Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 25th Oct 2007 08:02 UTC
Three reviews of Mac OS X Leopard, to be released coming Friday. David Pogue writes: "Leopard is powerful, polished and carefully conceived. Happy surprises, and very few disappointments, lie around every corner. This Leopard has more than 300 new spots - and most of them are bright ones." Walt Mossberg concludes: "Leopard isn't a must-have for current Mac owners, but it adds a lot of value. For new Mac buyers, it makes switching even more attractive." Edward C. Baig of USA Today writes: "With Leopard, Apple's operating system widens its lead aesthetically and technologically. Whether the sixth major release of OS X in as many years puts a dent in Microsoft's dominant market share is another matter entirely." Thanks to MacWereld.nl [Dutch] for pointing these reviews out.
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RE[3]: OS X - a nice update
by jonhohle on Thu 25th Oct 2007 13:41
in reply to "RE[2]: OS X - a nice update"
Member since:2006-06-06
I have to admit that some things: Widgets and SpotLight were a part of Longhorn with two years before OS X has inside of Tiger
To Quote John Gruber:
Obviously, Apple ripped off the idea for Dashboard. Stolen wholesale, without even the decency to mention where they took the original idea.
Which, of course, would be the desk accessories from the original 1984 Macintosh — conceived by Bud Tribble and engineered (mostly) by Andy Hertzfeld
Which, of course, would be the desk accessories from the original 1984 Macintosh — conceived by Bud Tribble and engineered (mostly) by Andy Hertzfeld
And Spotlight was designed by Dominic Giampaolo (http://www.nobius.org/~dbg/), the guy responsible for BFS. He knew more about instant searches before Vista was called Longhorn than Microsoft probably knows about them now.
In my opinion, its not just first to market or first to invent: its first to get things out the door correctly. That's where Microsoft has been losing, and Apple winning in a big way.
Look at 64-bit, Apple's approach has is just as elegant as their support for PowerPC and i386: one binary, multiple architectures, everything just works. Does the user care about 32-bit or 64-bit or have to buy one version of the OS or another? Nope. One disk works with all supported computers. Nearly all binaries work with all supported computers. 32-bit PPC binaries running on 64-bit Intel computers! The process is so seamless you forget that you're not running a native app.
QuickLook is not just a preview pane, which OS X has also had for years (in column view). I'd say its better akin to a read-only viewer for everything, with support for third-party additions.
Running down a checklist of features and comparing apples (no pun intended) to oranges isn't valuable to anyone but bean counters. If Vista and Leopard were really that similar, you'd probably see people moving off Macs onto dirt-cheap, commodity PCs. Obviously the trend is going in the other direction, so there must be something else than Widgets: check, 64-bit: check, Flashy: check.
Last I checked (its been a year or two), resale value on Macs is very good pretty good. If you haven't had one, get one as your next computer, try it for a few weeks, and eBay it if its really no different. The depreciation shouldn't be tremendous and you'll have learned a lot in the process. (disclaimer: Do your homework before deciding to resell something on eBay
).
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Member since:
2006-12-22
Krok, I've plus your comment as a good joke. If you look to your mark, u'll see a plus one. Please look on your preffered documentation source, try youtube, or any other source for following presentations and launches:
- Windows 95
- Mac OS X (when it is first time shown that OS)
- Windows 98 (I know, the blue screen)
- Vista presentations
What you will see: Windows 95 was revolutionary: NT userspace with 32 bits on top of DOS kernel which was 16 bit OS, with high-level UI.
OS X was revolutionary too: replaces the OS 9 (which stalls from the OS 7) with a new API, and new desktop abstractions: the Aqua theme, the Cocoa APIs, Carbon for compatibility, command based (instead pixel-based) drawing, Unix background with great tools on the top (based on a modular kernel, or hybrid one, if you like more that term) of a redesigned kernel and PDF based architecture.
Windows 98: an incremental update for Windows 95 OSR2, even it integrates more things inside desktop, like: a browser, more wizards, support for multiple monitors, that was an evolving step.
Vista on it's side has a somehow old base: NT kernel, .NET platform, and like OS X does, it put on top a new frontend for users and developers: proactive security (is similar as what does OS X with sudo model), user-space drawing (means lower BSOD on bad video drivers), .NET 3.0 frameworks (I know, you wanna shoot me for that). Still, it copies some things from OS X: XPS based drawing ( http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/xpsdevs.mspx ). Even I'm not a fan of MS (I write that lines from Ubuntu desktop), I have to admit that some things: Widgets and SpotLight were a part of Longhorn with two years before OS X has inside of Tiger, but first company that accomplish that task, was for sure Apple. The same is with gadgets and notifications, were MS make public some additions.
What features are namely for OS X Leopard (and their counterpart Vista equivalents):
- better Finder (the Vista's Explorer is much improved, I think that they pair here)
- a new dock (the toolbars in Vista have some issues, but they have transparency and preview in Aero's mode)
- some widgets (there are some gadgets on Vista too, still there it lack at that point)
- new browser (increased version of Safari, similar with IE7)
- 64 bit OS from ground to up, Vista does the same
- bootcamp: Vista does not need it
- Spaces: Vista has not bundled any equivalent
- new mail, iChat, etc. same happend to Vista
- Time Machine: no equivalent at the same use
- QuickLook: Explorer has for years some similar features, but mostly works on third-party plugins in XP, but is not matched by far at the level of elegance of OS X
- resolution independence: is a part of Vista, which is great to happend on OS X part too
Sorry if I miss the point, but Coverflow is not a major update, if you want to push the lying and say that every aloud marketed feature is a feature that is spectacular, you can look that Core Animation is weaker than the MS counterpart, the XAML definition of UIs and WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation).
I hope you have to add arguments more and put a trolling opinion less.
Thanks, yours truly,
Ciprian Mustiata