“Earlier this month, when I found I could install Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 (RC1) on my MacBook Pro, I quickly took the plunge, practically chortling at the thought that my dual-core laptop could run Microsoft’s next operating system. What better way to show that when you buy a Mac you get two computers in one? I’ve been using Vista off and on for a couple of weeks now, but I’m not chortling as much.” More here.
Hands On: A Mac Fan Takes on Vista
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I’m a mac user, and so happy that I need not to use vista. It’s so primitiv compared with OS X interface…
Apple thought different apparently (BootCamp.)
Pretty soon many Mac users won’t even bother booting to Mac OSX anymore thanks to Apple.
😛
Pretty soon many Mac users won’t even bother booting to Mac OSX anymore thanks to Apple.
Why would I pay Apple’s HW prices to run Vista?
Why would I pay Apple’s HW prices to run Vista?
IMO the MacMini is a very well designed computer. Good price on Woodcrest workstation.
Their prices seem to be pretty competitive on notebooks (I could care less how overpriced the powermac is, I’ll never buy one because I know how to plug cables together to build my own).
I mean, you can get a “comparable” Dell cheaper, yes. But does that “comparable” Dell feature the same construction, a similar quality keyboard, and a ccd?
The only thing they seem to be overpriced on these days is what they charge for a memory upgrade … ouch.
(I could care less how overpriced the powermac is, I’ll never buy one because I know how to plug cables together to build my own).
You can build your own PowerMac? Cool! How about an OSNews article on the subject?!
because you get TWO computers instead of one…
One Mac and one PC …
Then i get 120 PCs if i buy an PC? I mean there are many Operating Systems for x86 PCs and at least one hundred Linux distributions.
I think that Apple hardware has never qualified you as a mac user, it’s always been Macintosh software that’s made you a mac user…
Especially seeing as how Mac is, what, the third software line Apple has pushed (by marketing name)? And Mac has existed on 3 processor architectures (68k, power, x86)?
Pretty soon many Mac users won’t even bother booting to Mac OSX anymore thanks to Apple.
It’s normal prediction from someone who have never played with Mac OS X. I’ve installed boot camp and I rarely boot to Windows (less than once a month).
Going to copy each others GUI aspects with MacOS and Windows, that’s just the way the evolutuion of the GUI is. GNOME is more Mac like and KDE is more Windows like, but they’re both hybrids none-the-less. OS X didn’t change the actual mac UI too too much. They only addition was metal windows and a dock, but it’s still based on the OS 8/9 motif as far as basic functionality. Windows XP/Vista aswell is still based on 95/98 at it’s core/basic motif/layout.
There’s only so many ways you can design a GUI that everyone can live with.
The article starts off with the usual slightly complaining on how Microsoft copied Apple and goes on comparing Feature By Feature and what is bad about Vista compared to OSX.
Apple is known for it’s slick design and we shouldn’t be surprised about Microsoft trying to steal a piece of the pie. Regardless, I’ve stopped reading on page 3.
I’m a mac user and don’t use any Microsoft products, however we MAC users might have to accept that a comparable feature might act or is implemented differently on alternative OS’s. Microsoft was and is still known for security vulnerabilities. So I expected they would go over board and implement such annoying features.
Going back to the Aqua-Aero. Microsoft will get flamend for a little while (MS Zune MP3 player, same situation) because of the similarities of the two OS’s but in the end it has to be accepted by 80%-90% of the IT market. The average user will be amazed by it’s eye candy and Microsoft will be laughing by looking at their bank account numbers.
I believe in order for us to form an opinion on “How good Vista really is” it needs to be released to the general public and get statistics how well it has been accepted and performs doing the day to day tasks. hehehe this might take while.
Vancouver Website Development. http://www.medora.ca
[quote]The article starts off with the usual slightly complaining on how Microsoft copied Apple and goes on comparing Feature By Feature and what is bad about Vista compared to OSX. [/quote]
Well… the guy also writes whats better about Vista compared to OSX…he’s pretty neutral on the whole subject.
He is absolutely wrong that IE 7 cannot open “list o’ links” in multiple tabs. You indeed can – just click the arrow beside name of the folder that contains the Favourites. It cannot be more simple.
