Microsoft Corp. said it will act as a neutral arbiter in the ongoing battle between the competing recordable DVD standards, supporting all of them in the upcoming Longhorn release. Microsoft added support for DVD-R and DVD-RW into Longhorn, due in 2005. Longhorn already supports the DVD-RAM, DVD+RW and DVD+R formats. Also, here is a picture, showing the Windows Client roadmap: Windows XP Tablet PC Version 2 due 2003, Windows XP Media Center Edition Version 2 due 2004. Beta 1 and Beta 2 of Longhorn due 2004. In the meantime, here are a few screenshots and videos of Longhorn.
Windows Client Roadmap; Longhorn UI Videos, Shots; DVD Formats
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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They already have people drooling for technology that is not going to appear for almost two years, and it is technology that has been present is OS X for almost 9 months.
Does everything have to be MS vs Apple? I don’t see anything in this news post about OSX..
That minimizing crap will be touted as ‘Innovation’. Come on, people – it’s just a stupid hack that looks pretty and does NOTHING. And actually, it doesn’t even look that pretty. I imagine it gets annoying.
>> …and it is technology that has been present in
>> OS X for almost 9 months.
Hmm, I must’ve missed the OSX Tablet edition and OSX Media Center edition release announcements.
Mac SuperDrives only do DVD-R as a DVD format. Windows users have been able to get a Sony drive that does DVD-R/RW, and DVD+R/RW for almost a year now. How exactly has OS X been ahead of Windows in that regard?
OS X is good, but it’s not the end-all be-all of anything. It certainly isn’t something that you can keep saying, “wah wah wah, we had that first” to every little thing some other OS company does.
Isn’t it annoying how Apple users will defend their OS and claim that just about everything Microsoft does was borrowed from them. Ten years from now, they’ll be saying iChat came first and that ICQ, MSN and AIM followed.
As much as I think that the special kind of minimizing in the Windows OS is useless and that the transparency is pretty, a lot of idiot Apple users will automatically think that Windows is better because it’s prettier. Might as well give the gimps a little bit of eye candy.
I’m mostly excited about Longhorn because of the new file system. I would like to see how resistant it is to fragmentation. As well, I like the informative dock they have now. (This is where Apple users lie about how Windows stole this idea). I like how they put everything you’d want and could think of wanting into an accessible dock, not just applications, shortcuts and minimized windows.
Nope, osX isn’t the end-all be-all of anything… But in this case(the windows gui, minimize stuff, 3d stuff, etc.) Apple simply /was/ there 9 months ago, and Windows will is touting it as innovation by them. It isn’t. Plus, the innovation is 2 years away. So while it doesn’t work for everything, in this case, Apple beat MS to the punch(with a 2year, 9 month lead) and MS is still going to be saying they did it first.
What a waste of processing power and what an annoyance. Sure, it may look cool at first, but I think its annoying, after watching the movie only 2 times!
…the pretty effects themselves, it’s HOW they are generated. Apple might be able to do SOME of what Longhorn will ultimately be able to do but it cannot do everything now. ALso, Apple might not be as innovative as you think. Apple didn’t necessarily develop all these GUI concepts, they just got them to market first.
Besides, with WindowFX and ObjectDock from Stardock I can already turn on all the eye candy effects a la OS X in Windows.
What does all of this twisting, stretching, and animation actually do for PRODUCTIVITY??
Just give me the Win32 Classic theme, please. No 3D, no bells, no whistles, until you can show me how all of this ‘eye candy’ is going to make my life easier and me more productive.
Thank you.
Why does someone always have to mention “Microsoft copy OS X” or the likes everytime Longhorn is mention? Why? Does OS X uses a SQL database to store metadata? Or does OS X even have a stable journaling feature for their file system? That’s, IMHO, at least for me, Longhorn’s biggest feature.
And Rayiner said over and over again, I personally thought I wouldn’t have to say it; Quartz and Longhorn’s is very different. QE just send composite effects to OpenGL, Longhorn sends everything to Direct3D.
Someone mention on #fresco on IRC asking why Fresco only shows off completely useless stuff. What the developers answered was to show off the behind. Stuff that the user won’t see. You see – it is very difficult for you to show off your new graphics engine if you say “sorry, no special gee-whiz effects you’d wish we had put off by default in the final package.”
