FlexBeta has a quick look at the recent Longhorn Build 4053 with screenshots.
A Quick Look at Longhorn Build 4053
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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If they had any sense, they’d go back to the ‘classic’ look .. IMHO, it’s the only UI that works .. for me
As for the sidebar, do you guys think it will be so bad in a couple of years when/if widescreen flat CRTs are all the rage? If screen real-estate wasn’t an issue, it *could* be made to do some useful stuff – ie, mp3 playlists, IM and email tools, weather reports (I like those) .. the kind of crap that just clutters the task bar
Maybe they will! We won’t know until it comes out.
I hope they use something like what Office uses, personally.
Everything I’ve read indicates the justification for this is because screens will be quite large come the time that Longhorn is released. I don’t know about you, but even if I had the money, I’d not buy a 21 inch laptop. No way, no how.
I sure hope that XAML is as easy to use as they are saying, as I’d hope to hell that someone could do better UI design than Microsoft has.
I know that that is not the final GUI look by a long shot, but I mean damn, they’ve got a history of awful UI design, with a definate trend towards ever worse ones. Wasted screen realestate is among Microsoft’s specialties.
For all the money that they’re sinking into this aspect of Longhorn, I’m shocked and amazed that they can’t come even remotely close to the UI of Mac OS X.
These guys haven’t been doing their homework or they would have a much better grasp on what Longhorn is going to be when it is finished. For instance, they say Longhorn will “probably” have vector graphics when it’s a known fact that it will in deed have vector graphics for icons and widgets.
That aside, they spend most of their time saying ‘This sucks, but it will be better later.’ I could have guessed that without wasting my time reading three pages of junk.
Just a thought:
http://www.bb4win.org/news.php
http://www.litestep.com/news.php
Basic observations:
1) That is one big clock. I like the clock in the lower right hand corner.
2)The actual fonts look like the came from Red Hat.
3)Sidebar: wasting space. How about doing it in a transparent fashion.
Ok, they aren’t in the middle, but they sure aren’t at the top. MS must be smoking crack to put the menus like that. They will be such a pain to click correctly!
I know Ms does a lot of UI research, but why do they always end up with horrible UIs?
Has anyone used MS Office 2003? The menus are blue, for god’s sakes, you can’t even see them clearly!
I would like to see Ms do some good stuff, mainly because I wan’t to see them and apple competing. but instead they consistently dribble out garbage…sigh
Well, at least WinFs is intriguing.
It’s amazing how many trolls the are grumbling about how bad the UI is on a product that is still probably 2 years away. And, to None… BlackBox as a UI suggestion that MS should look at for pointers?! Come on. The majority of people simply don’t want minimalism. They want gizmos and eye candy… it’s what sells.
Darius, None, Chad Hardin: It’s an alpha. If you look at Whistler alphas, it doesn’t look anything like the end product. It’s not even a beta. Chad Hardin: Office is designed by a different team, and the UI isn’t native WinForms. However, the menubar is only blue on the default Windows XP default theme – the contrass for me is okay with the Silver theme.
Anonymous: For instance, they say Longhorn will “probably” have vector graphics when it’s a known fact that it will in deed have vector graphics for icons and widgets.
Everyone thought that Mac OS X would have vector graphics because of Quartz. In the end, bitmap graphics was chosen, but in multiple sizes that eases scaling. You can’t really say for sure that vector icons would be used.
None: 3)Sidebar: wasting space. How about doing it in a transparent fashion.
Transperant would make it worse. How about making it a little thinner by default, where each applet would grow (like in the Dock) when your mouse over? Seems a better idea for me. Personally, I don’t see the point of a sidebar – they could easily reinvent the taskbar to do most of what the sidebar promises – and still take less space and annoy less people.
Anonymous: I still can’t see the good of it, Panther came with tons of new features, but I still haven’t seen any good feature from Longhorn.
Firstly, it is a alpha for crying out loud. How many features could you count in an alpha of Mac OS X (IIRC, codename Rhapsody)? But even as it is, Longhorn has a new file system and while I hate the new Explorer, the end product should make searching and managing files much easier. In any cause, it is at least 2-4 years till release, and currently they haven’t even put together the basic features of Longhorn. What are you expecting?
First impressions of the UI is that the sidebar is wasted space. I much prefer the traditional approach of items tucked away at the bottom – how big a clock do you need?
I see lots of eye candy, but the more I see these ‘future’ OSs, the more I pine for GNOME/KDE. Bottom line – home users are spending 99% of their time in a web browser. PRactically everything else is cruft. YEah I’m sure I’ll get all these response about Aunt Milly who uses the computer to catalog recipes….whatever, I stick to my premise. OSX and Longhorn are in a race to put as much crap on the desktop as possible.
The winner will be Win98 and XP coming a close second – they will be the dominant OSs long after Longhorn is released, and they will probably be more secure.
I think the UI as it appears here is actually inspired more by years of accomodating users with small monitors. It seems like everything is oriented towards taking up the entire screen so they’re going to just say, “ok, maximize everything”.
No matter what I do, I keep reverting back to the classic style. If they change the interface again, my preference is the Office XP style.
Longhorn – the next Microsoft “BOB” ?
Did anyone else notice that now since the frame of the window “pushes” the menu bar much lower in the application window that it will now start to blur the line between what is a GUI (local) app and a web application. People now can create their own menu bar (File, Edit etc..) to act as the true menu bar.
I guess this is where ASP.NET comes into play as well as XAML
I don’t see any tabs in their Internet Explorer screenshots. Tabs are a standard part of any modern web browser, and for a lot of people now, a browser would be more difficult to use without them. Are they pretending we’re still living in the 20th century?
Ugh, the new explorer looks like a butt-ugly version of Safari… And why are they wasting so much screen real-estate? I hate that, even if I’m one of the lucky ones with a *huge* Eizo. I probably won’t buy Longhorn, by the time it’s ready for release I’ll install Linux. I hope Linux will be good enough for me by then. I welcome spending less money on software, and spending more on hardware in the future.
To all complaning about longhorn, there is no prefect interface. Apple is close but the dock though useful breaks a few rules.
The mouse stays at the top half of the screen. If you didn’t let my mouse below the half way point I wouldn’t notice till I tried to play a game.
My settings
Windows — Taskbar at top of screen using 32×32 icons double normal height, taskbar divide in half between quick launch icons, and running tasks, I stole the overall layout of Mac OS with shortcuts on the desktop for all drives. I also run tclock, which changes the clock, and the startmenu botton to an Icon.
KDE — Kicker at top of screen transparent(kde3.2) Tasks are in a disappearing side bar in the top Left corner. Kicker itself, contains only clock, Kmenu,4 program icons(quick launch) tray and 4 panes of Virtual Desktops. No drive Icons just Home, trash and a local folder. One virtual Desktop contians a Konsole, running the bottom half of the screen, Transparent, no menu bar, or tab bar at the bottom, just an outline, scrollbar and a cursor prompt. Most of the time the cursor is in a directory called PL . I type xmms e* and a playlist starts, xmms stays minimized. The background rotates every 5 minutes.
Can a normal user sit at my computers and use them with out help?? no I have to tell them were to start what to push. Can a geek sit at my machines and use them, only after they stop looking at the carefully maintained menu systems, and file hierarchy.
Each person has there own setup, Geeks just change more options.
While this doesn’t show any innovation from the microsoft team, it does take away many of the advantages that alternatives such as OSX, Linux and even BeOS has over Windows. Hopefully, it will push the others to innovate even more, but it seems that both Linux and BeOS(and clones) has far to many steps to go before they will be able to compete with Longhorn. OSX is on par and even better than longhorn in many aspects allready.
As for the current UI, I think it’s very badly designed at the moment. I know, that it’s not even beta. But it does show which kind of direction they are taking it. I know that many people likes eyecandy and little effects but when you are going to do the actual work then minimalism is the only way to go.
Come on people, give them a chance, this isn’t even a beta interface, the whole thing will likely be completely replaced by the final. Some of the concepts and styles may remain (such as the sidebar), but the majority of what’s currently in the interface is likely just placeholder art.
Though I do agree with the hope that they don’t choose to go with a GUI that’s so bulky. Even with a large monitor, I don’t want its area wasted by huge borders and toolbars. I hope they at least give us the option of turning off the extra info panels and toolbars, they may be useful for some, but there are plenty of advanced users who don’t care for them.