“You indeed can – just click the arrow beside name of the folder that contains the Favourites. It cannot be more simple.”
a feature noone can find is useless
however you argue it, he didnt find it naturally intuitive, to be honest I didnt know it was there until you mentioned it
I noticed that this guy goes on endless about the look of the two operating system, and actually devotes the majority of the article to the subject. I think this really underscores the difference between Windows and Mac users. When I make the upgrade to Vista, the first thing I’m looking to do is switch on the Win32 Classic theme and going about my business. Mac users place sooooooo much emphasis on looks. That in itself is not a bad thing, but some of us have our priorities in different places.
Oh, and as for …
What better way to show that when you buy a Mac you get two computers in one?
I suppose if you’re only booting into Windows every once in awhile to play the occassional game and using OSX the majority of the time, this might optimal. But as long as they ain’t making Directory Opus and about a dozen other apps for Mac, Windows will be my primary OS. And as long as this is the case, exactly what use would I have for OSX? I will be the first to admit that in many ways, Vista is finally catching up to OSX, but it still retains all the advantages that has me using XP in the first place.
“Mac users place sooooooo much emphasis on looks. That in itself is not a bad thing, but some of us have our priorities in different places.”
Yeah right ! But what about Windowsblinds, Litestep, Object Desktop and the tons of themes engines, alternative shells and what not that are Windows only, and the plethora of themes for the plethora of desktop environments and windows managers for the Linux distros and the BSDs ?
Placing emphasis on looks isn’t specific of Mac users. Most Mac users I know are professionals, use their Mac for work, and their only fantasy is changing their desktop image. On the other side, I have seen many Windows users who, between two games, spend all their time taking care of the look of their desktop.
The plethora of “desktop environments and windows managers for the Linux distros and the BSDs” you mention are there because they all offer something different is terms of usability, not only eye candy.
And please, a windows shell replacement not always means pursue of eye candy, I for one, hate windows’ default shell: whenever I’m forced to use windows I install bbLean to feel a bit more like home. Again it’s a matter of usability.
I agree with you about Object Desktop and WindowBlinds, though.
I didn’t mean to imply that non-Mac users don’t care about looks. Just that make users (the majority of them anyway) seem to place looks as a higher priority than functionality. I’m not saying that Macs are not functional, just many Mac users would have a hard time using OSX if they considered it to be ugly
So you are comparing the behaviour of professional Mac users to Windows Gamers. That is not quite appropriate.
How about comparing professional Mac users with professional Windows users who know how much trouble all this eyecandy trash can bring you after the next patchday. ObjectDesktop in more or less just an addition to WindowBlinds, it is not a theming engine. So basically for the most commonly used OS there are two theming options: WindowBlinds – an comercial product that has been around since win98 days, and upxThemePatcher – an hack of the original XP theming engine to open it up to 3rd party Themes.
LiteStep is an shell replacement that does no actually themeing… windows looks the same apart from the desktop.
That doesn’t imply the majority or even many windows user use them.
I wouldn’t compare Linux Window managers, GUI librarys or DEs to themes. It is a whole different story. If you want to argue in that way you could say something like “my point is proofed by the fact that there are 300 KDE themes”. The reson there are many different GUIs for Linux is more often caused by either technological resons or by licencensing issues, not by “this is prettyer than that”.
Yes Apple invented it all. They invented Desktopwidgets from Konfabulator, they invented the Mouse from SRI, they invented the GUI from Xerox, they invented the mp3-player from …
They are just so innovative. I want to believe.
They are just so innovative. I want to believe.
It’s only marketing blurb. Nothing to take seriously.
“they invented the GUI from Xerox” At least they did pay xerox also they employed some of the xerox smalltalk guys and really added some new ideas to the thing and they saw it was a good idea and bought it to a consumer product when other computer makers and software makers (ms ibm) where thinking the green flashing cursor was the hottest thing in gui design . Why do windows users hate apple users so much I am sick of being called a fanatic or fanboy while i’am pretty reasonable. I am also not smugg nor do I spend more on computers than the avarage windows fanatic fanboy.Apple witout any doubt was more imiganatif and inovatif than either IBM Microsoft or sun and vista just shows they still are.
I don’t realy know what makes you think i’m an Windows user at all. I don’t hate Apple users (an realy rare species) i hate Apple Fanboys (pretty common species) as much as i hate Windows Fanboys or Linux Fanboys.