In other words, I’m trying to say, Microsoft is just showing what the graphics engine can do. Other possiblities can only be shown if applications actually use it for themselves. It is pretty much just like how Apple showed off Quartz – useless eye candy. But that doesn’t mean Quartz only amount to useless eye candy – it does a lot of neat stuff users may use for productivity (saving in PDF for example).
Isn’t Apples ability to get these innovations out there easier since their userbase is practically nothing compared to Microsoft? I’m not trying to bash OSX or apple but lets be realistic…
Face it MS copies everything. Name one piece of software they made that was not a copy. Just one! It is a good buisness model. They are the settlers not the pioneers.
Unix, Novell, Beos, AMIGA, Apple get upset because we have seen 15 year old features marketed as brand new.
Heck the AMIGA had its GUI rendered with its Chipset in the 80’s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After having said that. The database filesystem is a cool idea (its been done before). It is the first time I have been impressed with MS.
In fact, they should make the blue screen of death with 3D gee-wiz effects
I like to tile certain windows cleanly at the bottom of my screen. Having the windows swirl around when I move them is going to affect the way I position windows, and perhaps others. I’d be turning that feature off ASAP!
Here’s an incomplete ‘laundry list’ of features and ideas that were “borrowed” by Apple from other pltaforms/OSes (mostly Windows, OS/2, Unix or BeOS). It seems like Win95 (and OSR2) represented the turning point where Apple started to chase the rest of the world.
OS 8.0 (1997) and 8.1
* Contextual menus
* Multi-button mouse support (or was that added later?)
* Menus that stay open (You can make menus stay open by clicking the menu name.)
* Assistants (Wizards)
* Menu for switching finder views
* Move to Trash (menu command)
* A Help menu (instead of “?”)
* Runtime for Java
* Simultaneous operations (enhanced co-operative multitasking)
* “Live” scrolling
* Desktop Pictures control panel
* A relatively modern filesystem with 4KB Blocks and 255 char filenames (HFS+)
* Built-in web browser
OS 8.5 (1998) and 8.6
* “Find by Content”
* Application Switcher
* Searchable Help
* Text-to-speech capabilities
* Use icons in the title bar of a folder or volume window to move or copy the folder or volume and all its contents
* Change the width and order of columns
* Tell how much of a window’s content is visible by looking at proportional scroll boxes.
* Scroll the contents of a window more easily using double scroll arrows
* Smooth the appearance of text by turning on anti-aliasing
* OpenGL support
OS 9.x (1999)
* Multi-users support
* Software update
* Encrypt files
* File sharing over TCP/IP
* Keyboard shortcuts for the new Finder Window menu
OS X (2001-)
* Pre-emptive Multitasking
* Memory protection
* Multithreading
* Dynamic Memory Allocation
* Application crash does not require reboot
* SMP
* File extensions
* Concurrent Multi-users support
* Logout option
* UFS and NFS support
* Larger than 32×32 pixels icons
* Adjacent window widgets
* Minimize windows widget
* Double click title to minimize
* Dock (see MS-Windows 1.0)
* Folder background
* Multi-pane view of files and folders
* Computer Level (Finder hierarchy)
* Network Icon
* Unix – FS hierarchy
* Unix – permissions
* Unix – command line (Terminal)
* Unix – commands and utilities (too many to count)
* Unix – scripting languages – Perl, Ruby, Python
* BSD kernel
* Customizable and removable Finder toolbar
* Fonts common-dialog
* Single window browsing
* System wide Unicode support
* CPU Monitor
* Process Viewer
* Grab (screenshot utility)
* TextEdit (built in rich-text editor)
* MP3 encoding
* Sub-pixel font smoothing
* Open Type font support
* FTP server
* Apache
* SSH
* SMB (samba)
* Automatic launch for OS installer
* Single click activation of inactive window items
* The Desktop can be viewed in a Finder window
* Preview pane
* Undo/Redo for Finder actions
* Long filenames display in Finder (255 chars instead of 30)
* Right-to-left text input
* Full keyboard navigation
* Live window dragging and resizing
* Animated desktop picture
* Character Palette
* Built-in Broadband support
* Active Directory support
* VPN – PPTP based client
* Instant messaging (iChat)
* Included developer tools
* GCC compiler
* System wide address book
* X11 support
Hardware
* USB
* PCI
* IDE
* AGP
Granted, some of these features are huge while others are just fine-tuning of the interface, but to the best of my knowledge, all of them appeared elsewhere before being implemented by Apple (the names are likely to be different though…)
This was originaly posted in an Arstechnica Battlefront discussion:
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=48…
added support for DVD-R and DVD-RW into Longhorn,
Don’t get me wrong, I commend the effort, but I just burned a DVD-RW in Windows XP from the filemanager. I would be sorely disappointed if Longhorn didn’t support something XP does.