As for the people complaining about the lack of tabs in IE, if tabs are so important to you, just use a different browser. I personally love tabs, but do the majority of windows users want or need them? Probably not. (Anyway, the IE shown is still an IE 6.0 variant, the IE team’s new code probably hasn’t been integrated into the current builds yet).
Shifting through the comments – it seems almost everyone here is posting something unintelligent, bouyed by zealotry and hatred for Microsoft, plus a little pinch of sheer ignorance.
Dude: Microsoft sucks anyway. No matter what they do, how hard they try, Windows sucks so much… And what the hell is this “metal” kind of frame look?
Isn’t that Mac OS X kind of thing? ( with a little bit darker color?)
Wow, you’re suggesting us to buy into a platform with limited choices in both hardware (how many computer models are there) and software (AutoCAD?) just because an alpha looks relatively ugly? Wow. Next what, in the future we should ditch Linux because the alpha of kernel 2.7/8 is extremely buggy?
Such logic.
Dude: Here is another example that MS and Windows SUCKS BIG TIME.
.. and that they steal…
Imagine a world if nobody “steals”. Now, if Microsoft comes out with an identical clone of OS X (oh, please don’t!), that may be considered stealing. If Microsoft hired a few buglars to sneek into Apple’s Cupertino HQ and steal the entire source code of OS X – yeah, that is stealing.
But using unpatented ideas already present before Apple commercialize it? That’s stealing? You really should write your own dictionary. And BTW, using that logic, *everyone* steals.
Glenn: You would think that with the billions of dollars in R&D, Microsoft could come up with a UI that looks DIFFERENT than Mac OS X.
It seems to me anything more advance than greyscale 3D buttons, drap 16-bit icons, and a little more style than the standard Windows classic look can be accused as a Aqua copycat. I mean, when KDE 3.1 was released – everyone was accusing them of copying Aqua. The same with Windows XP. I’m sorry, it must be my eyesight, but I don’t see how Longhorn in the screenshots posted looks anymore like Mac OS X as it does look with other different UIs out there.
And if it is the case that Microsoft did copied Apple in this regard – it doesn’t matter. It is a internal alpha which 2-3 years from now when it would be released would look starkly different than it does today. Other than some UI concepts, most of the UI (read: the looks) would change by time the first Release Candidate.
Glenn: And scalable icons from a 128×128 graphic base? WTF.. they’re pulling features from all the way back to Mac OS X Beta (March 2001)… and they’re adding in http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quartzextreme/ 3D GPU-assisted desktop drawing just like Mac OS X 10.1 and newer.
LOL, using a 3D card to render a desktop isn’t a new idea. It is just that Apple was the first to market with it. Why? They needed the extra boost from the 3D card as modern PPC CPUs can’t really handle Quartz that well. Windows (and X11, BeOS, etc.) don’t need that boost because their UI system is pixel-based, not vector-based. In other words: It doesn’t really matter.
As for the icons – for me, scalable icons is useless. A well-designed icon can be recognized under a relatively small size (like 32×32, or 24×24, 16×16). And thus, another problem with Aqua uncovered – at such small sizes, it is difficult for a user to recognize an icon because it is photo-realistic. Yeah, it looks nice and cool but impractical.
Glenn: Maybe next they’ll steal the icons for Longhorn from http://www.xicons.com/ XIcons.com.
Why should they?
Dude: You should add that besides MS steals others ideas and money, it sucks too… Don’t you agree?
Man, I didn’t know that copying ideas is stealing. In addition to that, I didn’t know Microsoft is in the business of robbing banks.
How about those of you who claim that longhorn’s “Slate” theme is a copy of the brushed metal theme get your eyes checked! As it clearly is not, or has Apple copyrighted grey colour gradients? For the most part Slate is just Plex recoloured grey.
Why would anyone in their right mind want to copy that ugly brushed metal theme anyway there are plenty of good looking themes for OS X one could copy.
WTF Rajan R. are you talking about?
” Wow, you’re suggesting us to buy into a platform with limited choices in both hardware (how many computer models are there) and software (AutoCAD?) just because an alpha looks relatively ugly? Wow. Next what, in the future we should ditch Linux because the alpha of kernel 2.7/8 is extremely buggy?
Such logic ”
AutoCad? How many ordinary Windows users is using AutoCad.
What’s your point man? Is that what makes MS Windows so great because it can run AutoCad? LOL
Oh there are better programs out there then AutoCad for the same job. Example? Canvas 9.
“Imagine a world if nobody “steals”. Now, if Microsoft comes out with an identical clone of OS X (oh, please don’t!), that may be considered stealing.”
This is what they are trying to do. It started with brush metel look … who know what next they STEAL.
” If Microsoft hired a few buglars to sneek into Apple’s Cupertino HQ and steal the entire source code of OS X – yeah, that is stealing. ”
This is just exactly what they did. Prove me wrong. We know they’ve been spying on Oracle for years already.
Suckers are stealing left and right from everybody. They don’t have their own creativity.
“And if it is the case that Microsoft did copied Apple in this regard – it doesn’t matter.
Sure it does. It doesn’t for you because they already have stolen it so what can you say…. typical MS response.
“It is a internal alpha which 2-3 years from now when it would be released would look starkly different than it does today. Other than some UI concepts, most of the UI (read: the looks) would change by time the first Release Candidate. ”
Gosh I hope so…
“LOL, using a 3D card to render a desktop isn’t a new idea. It is just that Apple was the first to market with it.
Because they are smart…
Why? They needed the extra boost from the 3D card as modern PPC CPUs can’t really handle Quartz that well. Windows (and X11, BeOS, etc.) don’t need that boost because their UI system is pixel-based, not vector-based.”
What the hell? This is just what 3d card is for so the PPC CPU can do what was design to do. Otherwise what’s the point of having any type of card if CPU can handle it?
” In other words: It doesn’t really matter. ”
Again sure it does. Why it is that everything to you it doesn’t matter.
If you don’t know what to say; you can’t say it doesn’t matter. LOL
If you go to get a lottery ticket for example. It doesn’t matter to you if you win or not?
“As for the icons – for me, scalable icons is useless.
You said it dude “to me” .
A well-designed icon can be recognized under a relatively small size (like 32×32, or 24×24, 16×16).
All apple’s icons are well design.
And thus, another problem with Aqua uncovered – at such small sizes, it is difficult for a user to recognize an icon because it is photo-realistic. Yeah, it looks nice and cool but impractical.”
What? Get a glasses man. Unless you shrink icons on OS X to 1 pixel by 1 pixel no one else have problems with them.
What the hell is your point here anyway.
“Glenn: Maybe next they’ll steal the icons for Longhorn from http://www.xicons.com/ XIcons.com.
Why should they? ”
Because like I said MS can’t design them self anything. All they do are stealing. Period.
“Man, I didn’t know that copying ideas is stealing.
Coping = stealing. Coping ideas even worse. It’s a sin.
In addition to that, I didn’t know Microsoft is in the business of robbing banks.”
Well… now you know. Oh by the way do you know what
METAPHOR is?
Menubars are too thick? Buttons are too large? The sidebar takes too much screen space?
Take a look at http://s86948749.onlinehome.us/4015_1.png (old but applicable in this case) and think about what Microsoft says about Longhorn and high resolution displays. Afterwards, have a guess why they are changing everything to take up more space, pixel-wise.
What exactly would you like for MS to do people? Half the comments in this thread are because the next windows hasn’t included features from other OS’s and programs that feel they should adopt, ex tabbed browsing, kde docks,etc… and the other half of the comments are people calling MS a thief” because Microsoft has implemented something similar to what is found in other programs/OS; ex. sidebar, improved firewall black/metallicized theme. On top of all that ignoring the fact that this OS is years away and not even in beta stage.
summation: You don’t like the UI, wonderful. It’s a skin that can be customized. Think of it like Apple’s hockey puck mouse except, you don’t have to pay another $35 to replace the thing.
ps. minimun memory needed to run so far is 512MB ram…. that’s upsetting. I know it’s pre beta, but they better bring down the system specs needed to run this thing.
Hrmm… I must be the only one who doens’t mind Longhorn. I really don’t have any complaints about the UI except for the sidebar, but thats because I never been a fan of sidebars on any platform. Overall I don’t think it looks bad, and I could use it.
Youve got to be joking. Do you expect people to be running their monitors @ 3840×2400 ?