I just tired of all that Apple-Fanboy-Bullshit induced by Apples unreasonable Troll-Advertisement.
“Gentleman, start your Photocopiers… we already did”.
Nothing the article claims as an Apple developement was invented by them. I also cannot believe there are poeple out there pretending Apple is innovative because they have pretty glossy cases and pretty colorfull themes. See the truth: Apple had memory protection and preemptive Multitasking in 2000. They are always the last to implement even the most basic technologys.
I am sorry it is just that I seem to meet a lot of windows users who think I am a fan-boy or unreasonable because I use an apple computer. I see this repeated in the press and on the internet again and again and get a bit tired of it. I know both linux and windows very well and I think I have some very good reasons to have chosen apple (post os-x) but it has indeed also to do with personal dislikes and what I think a personal computer should be and it is more than just the looks it is also the concept of a computer and how computers change the world we live in . I think what you say about apple and Xerox is just not doing justice to the real story behind the mac but that story does not influence my decision to use a mac today but I think a company who is trying to sell computers may use that kind of image building to sell more computers the modern world is full of that kind of manipulation even open-source projects seem to do it just do not single out apple for that .
I know Apple users and i know Apple zealots personally (ie irl). I never would just call someone an zealot because their choice of os, i’m just so tired of the tons of zealot-bs that piles everywhere, killing every tech board and forum in existence and the linked article is a very good example of the most uninformed and unreflected type of zealot bs around.
Of course the short version of the Xerox story doesn’t do apple justice, but do you honestly think that article does Vista justice? In fact the idea of an GUI itself didn’t even come from Xerox but is much older.
What bothers me in apple is their absolutly unreasonable, unfounded troll-bs advertisement methods.
Those methods unfortunately are showing in the zealot kind of apple users. Don’t you agree that the article is an good example of this? I couldn’t even read it in whole because all that bs gave me too much headache.
Hey I like to play with squeak so I looked at some Allan Kay movies and he showed some research that inspired Xerox I also think those guys were very lucky with the kind of freedom they got there that is the kind of freedom you need to really think different and really innovate how they worked with children to learn them small-talk is also very inspired, that will never happen in Apple or Microsoft or Sun and even the so called agile people are really just hot air and maybe i sound like a kind of a hippy or something I do not even think it is possible in the current economical and political climate. About the apple advertisements I happen to really like the pc guy and do not think the apple advertisements are ever really bad . It is the internet that seems to polarise discussions I fall into that trap myself sometimes and it is not just the apple fan-boy’s like me that do that.
Technologically, OS9 was a dinosaur. Apple was aware of this at least as far back as OS7. I’m glad they took their time and didn’t just rush headlong into the first idea they had ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland ) and foist it upon the users whether it worked or not. Not that anyone we know of does that. Ahem. But anyway, even with the dinosaur, Mac users were happy all along. They’re just happier now (mostly). Execution outweighs theory.
Check the meaning of the word innovation. There’s a reason the word exists. It’s not the same as invention. The tiny little dictionary window that pops up if I hit ctrl-command-d while hovering over the word innovate gives me this: make changes in something established, esp. by introducing new methods, ideas, or products
Apple innovated their dock out of the statically available nature of a taskbar, the advanced functionality of NeXT, and the simplicity of one click. They innovated the universal menu bar out of the pre-existing menu bar concept and the need to eliminate redundancy and clutter. Same thing with the Inspector. Get Info / Properties type windows have been around for a good long while. Apple took that and made it cleaner and more powerful. They innovated the computer with no floppy drive and using universal buses for all peripherals, the trappings of a fully modern computer that the PC world still hasn’t caught up to. They’ve made shortcut keys an art form. They’ve taken fast search and innovated it to something so straightforward it actually replaces file browsing. They took widgets and innovated them into something unobtrusively convenient. I can think of a bunch of other innovations, like the way Preview works, but they’re harder to explain in such simple terms.
So yeah, citing things Apple gets credit for innovating that they didn’t actually invent is meaningless. No one said they were Edison. They’re really more like Ford.
I agree, Fanboys are a pain. Then you go right into same old Windows Fanboy crap? “Gentleman, start your Photocopiers” isn’t any different than Steve Balmer prancing around stage and losing his voice. Company events preaching to the choirs. Invention and innovation are never simply one man, one concept. I would assume you believe that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.