The last time I checked, any DVD burning capability was done with third-party software and drivers – not integrated into Windows. This mean, you probably can’t burn from Windows Explorer (especially useful if you are using Mt Rainer).
This does not mean you can’t burn DVDs on previous versions of Windows – it means you don’t nessecarily have to get third party stuff to do it.
> Come on, people – it’s just a stupid hack
> that looks pretty and does NOTHING.
Not true at all. Work is offloaded from the CPU to
the graphics card. Apart from fancy effects, the
system more or less eliminates expose / redraw
events. Also I guess that you won’t see any kind
of flickering anywhere, without applications
explicitly using double buffering.
The hardware is already there, and does basically
nothing unless you play a game.
I’d rather use third party software that comes with the hardware, than third rate software thats built into the OS. ANY OS.
Just saw the video with rotating movies in Longhorn.
When they can do it with 6 different ones, they’re
allowed to put them on the faces of a cube 😉
dan: Face it MS copies everything. Name one piece of software they made that was not a copy. Just one! It is a good buisness model. They are the settlers not the pioneers.
Welcome to the beautiful world of business. Most, if not all, successful companies thrive on their marketing not being first to have it. Palm, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, heck even Apple.
dan: Unix, Novell, Beos, AMIGA, Apple get upset because we have seen 15 year old features marketed as brand new.
Ohhhhh…. yess…….. Novell had DVD-R burning capabilities 15 years ago.. Speaking of Amiga, it depends largely on hardware, if not totally – so? That doesn’t mean Microsoft is copying them (call me when Microsoft announces that its OS is written in 100% assembler). Microsoft just depends of DirectX for their graphics, and DirectX just depends on the GPU. And BeOS hardly had a stable proper OpenGL implementation, besides the thousands of features they should have before I seriously consider them (e.g. multiuser support).
So tell me again, how is the features hyped in the links above available 15 years ago?
dan: Heck the AMIGA had its GUI rendered with its Chipset in the 80’s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ohhhhh…. yess…… they had 3D composition effects in the 80s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tell me again – where is the Amiga platform?
dan: After having said that. The database filesystem is a cool idea (its been done before). It is the first time I have been impressed with MS.
Actually while there are countless amount of examples of database-like file systems, I don’t know any other file system other than WFS that actually uses a real database (well, in the future), more or less.
dan: In fact, they should make the blue screen of death with 3D gee-wiz effects
Waste of time, people hardly see it these days (unless they have really really incompatible software). Besides the fact that the BSOD is suppose to be minimal – how do you use Direct3D is Direct3D crashed with the rest of the OS?
Well, you (as well as me) are a minority. Stuff built into the OS are never meant to completely replicate full-blown third party software. It is meant to have a no-brainer solution for people who couldn’t be bothered with other options. And people who can’t understand jargon used by these 3rd party apps (“buffer underrun protection? huh?”)
For OS X, the dock was originally from NeXT/OPENSTEP…
1. How does that refute my original statement that “ideas were borrowed by Apple from *other* pltaforms/OSes” and that “all of these features appeared elsewhere before being implemented by Apple”? Let me remind you something: NeXT was a *different* company that was one of Apple’s competitors. If Apple had bought BeOS and implemented its ideas would that be any different? they would still have originated somewhere else.