Heck most people are still @ 1024×768
I’m about to install this new build myself. I’ll give my thoughts as soon as I get some time to write a review (if it’s nescesarry, doesn’t seem to me like one is needed).
I must say I do appreciate the Slate look. It’s definitely not my favourite (I’m a huge fan of the .Net style (Office XP/2003, basically))but compared to the Luna interface, this is like, err, a million times better
.
I do think they should include the classic Windows-look, simply because so many people adore it. Though not my favourite, it surely is as functional as you can get.
Just me though
>>Man, I didn’t know that copying ideas is stealing.
>Coping = stealing. Coping ideas even worse. It’s a sin.
If we didn’t copy each other’s ideas we you never advance. Can you imagine, stone age man discovers wheel, and it can’t be copied!
That’s what Longhorn is designed to run at. You don’t run WinXP on a 14″ screen with 16 colors, do you?
What exactly would you like for MS to do people?
Shut down their company and invest the money in soybean farms.
Seriously.
Most of us, the ones that have jobs anyway, sit infront of 21″ crt’s, I forked up cash for three studio displays, they are widescreen and i have’nt looked back.
I would claim that others will aswell.
And the slate theme, it’s gorgeous, something different, without gumdrops or crayons.
and as far as the placement of widgets goes,it looks to me like someone within msft is trying to come up with a new paradigm.
technology = fun
zealotry = not flattering.
come on.
Longhorn looks OK. I really wouldn’t call it a copy of MacOSX but merely an evolution of its current UI. At this point I don’t think its anything revolutionary and MS tends to conservative in their approach to UIs. As long as they can get away from the default fisher-price color schemes then I will be happy.
Now when Longhorn ships, MacOSX 10.5 or 10.6 will be out. I’ve used MacOSX sincer version 10.0 and there has been a huge difference between each version.
I expect Longhorn to be a huge success but I also expect MacOSX to evolve faster than Longhorn.
of course slate looks gorgeous that is what iTunes is using on your windows XP box, it is what OSX is using, or something similar to that. Why is apple 5 years ahead of MS?? MS goes for the current fashion trend, not the future one.
Longhorn will require a 128mb 3D video card to run properly, just as apple now needs a 32mb video card. They are doing it for the same reasons. By offloading the GUI to a card desgined for it, more can be done by the CPU.
Don’t expect 512mb of ram to drop either people. MS is designing Longhorn for computers of 2008 not 2003. Apple already has personal computers that can take 8 gig’s of ram, in 5 years expect prices to fall.
Apple is also using lots of wide screen displays, the powerbooks run at 1440×720? roughly. High Res, wide screens are comming. Yes these are all features of longhorn, or what is currently availble in OSX, MS is always a few years behind in GUI desgin, and years ahead in marketing.
*looks at itunes, looks at slate, does so again* no definetly not, slate uses a gradient which gives it a metallic looking finish.
Whilst iTunes uses a brushed metal texture.
they keywords are, “gradient” and “brushed metal texture”
it’s like comparing a volvo 240 to a ferrari by judging the lustre
Gone are the days that OSNEWS could claim to have a more informed userbase, and more civil discussion. I guess we are getting a taste of the “Linux community.” Go back to whining about M$ on Slashdot! Yes you are oppressed! If I ran this site, I would ban your bitch-asses.
“Maybe next they’ll steal the icons for Longhorn from http://www.xicons.com/ XIcons.com.”
They usually buy their icons: http://www.iconfactory.com/ http://design.iconfactory.com/pages/winicon/winicon.html
The link you posted is broken and redirects to the main page.
Gone are the days that OSNEWS could claim to have a more informed userbase, and more civil discussion. I guess we are getting a taste of the “Linux community.”
Not neccessary. I mean, how do you know what OS they run? Just because they bash Windows and MSFT, doesn’t necessary mean they’re Linux trolls. They could easily be Mac trolls.
Man, where do they breed these acerebral twits?
” If Microsoft hired a few buglars to sneek into Apple’s Cupertino HQ and steal the entire source code of OS X – yeah, that is stealing. ”
This is just exactly what they did. Prove me wrong.
Wrong, maggot: your claim, your proof. Put up or shut up.
Because like I said MS can’t design them self anything. All they do are stealing. Period.
Umm.. sooo. Who then did they steal the CURRENT interface from? I’m quite certain they made it themselves. No one else want their OS to look like fisher price! (sorry to those who like the current XP look)
Coping = stealing. Coping ideas even worse. It’s a sin.
This speaks volumes about both your intelect and character.
I doubt how much Linux will be ahead by the time Longhorn comes out. I mean, when I select my digital camera in Digikam, exactly the model I have, that camera will not work. And I don’t believe problems like these will be solved, or more important ones like:
– Same look&feel accross KDE and GNOME (would need complete integration of KIO/Kparts and gnome_vfs/bonobo)
– Easy installation of programs on all distributions (Click&run is Lindows-only and is not integrated with the sites of the applications themselves)
– Easy system administration, integrated with the desktop environment (YaST is SuSE-only)
Likewise, OSX also has it’s problems:
– Why do I need a 32 MB 3D-card to make a letter? My Mac SE/30 can also do it. It can even boot in 20 seconds.
– Why does Apple put more and more options in the finder? The one of OS 8 was sufficient, I think.
Gone are the days that OSNEWS could claim to have a more informed userbase, and more civil discussion.
Worse, I think that there are now MORE retarded cockroaches here than on slashdot. They like it here because only comments like this comment are moderated. Never frothing useless ranting about the evil MS or the evil apple. Almost all MS discussions here are pure bashing.
I’m reading the comments here less and less. I’m also reading less and less articles due to those wonderfull *opinion* pieces which are basically big rants about why apple sucks or why linux is good or why linux sucks …. etc etc… Useless, non technical, and the half of them have nothing to do with OSes either. Lately most have been on ‘communities’. It seems that some of these articles are posted JUST to insight the frothing masses in to meaningless banter, whining, and evangilizing.
eh, they should just stick with windows classic UI for windows XP, there’s a nice and functional UI. in any case, i hope vector graphics by 2006 are allover the computing land, so efficient… hopefully Apple is a 10 billion dollar corporation by then and can start competing for more than 5% of the market.
This is what they are trying to do. It started with brush metel look … who know what next they STEAL. […] This is just exactly what they did. Prove me wrong. We know they’ve been spying on Oracle for years already. Suckers are stealing left and right from everybody. They don’t have their own creativity. [yadda, yadda, yadda…]
Because like I said MS can’t design them self anything. All they do are stealing. Period. [some additional blowJobsing, etc…]
Got any proof? Of course you don’t. You’re just spewing hot air. True, Microsoft got many ideas from Apple but they never did direct copying, at least to my knowledge. Anyway, we don’t need to prove you wrong: you have to prove us that you’re right. You are the one accusing Microsoft, after all. As you might already know, the plantiff has the burden of proof, not the opposite.
Anyway, does it really matter? Perhaps Apple is years ahead in innovation… but it doesn’t mean anything if they can’t bring them on to the masses. 5% of the total computer user base isn’t the masses.
Coping[sic] = stealing. Coping[sic] ideas even worse. It’s a sin.
Like some people already mentioned, the human civilisation evolved with copying. You probably copied dozen of people in your life, sinner.
By the way, copying != stealing. Read your dictionary next time before posting horse manure.
—
You know, I wanted to buy a Mac soon… but I hesitate as I don’t want to be a part of a zealous/elitist community. Somebody, please tell me that he’s the exception rather than the rule.
It’s the BeOS People folder! What’s that doing on windows?
http://www.flexbeta.net/gsurface/4053Review/screen/contactssmall.jp…
LOL, using a 3D card to render a desktop isn’t a new idea. It is just that Apple was the first to market with it. Why? They needed the extra boost from the 3D card as modern PPC CPUs can’t really handle Quartz that well. Windows (and X11, BeOS, etc.) don’t need that boost because their UI system is pixel-based, not vector-based. In other words: It doesn’t really matter.
Really, can you point to some other OS/research project that had 3D rendered GUi’s prior to Apple’s release of Quatrz Extreme.
Ok according to you PPC isn’t powerful enough to render Quartz quality graphics. Windows doesn’t require the boost today according to you. But avalon in longhorn does according to microsoft to render GUI with 3D similar to what MacOS X has today. Why because no mordern CPU can handle what quartz does today and from what MS is doing they don’t think cpus in 2006 can either.