See the truth: Apple had memory protection and preemptive Multitasking in 2000. They are always the last to implement even the most basic technologys.
Lets remember the truth. The preemptive multitasking argument hung around for years. The awesome advanced technology that MS had over Apple, which was one of the primary reasons for Windows BSOD fame. All that 16bit legacy code for (marginal) “backwards compatibility”. Of course Macs would crash under Systems 7,8, and 9, just not as often and rarely if every damaging the OS requiring a clean install and losing your files. Stability was in no way a reality for Windows until XP SP2 (what year was that?)
Now what real innovations will we have when Vista is finally released? Nothing I can see, and the author of the article gets it pretty well right. It is all about “bling”. I have been using Vista RC1 for the last week. Windows finally has a decent looking desktop out of the box with smooth fonts and a softer less harsh display (no matter what a users personal preference about themes). I see no real advancements otherwise. It is the same old Windows underneath with a few name changes and a so called security system commonly refered to as UAC. More intrusive dialogs with some change text. We are being sold a bill of goods. If we are truly honest about it, Vista is trying to make a “silk purse from a sows ear”.
“Gentleman, start your Photocopiers” is a line from an Apple ad for the latest OS X version.
>Invention and innovation are never simply one man, one concept.
That’s exactly what i was trying to say. Apple did take what was already there. None of the features that the almighty OS X has and Vista copied from OS X were invented by Apple. Everything was around before. I would even go so far to say that Apple didn’t even improved them.
>The awesome advanced technology that MS had over Apple, which was one of the primary reasons for Windows BSOD fame.
Preemptive Multitasking was around in Windows NT, which run very stable. Win 9x only had cooperative Multitasking and no memory protecttion. I wasn’t getting at Microsoft here though. Amiga had preemptive Multitasking in 1985, as had various other operating systems.
>Of course Macs would crash under Systems 7,8, and 9, just not as often…
That heavily contradicts my experience. The Virtual Memory system in pre OS X was so incredibly crappy that we had stuffed our OS 8 Macs so full of Ram that they never needed to page out, because they would crash very often if they did.
>Stability was in no way a reality for Windows until XP SP2 (what year was that?)
That’s not true. You probably had defect hardware, but on normal Working hardware XP runs very stable without any SPs… the SPs are around because of security problems, not stability issues. Even Win 2000 was running extremly stable if you worked with it. It only had stability issues when running games. That was because the Graphicsdrivers could pretty much bypass everything. Windows NT 4.0 already was quite rock-solid… and that was mid 90s.
Speaking as a programer, the minimum i expect from an os is memory protection. Without memory protection every error you do with pointers or direct handling of memory leads to an os crash (and you make such mistakes from time to time if you are not an alien), instead of an app crash. So pre OS X Macos was completly crap from a programmers point of view which is of course true for the 9x branch of Windows as well. Thank god there where some decent operating systems around that time as well.
>Now what real innovations will we have when Vista is finally released
Probably none. I didn’t state there where new, innovative features in Vista. But that is also true for OS X. Nothing it has to offer wasn’t around before it, not even the tiny idea of the color flashing Window buttons. Much of those new features are obvious ideas and much have been around for years. Just stop pretending that everyone copys from Apple. How do you know they don’t steal the same places as Apple does?
Actually Windows 95 did preemptive multi-tasking running 32 bit applications, and switched to a hybrid form of cooperative multi-tasking to run 16 bit programs. This was carried through ME which was actually much better as an OS than its reputation, but got its bad name from gamers and uninformed users holding on to their older software for dear life. NT 4 was pretty stable, but application support issues kept most users and businesses running mixed systems, either dual booting on single machines or NT servers with 9X desktops. Userland was often a nightmare.
Mac OS 8.6 greatly improved Virtual Memory, but ultimately Mac OS was never going to get much better. Apple recommended turning off VM and installing more RAM, and systems would then run quite well, but certainly not rock solid stable. Contemporary Windows users suffered far more from lost files and a damaged OS than Mac users. Of course any knowlegable user in either case had little difficulty. The Mac zealots in those days often wrongly equated simply rebooting and getting back to work with a denial of the crash problems Mac OS did have.
Defective hardware is the most popular claim Windows Fanboys use when arguing their points. You know better than that, but you assumed as most of initially do, that I was writing from a single user point of view. I am a bit dissapointed with “… the SPs are around because of security problems, not stability issues” because I am sure you really do know better than that. We also really need to accept that security is also a factor with stability, and not forget that some security patches at times created stability issues.