2. In case you didn’t know, NeXT stole the dock *directly* from Windows 1.0:
http://www.neowin.net/staff/creamhackered/articles/windowshistory/1…
I think most windows users are used to installing the software that comes with their hardware by now.. The OS is the backdrop for the applications that they use. If you’re joe user and you happen to buy a CDRW, you’re probably gonna see a Nero disc there, and you’re going to install it, and use it.
I use Linux/Windows. I don’t expect Microsoft to build burning support into their OS. If I have my nice third party app that comes on a CD with my hardware, then I’m more than happy.
Geee, relax
I wasn’t trying to refute, merely to supplement. I do know, recognize, and have argued that NeXT creations do not automagically make then Apple innovations, as well.However, the ‘dock’ in Windows 1/2 acts *differently* to the NeXT dock. The dock in NeXT operating systems acts as a place to hold links to applications, and the Recycler, of course. The ‘dock’ in Windows v1 and 2 show currently running applications only (programs are launched within the MS-DOS executive) and do not hold links to currently running programs. In NeXT and OPENSTEP, currently running programs *not* in the dock are tiled at the bottom of the screen.
Try not to judge the operation of these systems strictly from screenshots instead of using them
I’m aware of the fact that these effects are just a showoff, and even though I’m worried about the fact that they will actually will be included it’s no biggie.
I have been interested in having a OpenGL based graphics server in BeOS for years mainly because of two things:
1.) Resizable interface. Because in most cases I mostly don’t use a high resolution to be able to fit more stuff on to the screen at once, I use it because I want a higher resolution of images and text for example. Though in some cases I want to be able to benefit from having a high resolution by being able to have smaller but still understandable and readable windows. A window should maintain it’s original size on screen no matter which resolution I have.
2.) Rendering most of the stuff in the GPU instead of in the CPU. Just like on the amiga.
Nice for windows users to have this feature, I’m happy for them. Still no reason for me to switch
Perhaps with Zeta this will become a reality in BeOS as well.
2001: OSX release
2002: OSX Jaguar release
2003: OSX Panther release
basic interpolation:
2004: OSX 10.4
2005: OSX 10.5 and Longhorn
Too bad that Apple never overhypes their products that are still 2 years away, so we could really compare this overhyped marketing speach from longhorn with that from osx 10.5.
Oh well, what’s that saying in dutch.. “Don’t sell the bear’s skin, before he is shot”
“Longhorn already supports the DVD-RAM, DVD+RW and DVD+R formats.”
LOL.. thats funny, DVD-RAM is -dead- (too slow, too expensive), even Apple won’t have anything to do with it anymore after the original DVD-burning capabilities in the high-end G4 towers. As for DVD+RW and DVD+R, given that Lonhorn is only coming out sometime in 2005, that’s kind of too little (way) too late.
Name one major innovation in the OS industry that either of these two companies have developed from scratch. Most of the things we take for granted in our computers were either designed or thought up in the 60’s and 70’s. They weren’t available due to hardware resources until the mid-70’s, and weren’t available to every day users until the present day. Nothing either of them are doing is totally innovative, dare I say innovative at all. They are just simply finally able to do what engineers had thought of 30-40 years ago because machines are fast enough now.
That being said, the worst kind of engineer is the one who thinks they have to invent every little part of their product themselves. “Not invented here”-ism is probably the most counterproductive sentiment an engineer or corporation can have.
Nope, osX isn’t the end-all be-all of anything… But in this case(the windows gui, minimize stuff, 3d stuff, etc.) Apple simply /was/ there 9 months ago, and Windows will is touting it as innovation by them. It isn’t.
Microsoft first showed an entirely 3D based GUI back when they were touting (the now shelved) Taligent and their CHROME series of multimedia enhancements to Windows 2000. OS X (and then Quartz) came out long after those demos were shown. Apple might /have/ been there 9 months ago. They certainly /weren’t/ there 3-4 years ago.
I guess the TransluXent experimental X server http://www.stud.uni-karlsruhe.de/~unk6/transluxent/ (using OpenGL for X rendering) is something similar to this technology?