Have you heard of the term necessity is the mother of invention. Apple needed it and invented it. Now Microsoft needs it and is using prior art.
I am not intressted in looks but in how Longhorn works.
Wich filesystem, does it run bareless X, does it suport CLI,
is the RAV virusscanner emmbeded, is it maybe based on a *nix kernel like BSD?, etc..
The looks a the less intressting…
“Got any proof? Of course you don’t. You’re just spewing hot air. True, Microsoft got many ideas from Apple but they never did direct copying, at least to my knowledge.
Oh yeah? And what that would be? What knowledge. You have to be blind not to see what it is that I’m talking about.
“Anyway, we don’t need to prove you wrong: you have to prove us that you’re right. You are the one accusing Microsoft, after all. As you might already know, the pla[sic]ntiff has the burden of proof, not the opposite. ”
I don’t have to prove anything to anybody. But… since you want it so badly… Why don’t you take a look at those pictures once again then go to some Apple store near you and compare the GUI that’s the proof.
“Like some people already mentioned, the human civilis[sic]ation evolved with copying. You probably copied dozen of people in your life, sinner. ”
Hey I didn’t call you or anybody here names Halfwit. For your info Halfwit I didn’t copy anybody in my life. Should I prove it to you? No way I don’t give a damn if you believe me or not …. you’re brainless anyway.. so what would be a point.
“By the way, copying != stealing. Read your dictionary next time before posting horse manure.
Horse manure… whatever LOL. Oh and if copying isn’t what stealing is then how come music and movies industries are so pissed off about that.
Lets just start stealing everything from everybody and call it innovation..LOL
Oh and if you don’t copy anything then you’re sinner…. where the f…did you come from Microsoft? I wouldn’t be surprise.
Really, can you point to some other OS/research project that had 3D rendered GUi’s prior to Apple’s release of Quatrz Extreme
For Microsoft, there’s Task Gallery, Data Mountain, and 3D Agent research projects, as well as GDI2k/Chrome/Chromeffects which was released to developers, but halted from public release. These technologies used Direct3D to accelerate drawing and composition of the Windows desktop, windows applications, and web applications. All of these projects were in working form well before Apple added compositing acceleration to OS X, and before OS X’s was OS X.
Data Mountain: Using Spatial Memory for Document Management
http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?pubid=423
3D UI Sampler
http://research.microsoft.com/~dcr/ui/sampler/3d_sampler.asp
The TaskGallery
http://research.microsoft.com/adapt/TaskGallery/
Chromeffects PR
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1998/Jul98/Chromepr.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/1998/7-21sig.asp
Chromeffects screenshots
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/article/980513/kaigai01.htm
It’s kind of rich that all the linux people are complaining about microsoft copying from other operating systems. My understanding of linux is that it initially was suppose to be a unix clone that performed all the same tasks Unix did. It’s nice both of them are playing all nice (with the exception of SCO) now, but doesn’t change the fact that as an operating system it’s appeal came in mirroring the behaviors of unix. And when it started targeting the desktop market; start buttons, task bars, control panels, Lindows, any of this sound familiar? Compare the desktop of Xandros and Lycoris with xp home and talk to me about copying interfaces. And then you have Mac OSX and safari where they simply gutted their own os, and put the front end on a BSD, and a nice skin and a couple features on the khtml engine. SO yeah, Microsoft implements ideas found in other companies, but stop playing like it’s the only OS doing it.
Honestly, I could reply to every point but I won’t. You don’t even worth my time. Just saying that I work for Microsoft because I somewhat defend them just prove that you’re an hopeless zealot and that you have no clue of what you’re talking of. For your information, I’m currently using Linux but I’m still interested in the development of the major operating systems, including MS Windows.
Feel free to e-mail me once you have a valid point.
If this release can take over 400Mb of RAM Doing NOWT then we are headeing for some form of Hardware Armageddon. IMHO, almost every bit if kit on sale will be automatically obsoleted by this crud from Microsoft. I know of lots of places on this fine planet of our that consider a system with 512MB of ram a supercomputer. M$ by pushing this stuff onto us and then unilaterally withdrawing support for XP/2003 will alienate the majority of computer users on Earth. I wish they would remember that the 250+ Mil people and the 300+mil people in the US & EU respectively will not make up the majority of the computer uses in the world when they release this stuff. Try telling this to a Chinese person using a 14inch Monitor! They just don’t have a clue. This is just one more reason to consider other avenues when deciding on what type of software you will use in the future. As more and more people are placed in the 3rd or 4th world (According to UN Measures) the fidding than M$ are doing while Redmond burns (in hell?)will become increasingly irrelevant to most computer uses in the world.
I really hope MS get rid of the current Fisher Price UI they have for WinXP. If anyone of you has seen some of the previews they showed at the PDC last year, they seemed pretty good. But as others have rightly ponted out, this is something thats 2-3 years away from launch, so with faster processors, cheap RAM and better chips coming from ATI, NVidia (and hopefully some other new kids on the block by then), Longhorn should lok very different from the current Windows UI we’re used to.
There IS a reason not post news like that on weekend. People tend to get bored and start throwing stones at MS for no reason. Post it on… Monday, or Tuesday, and it’ll be just fine. 20 weak comments and that’s all.
By the time Long Horn is finally released I hope for Window users sakes it’s an improvement over XP and not just another ME waisted OS release.
Besides the GUI being similar to that of Linux Window Maker, I do have to admit I like the eye candy. Though I wonder how much GUI control users will have in the release. In most Linux distros we have themes such as KDE, Gnome, Window Maker, Ice, etc. There’s no need for third party tools like Stardock offers for Windows users.
What about security? This has been a constant problem with Windows including XP. Bugs, back doors, holes in IE, user administration, etc. Will MS finally be able to resolve all their mistakes with the previous OS’s? Will Windows users continue to wait months for patches that actually fix issues? Instead of patch to fix another patch to fix the previous patch..reboot, reboot, reboot. In Linux the turn around is usually with in 48 hours of a security risk being identified. I think this is something they should work on more than just offering nice eye candy to the consumer.
Coming from years of using Windows I am happy to be finally using SuSE Linux that makes my life even more enjoyable than MS was ever able to do. If MS is taking tips from the community of other OS users than they better make sure to improve the Windows platform in all areas of users concerns. Otherwise the consumers will be screaming like they did when WindowsME was released.
Really, can you point to some other OS/research project that had 3D rendered GUi’s prior to Apple’s release of Quatrz Extreme.
Apple does *not* have a 3D-rendered GUI. It just uses 3D for compositing. All drawing is done via the CPU. Try reading Apple’s SIGGRAPH presentation instead of their marketing literature. Currently, Quartz “Extreme” is basically not much different from Display Postscript, which NeXT did in the 1980’s. Its DPS + accelerated transparent windows and shadows. Longhorn will have actual 3D-accelerated drawing. Unlike OS X, where most graphics are still bitmaps, this will allow rich vector-graphics based applications.
There are a lot of comments being thrown around. One being about the UI, I agree it is ugly and a retarded bastardization of the OS X metal look. Then you would say that this is the alpha release it is going to change, well how about they start changing it then and stop releasing it with that look. Microsoft is obviously wanting to hype up Longhorn since the release is so long because they don’t want people switching to OS X or Linux. Also the majority of people that I know and meet have their computers running at 800×600, not even 1024×768. I just bought a iBook recently and it is a much more pleasant experience than running Windows, because it just works. Nothing more I enjoy with Windows than to get it up and running in 2 hours as it installs all the drivers and third party software to make sure the OS runs neatly. Where would Windows be without a virus scanner or ad-aware? One thing I have noticed is that when you put Firefox/Mozilla and Thunderbird and other OSS/FSF on Windows is that the people enjoy using it more, lets face it Windows software is a joke. I am also not a fan of an OS that makes you get the latest hardware to run it. I do not need to spend another $300 on hardware just to go out and spend another couple hundred on the OS and Office software that it needs to do what you need done. Also do they really expect a huge turn over to Longhorn? The only people running XP are those who bought a new pc. Hopefully Linux gets more commercial support SO that those cameras and other toys get recognized and used. Want to ensure that Longhorn fails and has slow adoption? Tell your pc vendors to sell computers without Windows. Then we will see which sells the shelves more.
