apple - that's all.
"Apple decided that if you wanted to shut your machine down, you should choose "Shut Down" from the menu.
MS decided that if you wanted to shut your machine down, you should first click on "Start"..."
Err, NO, it;'s NOT TRUE, NEVER BEEN.
Apple decided that if you wanted to shut your machine down, you should first click on the APPLE LOGO in the corner then choose "Shut Down" from the menu...
MS decided that if you wanted to shut your machine down, you should first click on START/WINDOWS LOGO in the corner then choose "Shut down"...
Stop making up BS only to dress up your idiotic false arguments, please.
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