I am just putting it out there but isn’t apple a monopoly, should we really be praising a company that controls the software the hardware and slowly anything else it can get it’s hands on. just my 2 cents
Microsoft first showed an entirely 3D based GUI back when they were touting (the now shelved) Taligent…
Taligent was an Apple/IBM company, and had nothing to do with Microsoft, except as a competitor. Were you thinking of something else? Second of all, there has been no GUI that is entirely 3D based. Let’s say that OS X and or WindowsXP was entirely 3D based GUI’s. Said concepts again have existed for literally decades, but didn’t have the computing power to do it. I think I first saw a concept for a real 3D file browser system in 1988, long before it was feasible for normal computers to run it.
Once again, BFD, none of what we are seeing is innovative.
everyone steals from everyone else and claims they did it first, who really cares
the real issue is what OS you consider technologically superior and whether it is better enough to switch to
what irks me is that microsoft is behind OS X in many areas, so what does microsoft do? they ANNOUNCE something better, something that doesn’t come out for two years and call it equal. and some of you people are buying it hook line and sinker.
this is the situation that microsoft and some of you are arguing: Quartz Extreme is great, but Microsoft is going to have something better in Longhorn so the damn Apple zealots can not stop bragging.
but longhorn doesn’t come out for two years! and quartz extreme has been out almost a year. the funny part is that the feature set of longhorn just barely outdoes the feature set of 10.2. And 10.2 is probably going to be 3 years older than Longhorn
intel did the same thing. The PowerPC came out and it was alot faster than the 486. and what does intel say? why bother with the PowerPC the Pentium will be just as fast and it will be available in only a year and a half. technologies have to be in the same timeframe to fairly compare feature sets.
I just wish Microsoft would spend half as much effort rewriting the task bar as they apparently have on transparency and morphing demos. The task bar is garbage. I can’t move programs around. It has gotten a little better in XP since windows are now grouped by program. But icons are still too tiny. Open a few programs and all I get is the first few letters of each name. It’s crap. And I haven’t heard a single peep that this is going to change.
ps. Technically Mac OS X has had this for longer than 9 months – since the first release. However, it wasn’t until the 10.2 “Jaguar” release last year that the work was offloaded to the GPU and it became practical to use the 3D features.
This mean, you probably can’t burn from Windows Explorer (especially useful if you are using Mt Rainer).
No, I burned from explorer (I specifically mentioned it in my comment.
I am just putting it out there but isn’t apple a monopoly, should we really be praising a company that controls the software the hardware and slowly anything else it can get it’s hands on. just my 2 cents
No, Apple is not a monopoly. A company holds a monopoly if it has a major market share, say 95% of a certain market. A good example is Microsoft, that has a monopoly on the home desktop os market. Intel also had a monopoly on the processor market, but with AMD that monopoly was partially broken. Resulting in even more speed, and lower prices of their products. Hopefully the same will happen in the OS market.
The control of a company over hardware and software is not that uncommon as you might think. Sun and IBM for example do it for their server products. Be initially did it too, but later changed their position. NexT did it too at the beginning. And let’s not forget Amiga.
Controlling both software and hardware has a couple of advantages for both the developers and the users of a certain platform. Offcourse it has also some disadvantages.
>> Were you thinking of something else?
Yeah, I was/am. At one point MS came up with a hardware spec for 3D stuff. It was around the same time they started “partnering” with SGI to create the next-gen 3D API. The hardware aspect went PFFFT and MS ended up promoting DX instead of OpenGL and then buying up most of the SGI patent portfolio.
The code name started with a T. I could’ve sworn it was Taligent. I recognize the Apple/IMB name, now that you mention it, though.
Anon, yes, Apple is a monopoly.
There are two different forms of monopoly, one of vertical integration (taking over every task from manufacturing to selling) and horizontal (taking over all the competition in the said market).
Spinning windows, flag waving calculators! I’ll sleep well tonight, sound in the knowledge that computers have finally delivered on thier promise to change our lives for the better.
Andrew: I think most windows users are used to installing the software that comes with their hardware by now..
I would presume by then that computers would be coming with the DVD-R/RW/+R/+RW drives and not bought third party instead. In other words, unless the OEM does it by default, how many actually install software for OEM hardware – if any?
Andrew: If you’re joe user and you happen to buy a CDRW
And how often does that happen anyway? Besides, most people buying CD-R drives is to burn music anyway – which built-in CD burning in Windows Explorer wouldn’t be capable in doing, If they are using WMP, they would be using that, with or without other third party software that came with the drive. Or if they were using Realone, same thing. Or *gasp* MusicMatch. Or whatever.