Apple does *not* have a 3D-rendered GUI. It just uses 3D for compositing. All drawing is done via the CPU. Try reading Apple’s SIGGRAPH presentation instead of their marketing literature. Currently, Quartz “Extreme” is basically not much different from Display Postscript, which NeXT did in the 1980’s. Its DPS + accelerated transparent windows and shadows. Longhorn will have actual 3D-accelerated drawing. Unlike OS X, where most graphics are still bitmaps, this will allow rich vector-graphics based applications.
Why don’t you just run DOS. Sorry, but the rest of us aren’t going to wait while 3rd worlders get their shit together. I think you better take the issue up with your local leader of the World Workers Party.
Well I’
ve got windows XP, and I’ve been using a desktop sidebar from http://www.desktopsidebar.com. Quite simply, I don’t find it too intrusive or anything along those lines. Its got the time, local weather, e-mail/calender hooked up to outlook…
It even has winamp and msn messenger applets as well, but I don’t use those.
The sidebar is an excellent idea. I’m personally looking forward to it. Especially if it integrates more with allplications. Like if you hover on top the winamp applet, if brings up the full winmap or whatever.
Another thing I notice is that when Windows or Linux attempts to integrate “eye candyish” elements in their UI its OK and great but when Apple does it in MacOSX people talk about how awful it looks and make comments on how MacOSX and Apple should be more original.
The comparisons between Longhorn and MacOX are unwarranted at this time. Longhorn’s competition will be MacOSX 10.5 or 10.6. Even then I still expect MacOSX to be innovative in their UI.
“Youve got to be joking. Do you expect people to be running their monitors @ 3840×2400 ?
Heck most people are still @ 1024×768”
Totally agree!
And most people will continue to do so on their laptops for a long time.
I think it’s hilarous that everyone (it seems) hates Aqua’s metal interface and now MS is doing it too!!!!
WinFS is not a new filesystem – it’s an extension to NTFS… my prediction – it’ll be a mess.
They needed to go with a different color scheme, the Blue just wasnt cutting it. I like Longhorn UI very much overall I think it has a much more professional look to it. Although at first I despised the sidebar I have gotten used to it and I hide it when not in use, this is important thing to do on these builds because otherwise the memory and load usage would kill quasi older machines. Overall, Longhorn is not a bad OS and is a major step forward for Microsoft. With the PDC build I dint have any problems with it. This new build should be just as good. I cant wait for the final to ship and I hope they keep the UI the same or at least offer it up as a theme.
“Longhorn will require a 128mb 3D video card to run properly, just as apple now needs a 32mb video card.”
Ding Dong – OS X does not require a 32 mb video card. Neither does Quartz Extreme – try 16. (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quartzextreme/)
I should know, it worked great on my PBook with 16 meg Radeon Mobility.
When Longhorn is finally out. Until then, it’s all hype – of course IF it all works out the way MS says it will, it’ll be a tough contender. That’s a big IF. Hopefully the Java community will pull together to head off some of the .net threat, as that is where Longhorn will (again IF it all works out) truly shine.
<<< Ugh, the new explorer looks like a butt-ugly version of Safari >>>
I kind of like Explorer, the only thing I miss is the Tabs, Mozilla and FireFox do install on the PDC build.
<<< And why are they wasting so much screen real-estate? >>>
The sidebar can be set to autohide but the thinking from Redmond is that screns will be much larger in the future. I have a 21 inch screen and even if wanted to keep it up there constantly it would be ok.
<<< I probably won’t buy Longhorn >>>
Your loss. Longhorn is shaping up to be a killer upgrade and I for one cant wait for the release. I dont think it will be 2007 before its released I am sticking with 2005. Its beta quality right now. Ihave been running the PDC build since, well PDC, and I have yet to experience any major abnormalities and I havent had to do a reinstall ever
<<< by the time it’s ready for release I’ll install Linux. >>>
Good OS, I use SuSE a lot. although Microsoft is closing in on Linux fairly quickly. I think Microsoft will do a lot on pricing as in lowering the price due to competition, not just from Linux, Solaris, Java Desktop System, Yellowtab, there is a lot of competitive choices out there and while personally I dont think Apple will be one in 2005 unles it ports to x86, Microsoft will do anything it can to stay on top and lets face it, distros like Debian, Gentoo and Fedora are for the technically advanced and hobbyists, they have loyal users and the chances of them switching are very low, also these are the major religous types. These are not the people Microsoft is catering to, they want the office users and home user market. Microsoft does have its fans as well.
<<< I hope Linux will be good enough for me by then. I welcome spending less money on software, and spending more on hardware in the future. >>>
I know a lot of people that love Windows and pricing isnt a concern for them. You get what you pay for. While I use a lot of Open Source solutions, some of them just arent there for me. Gimp, while good doesnt stand up from Photoshop, MPlayer and Xine are not as good as WMP and Quicktime, and NVU doesnt even compare to Dreamweaver and FrontPage. Once the commercial apps get to Linux then it will be a happy day for some people, others will complain and write Open letters to these companies telling them they should Open Source their code and give away the products for free.
AutoCad? How many ordinary Windows users is using AutoCad.
What’s your point man? Is that what makes MS Windows so great because it can run AutoCad? LOL
Oh there are better programs out there then AutoCad for the same job. Example? Canvas 9.
That’s the beauty of Windows is that it fills in many niches. And I don’t see how Canvas 9 is in the same market as AutoCAD – from what I see from their free trial I tried a few months ago, it is mostly a 3D modelling application. AutoCAD is in all practice and purposes the standard (and shall I say, requirement) for mechanical engineering. And for 22 years, they have dominated this market (in fact, they are legally a monopoly).
This is what they are trying to do. It started with brush metel look … who know what next they STEAL.
So just because someone choosed a cool dark grey colour scheme, it is connected to brush metal and thus, theft? Besides, I said this many times before, but I’ll say it again: Slate is TEMPORARY. Meaning when Longhorn would be released as, say, Windows 2008, it would look COMPLETELY different than it does look today. Maybe it looks identical to Aqua, maybe it looks the complete opposite – the only people who knows are hidden deep inside Microsoft’s Redmond campus.
This is just exactly what they did. Prove me wrong. We know they’ve been spying on Oracle for years already.
Going through trash is not only completely legal, it is extremely smart. The best way to compete is to pre-empt your competitors moves. Now, Microsoft would be spying on Oracle if it is involved in industrial espionage. There’s not a single inkling of proof to back this claim up – even Oracle wouldn’t claim such a thing.
What the hell? This is just what 3d card is for so the PPC CPU can do what was design to do. Otherwise what’s the point of having any type of card if CPU can handle it?
If Quartz was extremely fast and responsive, Quartz Extreme wouldn’t have been dreamt up. But it wasn’t, Apple needed it. Microsoft wouldn’t need it until it starts using Avalon, so why bother with it now? For completely useless eye candy?
Again sure it does. Why it is that everything to you it doesn’t matter.
If you don’t know what to say; you can’t say it doesn’t matter. LOL
If you go to get a lottery ticket for example. It doesn’t matter to you if you win or not?
What does a lottery ticket have to do with this. I’m saying, as a Mac user, it does matter because it would starkly increase speed in the UI. As a Windows user, other than useless and often annoying eye candy, there isn’t any use for it. As for a lottery ticket – I don’t see any connection point here. Your grasp in analogies in very poor.
What? Get a glasses man. Unless you shrink icons on OS X to 1 pixel by 1 pixel no one else have problems with them.
Shrink the icons to 24×24, and when I say go, try to find the icon you are searching for without magnifying it (turn off that option). You would take a momment or two longer than if you used classic Windows and Mac OS, and to the lesser extend, Windows XP.
The icons main task is to transfer information at a single glance. OS X’s icons main task is for aesthetics purposes. Yeah, they look really nice, can’t think of any other icon set that looks better. But I prefer function over looks.
Coping[sic] = stealing. Coping[sic] ideas even worse. It’s a sin.
Check the dictionary, buddy. If nobody copied, the human race would be no where today.
Well… now you know. Oh by the way do you know what
METAPHOR is?
I know what metaphors is. Examples, “wet blanket”, “living on the fast lane”, and “hitting your head on the wall”. Metaphors are figure of speeches. You stated that Microsoft stole money as fact, not as a figure of speech. Perhaps you should stay off metaphorical phrases.
Raptor: Really, can you point to some other OS/research project that had 3D rendered GUi’s prior to Apple’s release of Quatrz Extreme.
The best example would be Berlin/Fresco using SDL to render it (the rest I know of are pixel-based graphics systems, instead of a vector-based graphic system). If you use a build without SDL and a build with it, there is a significant difference in performance – and Berlin isn’t even close to being feature complete.