I do not pretend that everyone copies from Apple. When ever a feature becomes popular, everyone is going to incorporate a version of this feature in their OS. Apple does a great job marketing “cool” features, and then the flame-wars begin. It is actually not a bad thing for everones business. What I truly find unfortunate is that MS is chasing the UI experience with greater emphasis than real security. With all the money and programming power at their finger tips, MS is not giving us anything really new.
I’m afraid the only place realy new comes from in the foreseeable future will be from OSS scene and often not in the best forms of implementation.
I guess big companys have to be scared to try something realy new, because they are so dependant on making money.
On the stability of XP i have to say that i only know one person who had crashes in XP and it only took one look on his mainboard to see that the reason was that the elcos on his cheap-ass mainboard started to spit their guts out. Of course security issues are tied to stability, but those can be avoided with common sense.
But again, i’m not critizing OS X in favor of Windows. I do use Windows relatively often, since i have to develop software for the OS our customers want, but i’m very neutral towards it. Private, i prefer Linux and partly Solaris.
(I could care less how overpriced the powermac is, I’ll never buy one because I know how to plug cables together to build my own)
Actually, for what you get on the new Mac Pros, the price is pretty much lower at the time it came out to a comparable Dell. The price for what you get with the Mac Pro is NOT overpriced.
Actually, for what you get on the new Mac Pros, the price is pretty much lower at the time it came out to a comparable Dell. The price for what you get with the Mac Pro is NOT overpriced.
Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe Dell is overpriced as well? See, that’s the beauty of PCs … you can actually buy them from more than one vendor, or even build your own if you want
Tiger or Windows Vista? Boot Camp let’s you choose.
rrrggghhh…
Wow, a biased mac fan rips apart windows!
What is next?
A biased linux fan rips apart Windows?
Nothing to see here, move along.
Actually, I thought he was pretty fair. Which does *not* mean that I wouldn’t be harsher than he is.
A macboy writing about another OS? Forget it. Like an oil company reviewing a hydrogen fuel cell.
Madness. Unless your a macboy yourself – read it a few times over so you can drum in to your head how crap Vista and the rest of the non Apple computing world is/has/will be. And don’t forget to remind yourself that new new mac you bought was a good idea.
I find it unsurprising that articles get dismissed and the boi/boy type slurs come out.
Is it only a interesting article if the conclusion was different.
The article says to me “Apple faithful will not be swayed by Vista” — Thats important
What else stood out…Even though Vista has all these under the hood improvements; enough bundled software to keep the EU commissioners in beer money; subscription based security…he cared how it looked “pretty but not pretty enough”
The only other thing is he didn’t like UAC…and he is already has prior experience of different implimentaion of similar functionality, and he found Microsoft intrusive.
Look is important…in todays world more than ever. I feel more and more everyday that Microsoft should have sent their Programmers home on 5 years ago, bought a couple of applications and sent in some artists.
>> I quickly took the plunge, practically chortling at the thought that my dual-core laptop could run Microsoft’s next operating system. What better way to show that when you buy a Mac you get two computers in one? <<
Wow, two computers in one! When you buy a Mac! I hope I won’t be needing treatment for laughus outus louditis. On any PC you can install a dual, triple, or pentakazuple boot system with any amount of Linux, BSD, Solaris (and yes, Windows) distros you like.
[edit] I even forgot to mention that great *n*x distros have been ported to PPC for ages. But hey, wasn’t Intel on the Mac “revolutionary” too?
Edited 2006-09-29 08:16
>> A lot of applications I use regularly — the Firefox browser , iTunes, Quicktime — work just fine in Vista. <<
[emphasis added]
Sorry, just had another great laugh. I hope I won’t have to assume the author supposes that Firefox is a “Mac application?” No, that would be too unimaginable.
In any case, if Firefox runs fine even on Vista on Apple’s Intel hardware, both Microsoft and Apple have done a great job!
:p
What better way to show that when you buy a Mac you get two computers in one?
How the h* do you get two computers when buying a Mac? Is there some kind of special offer no one have seen before “Buy a Mac, get two for the price of one?”
Really, it’s just one computer
and really does not belong on a news site…