Andrew: I don’t expect Microsoft to build burning support into their OS.
With Windows XP, Microsoft licensed Roxio. Sorry, but you expected wrong.
I don’t see any reason why Microsoft can’t do the same for Longhorn. Besides, I’m not gonna continue this debate between built-in burners and third-party ones – it is besides the point. The point is that Longhorn can burn DVD-R, DVD-RWs, DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM without third party software. Is that useful? I’ll leave that to the users
Man, people bitch and moan about anything these days.
First OS X adds all sorts of eye candy and people say “This is so much cooler and more powerful than Microsoft!” Then Windows builds start showing off more powerful graphical effects and people say “been there, done that” or “who cares about spinning windows?”
Well, I, for one, care. I like a pleasant graphical experience. I don’t need unnecessary distraction, but I like a computer to be fun and futuristic. That’s why I prefer evolution to pine, and gedit to vi, and Mozilla to lynx.
In the end, Windows Longhorn will be much more powerful than Jaguar, and probably Panther too. Of course, at this rate, OS X will be a release past Panther in 2005, so…
Anonymous: 2003: OSX Panther release
basic interpolation:
2004: OSX 10.4
2005: OSX 10.5 and Longhorn
Uhmm, IIRC, Apple said that 10.3 would be the last in the OS X line. Or maybe I’m wrong.
Anonymous: Too bad that Apple never overhypes their products that are still 2 years away, so we could really compare this overhyped marketing speach from longhorn with that from osx 10.5.
Uhmm, actually they did. Unless you are quick to forget the amount of hype that went into Rhapsody (what that became OS X), including “leaked” screenies, previews, and the sort. Far more that Microsoft is doing now. In any ADC back then (1998-2000), you can hear more hype about it than now with WinHEC.
Ekkio: LOL.. thats funny, DVD-RAM is -dead-
I would consider otherwise. While yeah, but may be lame in comparison with the other standards – it is mainly because it is designed for a different purpose. Here, DVD-RAM is *growing* in popularity for backup usage (nothing much more, nothing much less). While may be behind the other competitors in low-end backup solutions, it is gaining momentum.
But if you are expecting to burn a movie on a DVD-RAM – you are probably ignorant. You are 1) wasting the potential of the DVD-RAM 2)risk it not playing in much players and 3) wasting money.
Ekkio: As for DVD+RW and DVD+R, given that Lonhorn is only coming out sometime in 2005, that’s kind of too little (way) too late.
Lack of built-in CD burning software in Windows 98/Me and 2000 didn’t hinder a massive adoption of CD burners. Meanwhile, I wouldn’t expect DVD burners to become popular over the next two-three years. Mainly because CD burners got popular with music burning because of Napster. And nowadays, most people don’t have a fast enough connection to download movies (illegally).
Hank: Second of all, there has been no GUI that is entirely 3D based.
Especially so with 2D monitors.
Anonymous: the funny part is that the feature set of longhorn just barely outdoes the feature set of 10.2.
Oh yes, like the most important feature in Longhorn that matters more that gee-whiz 3D effects – namely database-driven file system, is supported by OS X 10.2?
Wow, I didn’t know that.
Anonymous: why bother with the PowerPC the Pentium will be just as fast and it will be available in only a year and a half.
And now, Intel has faster processors than any other PPC chip in the market. Hook line and sinker indeed.
DJ Jedi Jeff: But icons are still too tiny.
I found them just right. Same with most people I asked. Maybe it is time to get a new pair of glasses?
Open a few programs and all I get is the first few letters of each name.
Just like OS X, you can mouse over and the application name would pop up. And to pretty much to sumarize your entire post, you much prefer Microsoft writing a Dock clone instead…
Interesting… (and completely stupid too
)
No, I burned from explorer (I specifically mentioned it in my comment.
Okay, is this right out the box for Windows?
Or did you install any third-party application to get this?
If it is the latter, it doesn’t count as an MS feature.