Even Microsoft had a project to provide 3D acceleration for desktop rendering way before Apple unveiled QE. IIRC, it is called Chrome and it is for the current pixel-based graphics system. Never made it to market because it is completely useless out there.
Raptor: Have you heard of the term necessity is the mother of invention. Apple needed it and invented it. Now Microsoft needs it and is using prior art.
What Microsoft is doing isn’t connected to Apple without some broad description of Quartz Extreme. While, yes, Apple is the first to use the 3D to render their UI, their method is significantly different from Avalon. Chiefly it is because QE using OpenGL; Avalon uses Direct3D. The basic idea is the same.
Prior to Avalon, Microsoft have no reason to use the 3D card to render the desktop. The same can be said of Apple and Quartz.
Dude2: Horse manure… whatever LOL. Oh and if copying isn’t what stealing is then how come music and movies industries are so pissed off about that.
The recording industry is so pissed because that copying is more closer to stealing that copying. If I made a movie based on LOTR using the same ideas as Peter Jackson, I can be considered as copying. But if I rip Peter Jackson’s DVDs into DivX and start “sharing” it on Kazaa/Gnutella/whatever-the-favourite-P2P-of-today, that is stealing.
Now, “copying” movies and music is vastly different from copying ideas of features and colour schemes. One promotes piracy, the other promotes innovation.
SammyDJnr: If this release can take over 400Mb of RAM Doing NOWT then we are headeing for some form of Hardware Armageddon. IMHO, almost every bit if kit on sale will be automatically obsoleted by this crud from Microsoft. I know of lots of places on this fine planet of our that consider a system with 512MB of ram a supercomputer.
Funny. My last $30 RAM upgrade made my Duron 1.1GHZ PC into a supercomputer, woo hoo! The best case scenario of Longhorn’s release is in 2007 (i’d be extremely suprised if they released it in 2006, even more so if they released it next year, and I’m betting on 2008). By then, wouldn’t 512MB of RAM be commonplace? Sure, 3-5 year old PCs wouldn’t be able to run Longhorn without some upgrade – so? How many three year old Macs do you know that can run Mac OS X perfectly without any hardware upgrades?
Besides the GUI being similar to that of Linux Window Maker, I do have to admit I like the eye candy.
Besides the fact that Window Maker is a NeXTSTEP clone, I’m wondering, besides the same place proximity the Sidebar is in comparison with Window Maker’s Dock, how is Longhorn’s GUI similar to WM?
What about security? This has been a constant problem with Windows including XP. Bugs, back doors, holes in IE, user administration, etc.
Longhorn would be Microsoft first major OS release since starting their security initiative, so we’ll never know until it comes.
Anonymous: Then you would say that this is the alpha release it is going to change, well how about they start changing it then and stop releasing it with that look.
How about because it is a freaking INTERNAL ALPHA RELEASE? Man, the logic of some of these posters.
Yamin: Well I’
ve got windows XP, and I’ve been using a desktop sidebar from http://www.desktopsidebar.com.
Of ironies. I tried it out last week (my brother is an avid fan). After a week of using it, I’m switched it off completely – annoying waste of screen real-estate. If this is a sign of things to come, I’ll pass.
I think it’s hilarous that everyone (it seems) hates Aqua’s metal interface and now MS is doing it too!!!!
I think it’s hilarious that people can’t grasp that “Slate” isn’t metal.
Think polished rock (Slate maybe?), after all why make a theme that looks like metal and name it after a type of rock?
Oh that’s right it looks like polished slate!
Gee MS must be doing something really cleaver to convince so many people that something that acctually looks like polished slate, looks like brushed metal. I’m guessing none of you even look at the pictures.
Think polished rock (Slate maybe?), after all why make a theme that looks like metal and name it after a type of rock?
Sitting here running a browser using the Panther version of “brushed metal” I can say:
Slate is identical in texture to Brushed Metal. The only difference is the shade of grey.
I’m guessing none of you even look at the pictures.
Did you? I was actually surprised to see the similarity. I noticed this for the first time and posted before I read any other comments.
What you’re basically saying is “no, it’s not Eggshell, it’s Snowflake – completely different colors.” Ohhhhh-kaaaay
tou: I am beginning to assume that the majority of people, who are willing to defend Windows, really are narrow minded and arrogant lint bugs.
You post a simple post accusing us of being narrow minded and arrongant lint bugs, yet do absolutely nothing to argue against our points? Considering who’s putting out points of their own, and who’s just attacking instead of rebutting those points, I would say you’re the narrow-minded arrongant lint bug.
tou: Microsoft is copying Apple. This is a simple fact. I’m sure even you can grasp this fundamental reality.
Guess what? Everybody copies from each other. And here’s something that might cause you to have a cardiac arrest: Apple also copies. Maybe only few of the ideas they copy come from Microsoft, but they still *COPY*. Here’s a teeny weeny example even Jobs himself admitted to copying from Windows – fast user switching.
I don’t get it, why is everyone so caught up with who’s copying who. In the end of the day, which product is better? IMHO, currently, I would say Mac OS X. But Microsoft is trying to change that. But we all copy. New things are invented using old ideas combined with some new ones. If nobody copied – the human race would still be a bunch of cavemen hunter and gatherers.
tou: This release of Windows will just be another direct attempt at copying the best OS around: Mac OSX.
Best OS? That is pretty subjective, aye? For me, Mac OS X is too unelegant, slow, buggy and insecure to be considered as “best”. But that’s just me.
tou: Just as Win 95 tried to copy Mac OS, and failed – so will Longhorn this time around.
Funny, Apple tried to rush Copland out to pre-empt Windows 95. And Windows 95 was wildly popular. The user interface looked less than Macintosh than previously, and acted much differently too. And Longhorn isn’t close to being feature-complete, at least 2 years away, how can you know that Longhorn wouldn’t be as popular as Windows 95?
DJ Jedi Jeff: Sitting here running a browser using the Panther version of “brushed metal” I can say:
Slate is identical in texture to Brushed Metal. The only difference is the shade of grey.
I have a comparison here: http://www.rajanr.com/texture.JPG
I don’t see how the texture looks similar to Brush Metal. Doubt it is my eye sight, or the low quality screenshots. I have seen Longhorn in real life, and although it isn’t this build, it was smooth dark grey – not brushed metal. And regardless, does it matter? It is a freaking alpha, the look wouldn’t make it past the first one or two betas.
DJ Jedi Jeff: Did you? I was actually surprised to see the similarity. I noticed this for the first time and posted before I read any other comments.
It is indeed amazing how you managed to compare textures from a low-quality JPEG screenie…
It is indeed amazing how you managed to compare textures from a low-quality JPEG screenie…
It is indeed amazing how you took a tiny little observation of mine and decided to even go into photoshop to “prove me wrong”.
LOL
And then, just to prove yourself correct you have to lighten the metal interface shot from Mac OS X?
That’s an even bigger laugh
It’s true that the slate doesn’t appear to have the same striping as Brushed Metal. But it’s a similar shade of grey and goes from dark at the left – to light in the middle – to dark at the right just like brushed metal does.
Even if you think I am still wrong, if you’re going to be that anal then I am glad to have wasted part of your day!!
No I’m saying they are completly different if you can’t take the effort to see this because you are having to much fun riding the “It’s brushed metal” bandwagon then I can help you.
And if you didn’t need glasses you could see that I wrote my comment without reading any other comments first.
So maybe you’re just jealous that I started the bandwagon? Hmm?
As to the rest, all I can say is grow up. The immaturity of some people here makes me laugh. Kids pretending to be adults….
It is indeed amazing how you took a tiny little observation of mine and decided to even go into photoshop to “prove me wrong”.
LOL
Took less than a minute using Paint, and FTP Cute. Uploaded it in the same amount of time as opening Photoshop.
And then, just to prove yourself correct you have to lighten the metal interface shot from Mac OS X?
That’s an even bigger laugh
If you pay close attention to the bevels and the anti-aliasing of the text – it is Quicktime on Windows XP. Like I said, less than a minute – finding a full-size screenshot of any brush metal app on Apple site would take much longer.
It’s true that the slate doesn’t appear to have the same striping as Brushed Metal. But it’s a similar shade of grey and goes from dark at the left – to light in the middle – to dark at the right just like brushed metal does.
It is a type of beveling that combines lighting. It isn’t the same texture. By the same (Slate), you could guess where the inspiration came from. So, if Microsoft did the lighting from the opposite direction (up to down), it wouldn’t be a clone of brush metal? LOL. It *doesn’t* look like brush metal at all – the texture and the inspiration is different. Yeah, the lighting is the same, but so?
Even if you think I am still wrong, if you’re going to be that anal then I am glad to have wasted part of your day!!
Oh boo hoo. I wasted a couple of minutes and a few MBs of bandwidth. What am I going to do?
As to the rest, all I can say is grow up. The immaturity of some people here makes me laugh. Kids pretending to be adults….
Funny, you seem to be the kid around here.
<<< Oh I’m sorry it’s exactly the same, except for the texture, and the shade.
It’s called brushed metal for a reason. It has a brushed metal texture! Slate has no such texture. And both are ugly. >>>
Obviously people are not going to agree on the UI so why bother arguing. I personally like it and I like the brushed metal look of Mac OS X, I really hate aqua I think Brushed metal and Slate look very professional and one thing that MS has done with slate that Apple did not do with brushed metal is that Slate looks consistent there are no flaws in the slate presentation. That is the main difference in slate and Brushed metal.
<<< Obviously you need glasses or something or you are just a bandwagon riding wanker >>>
There is no need to be insulting to anyone.
<<< No I’m saying they are completly different if you can’t take the effort to see this because you are having to much fun riding the “It’s brushed metal” bandwagon then I can help you. >>>
On this do agree with you. Slate and brushed metal are totally different. Slate is much darker and there are different paterns in both. But as I said, I like the Slate interface and I do hope Microsoft does keep it.
If you pay close attention to the bevels and the anti-aliasing of the text – it is Quicktime on Windows XP. Like I said, less than a minute – finding a full-size screenshot of any brush metal app on Apple site would take much longer.
Well I am sorry that your XP looks like that but the jpg you put on your site looks nothing like what I am looking at right now on my Mac.
It is a type of beveling that combines lighting. It isn’t the same texture. By the same (Slate), you could guess where the inspiration came from. So, if Microsoft did the lighting from the opposite direction (up to down), it wouldn’t be a clone of brush metal? LOL. It *doesn’t* look like brush metal at all – the texture and the inspiration is different. Yeah, the lighting is the same, but so?
I never said it had the same texture. I said it looked the same. In fact, at this resolution I can barely see the brushing on the “brushed” metal. It’s very subtle (unlike in your jpg). What is obvious is a grey “glossy” finish that is lighter in the middle than on the ends. When considering the whole impression (instead of a 11 pixel segment) it very much gives me the impression of the Panther brushed metal look.
You’re free to have your own opinion. But don’t tell me mine is wrong. That’s just immature.
Actually, the only immature thing is your name calling. What are you, 12 years old?
The best example would be Berlin/Fresco using SDL to render it (the rest I know of are pixel-based graphics systems, instead of a vector-based graphic system). If you use a build without SDL and a build with it, there is a significant difference in performance – and Berlin isn’t even close to being feature complete
Fresco added postscriot and hardware acceleration to SDL in 2002, Apple demoed QE at Siggraph in 2002 and quartz which does display pdf and next did display PS long before berlin.
What Microsoft is doing isn’t connected to Apple without some broad description of Quartz Extreme. While, yes, Apple is the first to use the 3D to render their UI, their method is significantly different from Avalon. Chiefly it is because QE using OpenGL; Avalon uses Direct3D. The basic idea is the same.
Prior to Avalon, Microsoft have no reason to use the 3D card to render the desktop. The same can be said of Apple and Quartz.
Exactly my point. You claimed ppc wasn’t powerful enough for quartz and aqua so apple had to come up with QE. You also claimed windows and X didn’t beed hardware acceleration today because they are faster.
All I am trying to say is Apple is doing things today that Microsoft and the OSS community is trying to solve tomorrow. Since you said it your self the basic Idea for Quartz Extreme and avalon are the same except they use different 3D technologies namely OpenGL and Direct 3D but the basic idea is the same.
Apple did it in 2 steps Quartz and then QE all of this prior to 2002. MS is doing it in an OS release after 2006. Fresco added PS support
From your prior outbursts on Apple related articles on OS news it is obvious that you don’t consider Apple to be innovative. Even though all the facts point to the fact that they are. But here you are defending Microsoft.
And you claime you aren’t biased against Apple!!!!
“Youve got to be joking. Do you expect people to be running their monitors @ 3840×2400 ?”
I dont know of a single video card on the market that can display a screen larger than 2048×1536. Maybe FireGL and more expensive graphics chips that arent designed for mass use on desktops, but these aren’t designed or run by anyone except 3d modelers and the like.
I dont know of a single video card on the market that can display a screen larger than 2048×1536.
The guy is probably using either a quadhead solution or (far more likely) a virtual desktop. There are simply no display that can achieve such resolution. Anyway, the guy wouldn’t be able to read the text at such resolution.
“I dont know of a single video card on the market that can display a screen larger than 2048×1536.
The guy is probably using either a quadhead solution or (far more likely) a virtual desktop. There are simply no display that can achieve such resolution. Anyway, the guy wouldn’t be able to read the text at such resolution.”
dimension != resolution
“I guess we are getting a taste of the “Linux community.” Go back to whining about M$ on Slashdot!”
The only people whining about MS are Windows users, because they will eventually use Longhorn. It’s strange you call Windows users a “Linux community”. Linux (or BSD, Mac, etc.) users who only use Linux (BSD, etc.) don’t care about Longhorn.
Not that it matters but they do have a few similarities:
http://www.samneric.com/same.png
Microsoft should be making a more secure, useable, innovative OS, not trying to harp someone else’s style.
WinFS sounds interesting.
XAML sounds cool.
The rest is same old same old.
By Rajan R
You post a simple post accusing us of being narrow minded and arrongant lint bugs, yet do absolutely nothing to argue against our points
I have no need to argue my points. My points are factual and therefore need no vindication.
But fear not Rajan R. Havanas has been kind enough to post a picture for you- so all is not lost. You may yet understand the certainty that Microsoft imitates OS X
http://www.sxcamneric.com/same.png
DJ: I never said it had the same texture. I said it looked the same. In fact, at this resolution I can barely see the brushing on the “brushed” metal. It’s very subtle (unlike in your jpg). What is obvious is a grey “glossy” finish that is lighter in the middle than on the ends. When considering the whole impression (instead of a 11 pixel segment) it very much gives me the impression of the Panther brushed metal look.
The reason why you could clearly notice the texture of brush metal in my screenshot is because I took only a sample of it and compared it with another texture.
I think you better get new specs or at least change your resolution. You can clearly see the texture of brush metal in OS X – you may not immediately notice the lines that make up brush metal, but how often anyone pause and look closely at it? Regardless, brush metal in OS X has a thicker bevel and a completely different texture than Slate.
DJ: I never said it had the same texture.
“Slate is identical in texture to Brushed Metal.” Your own words.
Raptor: Fresco added postscriot and hardware acceleration to SDL in 2002, Apple demoed QE at Siggraph in 2002 and quartz which does display pdf and next did display PS long before berlin.
If I’m not mistaken, it was mid-2001 when using SDL was first suggestion, it took probably a month till a working prototype was created. Yeah, you’re right, by time a working implementation of SDL was there in Fresco, QE was already unveiled. But the idea certainly didn’t come from Apple and QE.
Exactly my point. You claimed ppc wasn’t powerful enough for quartz and aqua so apple had to come up with QE. You also claimed windows and X didn’t beed hardware acceleration today because they are faster.
I’m saying Quartz is too advance to be handled by any desktop CPU alongside with other tasks, so QE was created so composition was rerouted to the GPU. Microsoft’s graphic system is primitive (and the source of many of Microsoft’s problem).
Raptor: All I am trying to say is Apple is doing things today that Microsoft and the OSS community is trying to solve tomorrow. Since you said it your self the basic Idea for Quartz Extreme and avalon are the same except they use different 3D technologies namely OpenGL and Direct 3D but the basic idea is the same.
Yes, my point of saying that is because a certain someone was claiming Microsoft was stealing. Copying such an idea wouldn’t be (legally) close to theft unless Microsoft violates Apple patents – which I doubt they would.
Raptor: From your prior outbursts on Apple related articles on OS news it is obvious that you don’t consider Apple to be innovative.