Anonymous: A company holds a monopoly if it has a major market share, say 95% of a certain market
The big task is where do you draw the line in defining a market? The desktop? x86 desktop? Something like that? Cause if any judge and the appeal judge after that find that Apple is in its market of its own – it means that Apple is a monopoly. But of course, that would mean a lawsuit is required, and frankly it is not worth it even if they are found as a monopoly and illegally using/gaining it (how much money can you get after all?)
Plus, currently you are only talking about horizontal monopoly. Apple is very well a vertical monopoly.
Im pretty anti-MS….but in this case, I see nothing more than them giving ppl a small glimpse into the future of windows. I dont see them claiming new innovation, ripping anyones ideas off, or promoting somthing that wont be out for 2 years. They’re just giving a very brief demonstration of what their doing for Longhorn….thats it…nothing more. I like to bash MS like the next guy for legitimate reasons, but not for things like this.
As far as everyone preaching OSX troll fodder, please….lets be realistic here. I know its a great OS, but Apple can hardly take all the credit for it. They took Unix and NeXT and added their own stuff to make OSX. So that makes OSX about 70 to 80% non Apple to start with. Aside from that it only runs on Apple hardware with BIG fat Apple prices. As a result, I could care less what OSX can do or has been able to do for the last year because it will never be anything more than a niche market….lets say about the same 5 to 6% of the market theyve always had. If they lower their prices to be more competitive…Im there. If they port to x86…Im there.
For now, I’ll just keep enjoying my Gentoo Linux for everything and Windows for gaming.
There are two different forms of monopoly, one of vertical integration (taking over every task from manufacturing to selling) and horizontal (taking over all the competition in the said market).
Aah, we have a different word for “vertical monopoly”, that doesn’t refer to monopoly at all.. That’s the confusion probably.
Now the definition of a vertical monopoly is more something like (that’s pretty much the first one I could find, if you find any other definition, please provide it..):
Vertical Monopoly – a company that owns at least one business on each level of business in a market.
I’m sorry, but apple has not a vertical market. They would if they bought IBM and Motorola for the processors, toshiba, pioneer, amd, .. The software that is installed by default isn’t apple exclusive either. I’m thinking about Quickbook, Stuffit, Omnigraffle, Acrobat reader, FaxSTF, Internet Explorer,..
Calling apple a monopoly is very far fetched, vertical or horizontal. If anything, you can say that Apple is more restrictive than Microsoft about on what hardware you can run their software. Which is neither a crime, or anything abnormal.
And yes rajan, if you call Apple “a market on their own”, you can call them a monopoly. But then you can sue every single company for being a monopoly. Sony is a monopoly in Sony hardware. Casio is a monopoly in Casio hardware. Interbrew is a monopoly in Interbrew beer. It is clear that calling apple “a monopoly on their own” is just plain stupid.
Whoops, no preview button.
Aah, we have a different word for “vertical monopoly”,..
Should be:
Aah, we have a different word for “vertical monopoly” in dutch, that doesn’t refer to the word “monopoly” at all.
I’m sorry, but apple has not a vertical market.
should be:
I’m sorry but apple has not a vertical monopoly
Oh yes, like the most important feature in Longhorn that matters more that gee-whiz 3D effects – namely database-driven file system, is supported by OS X 10.2?
This is just so silly. Current file systems are just relational databases that simply have a paucity of indexes. The big news that you are referring to is searchable meta-data. This decision to start calling the technology “database driven file systems” is quite misleading.
Just like OS X, you can mouse over and the application name would pop up. And to pretty much to sumarize your entire post, you much prefer Microsoft writing a Dock clone instead…
Of course if the icons were bigger I wouldn’t need to see the names. If the point is to find what you’re looking for quickly, hovering over each item to find it is certainly not the fastest way. This is especially true as monitors get bigger. The icons in Windows stay the same size. Icons in Mac OS X can grow to quite large proportions.
And, for the record, I had these complaints about Windows before I ever laid eyes on Mac OS X. So don’t try to brush it off like that.
rajan r:
I would consider otherwise. While yeah, but may be lame in comparison with the other standards – it is mainly because it is designed for a different purpose. Here, DVD-RAM is *growing* in popularity for backup usage (nothing much more, nothing much less). While may be behind the other competitors in low-end backup solutions, it is gaining momentum.
But if you are expecting to burn a movie on a DVD-RAM – you are probably ignorant. You are 1) wasting the potential of the DVD-RAM 2)risk it not playing in much players and 3) wasting money.
We did use DVD-RAM for back-up at my office a couple of years ago (1999/2000), we had one the-highend G4 towers with internal drive and we also had an external FireWire model. Perhaps it was the faulty drivers back then, or a half-baked implementation that got better (Im more than willing to give both Apple and Que the benefit of the doubt), but we dropped it. Burning 100mb per half-hour was intolerable, because taking a big chunk of files (say 1 or 2gb) would result in burning errors, finder crashes, etc. No sure why you resort to name-calling though.
Lack of built-in CD burning software in Windows 98/Me and 2000 didn’t hinder a massive adoption of CD burners. Meanwhile, I wouldn’t expect DVD burners to become popular over the next two-three years.
True, but integrated CD-burning capabilities only arrives with XP, and CD-R/CD-RW has caught on way before, people were (and are still) using burning softwares like EasyCD and Nero. DVD burning is happening -now- and keeps on growing fast; my point was that to bring those features in an OS that’s coming out in roughly 2 years will only result in the same lame scheme that XP brought out-of-the-box CD-burning too late. By that time it will be a simple, common place, feature to expect, not a strong selling point.
Apple didn’t copy many of that stuff. They got ’em when Apple bought NeXT, so Dock existed in NEXTSTEP even before Microsoft had any idea of Task Bar (which came in Windows 95). NEXTSTEP had live Window tracking years before…
Apple didn’t invent the GUI, but Apple was first to market it (Lisa).
And Mac OS X has a good journaling in it’s file system.
Amiga was a toy, capable of running useless, cool demos and games, that’s all.
And Mac OS X has a good journaling in it’s file system.
Which Windows has had since the NTFS file system went online (NT4).
Amiga was a toy, capable of running useless, cool demos and games, that’s all.
If by “useless cool demos and games” you mean, “applications of such ease and power as to totally revolutionize online and offline video production and also prove computer graphics could be done to a high quality at a low cost in a professional environment”, then yes, you are correct.
The effects of the VideoToaster and Lightwave3D are still apparent on the video production/television industry today. Heck, some places are still using Amigas and VideoToasters in day-to-day production work. Lightwave3D was the first commercial 3D package to be used in the prodution of a television series (first Babylon 5, with SeaQuest soon thereafter). The entire concept of “render farms” was first explorer/implemented with Lightwave, specifically for those two shows.
I’ve seen people claim that everything is getting pumped through the GPU as DX, but is this true? Can anyone cite any sources of info on this?
As far as I can tell, LH is doing a very similar composition on the GPU and the main memory is handling everything else.
After all, didn’t we discuss and bury into the ground the amount of VRAM required to store x number of pixels per window per composition? Wouldn’t pushing all of the video display to the GPU cause it to crap out quicker?
Anyone claiming that LH pushes everything through the GPU care to defend that claim?
Longhorn handles both composition and rendering of the desktop, including windows, their client areas, video, text, etc., on the GPU using Direct3D.
Longhorn takes a tiered approach to it’s hardware support for desktop composition and drawing. When there is no support for specific functionality in hardware, LH falls back to a software implementation.
There are 3 tiers:
Baseline tier is handled on the GPUs 2D pipeline and via the CPU just like it’s done in current versions of Windows. An XP display driver can be used in this case and Tier 1. Tier 2 requires a driver written for the LH display driver model.
Tier 1 is the minimum level for gaining compositing and rendering acceleration. This requires DirectX 7 class hardware.
Tier 2 requires DirectX 9 and above hardware. Using this class of GPU gives you the full Longhorn desktop experience, all features and all effects.
The VRAM requirements are a factor, which is why Microsoft is recommending GPUs with 128MB (64MB minimum) for the full Tier 2 experience. These have become common with DirectX 9, and by the time LH ships, you will probably see most cards come with 128MB for low-end models.
You can read more about the tier requirements a whitepaper from WinHEC 2003:
“Graphics Hardware and Drivers for Windows”
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/tech/display/graphics-reqs.mspx