Far from that. But I don’t consider Longhorn a clone of sorts of OS X, neither do I consider Avalon a complete rip-off of QE. And I certainly, unlike some certain Dude, consider this all to be common petty theft. I don’t consider the beginning and the end of desktop technology.
dk: The only people whining about MS are Windows users, because they will eventually use Longhorn. It’s strange you call Windows users a “Linux community”. Linux (or BSD, Mac, etc.) users who only use Linux (BSD, etc.) don’t care about Longhorn.
Funny, a lot of those here that a whining aren’t Windows users – be it Mac users or Linux users. I thank God this thread doesn’t have “Oh, no! DRM! Paladium! Big brother! The world is coming to an end!, but you could easily find it in other threads.
tou: Not that it matters but they do have a few similarities:
http://www.samneric.com/same.png
Yes, they have a few similarities. But is Windows a outright clone of Mac OS? Nope.
tou: I have no need to argue my points. My points are factual and therefore need no vindication.
But fear not Rajan R. Havanas has been kind enough to post a picture for you- so all is not lost. You may yet understand the certainty that Microsoft imitates OS X
Funny, the screenshot you provided doesn’t exist on the URL you have posted (perhaps you could copy and paste more carefully). But to quote Havanas since it is he who posted the screenshot; “Not that it matters but they do have a few similarities”. What I find funny is that OS X was not even the first to have rounded window tops. Nor is this the first time Microsoft done something like this (for example, Windows XP).
As for the gradient, Microsoft does it more starkly than brush metal, shading from a very dark shade of grey to a rather light shade of grey. On brush metal, the gradient is far more subtle, if not hardly noticeable (and if Slate is permanent, which I doubt to the extreme extends, I hope Microsoft does indeed copy Apple’s subtle gradient. It’s more elegant and better on the eyes)
I think this UI is going to be even MORE crappier than the XP GUI! When i use XP, i always change to classic look since the UI suck big time. What are they thinking? Dont they have any taste at all? (Take a look at the BeOS UI, THATS a UI)
If I’m not mistaken, it was mid-2001 when using SDL was first suggestion, it took probably a month till a working prototype was created. Yeah, you’re right, by time a working implementation of SDL was there in Fresco, QE was already unveiled. But the idea certainly didn’t come from Apple and QE.
http://www.fresco.org/news2002.html
“Console changes, SDL support
You wanted hardware acceleration, you say?
(2002-02-31)”
You are mistaken. If apple didn’t come up with the idea who did?? Well NeXT had display PS and MacOS X is clearly based on NeXTStep. Who else had a compsitor like Quartz that needed a 3D cpu to achieve its goals, a la QE.
You claimed it wasn’t new, I think you should quantufy that staement with evidence.
But I don’t consider Longhorn a clone of sorts of OS X, neither do I consider Avalon a complete rip-off of QE
I don’t think longhorn is a MacOS X clone etiher. But the similarities that exist can not be discounted. Microsoft’s claim that they are revolutionizing the future of personal computing with longhorn’s proposed technologies is very hard to digest. I would say Apple has similar technologies in thier OS “today”, I think that’s what people are trying to point out. The problem is everyone is arguing silly implementation details, like which 3D API, textures and shades of the LAF. Windows is based on certain technologies and so is MacOS X on certain other technologies. You can’t argue implementation details, only similar ideas. Without doubt Avalon is conceptually very similar to QE.
Someone pointed out that longhorn will do scalable vectors and QE uses quick time. Quartz can handle vector graphics nothing is preventing Apple from making the next version of OS X vector based.
Someone pointed out that longhorn will do scalable vectors and QE uses quick time.
Should be:
Someone pointed out that longhorn will do scalable vectors and QE uses bitmaps.
while I am at ir I would like to correct the following typos.
You claimed it wasn’t new, I think you should quantify that statement with evidence.
Raptor You are mistaken. If apple didn’t come up with the idea who did?? Well NeXT had display PS and MacOS X is clearly based on NeXTStep. Who else had a compsitor like Quartz that needed a 3D cpu to achieve its goals, a la QE.
On Fresco, like I said, a prototype was created around 2001, and if you were close to the developers them, you would know that the idea has been there for quite sometime. The reason why a working implementation was only released circa February 2002 was because it was extremely difficult to do this without breaking GGI. And worse, initially, they wanted it to work with every console, not just GGI.
I can’t say for sure anyone did, but I can say for sure the idea has been there since 3D cards were available for consumers – probably even before that. But to quote another comment:
“For Microsoft, there’s Task Gallery, Data Mountain, and 3D Agent research projects, as well as GDI2k/Chrome/Chromeffects which was released to developers, but halted from public release. These technologies used Direct3D to accelerate drawing and composition of the Windows desktop, windows applications, and web applications. All of these projects were in working form well before Apple added compositing acceleration to OS X, and before OS X’s was OS X. ”
Since this comment was made towards you by n4cer (http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=6263&offset=45&rows=60#208456), I would have expected you to have read it. This is Microsoft, and I have huge doubts they are the first with the idea.
I don’t think longhorn is a MacOS X clone etiher. But the similarities that exist can not be discounted.
Panther has similarities with XP, why isn’t anyone calling it a XP-clone? My post which you originally quoted was against Dude who was alleging that Microsoft was copying (and thus, according to his feeble logic, stealing) from Apple. And since you take the case against me, I’m putting my comments in context.
Microsoft’s claim that they are revolutionizing the future of personal computing with longhorn’s proposed technologies is very hard to digest. I would say Apple has similar technologies in thier OS “today”, I think that’s what people are trying to point out.
if you searched Microsoft’s press site, you could see they mention *very little* about Longhorn. But regardless, they are pushing WinFS and Palladium as the innovative ideas from their press releases, hardly mentioning Avalon. Apple doesn’t have the equilevent of either, or at least doesn’t have it out in the open. The article quoted up there isn’t a Microsoft press-release. It is a story with screenshots of a **leak** of a internal Microsoft project.
You can’t argue implementation details, only similar ideas. Without doubt Avalon is conceptually very similar to QE.
Nope. The idea is vastly different, QE used OpenGL to do its composition work, but for the rest, they use the CPU. Rayiner says it best ( http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=6263&limit=no#208488 )
“Apple does *not* have a 3D-rendered GUI. It just uses 3D for compositing. All drawing is done via the CPU. Try reading Apple’s SIGGRAPH presentation instead of their marketing literature. Currently, Quartz “Extreme” is basically not much different from Display Postscript, which NeXT did in the 1980’s. Its DPS + accelerated transparent windows and shadows. Longhorn will have actual 3D-accelerated drawing. Unlike OS X, where most graphics are still bitmaps, this will allow rich vector-graphics based applications. ”
And of ironies, it was directed at you. (The reason why I quote the two fellas above is because earlier I wrote a lenghty essay to you, and realize they said pretty much the same thing to you earlier within a paragraph.)
Someone pointed out that longhorn will do scalable vectors and QE uses quick time[sic].
Apple may have the technical capabilities to do this, but I doubt they would do this soon. As Rayiner explains, the GPU card is only used for composition. So since Quartz is a closed-source system, it is hard to say whether Apple can implement something alike to Avalon without requiring a massive rewrite. But being so secretive, nobody really knows what the next version of OS X would bring.
Personally, for now and for at least the next decade or so, this wouldn’t really matter as computers would be still in its traditional role.
dimension != resolution
Of course. And it’s not Linux but GNU/Linux.
Most people will understand what you mean when you say resolution… or just Linux. Anyway, I’ll change my comment to please you:
Anyway, the guy wouldn’t be able to read the text unless it’s projected on a 50″+ screen as the resolution on your average monitor (lower than 24″) would be too high (probably over 200dpi when the guy’s desktop is set at 96, judging by MS Windows’ defaults).
Since this comment was made towards you by n4cer (http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=6263&offset=45&rows=6…), I would have expected you to have read it. This is Microsoft, and I have huge doubts they are the first with the idea.
Yes i read it and didn’t respond because this is more close to a 3D desktop not a 3d accelerated compositor like Quartz Extreme or Avalon. I would expect you to have understood the difference, You could compare this to looking glass but not directly to QE.
All you have offered so far is I think it is not new and no direct evidence to prove the fact. Since you can’t find aevidence you use Rayniers post out of context.
Apple may have the technical capabilities to do this, but I doubt they would do this soon. As Rayiner explains, the GPU card is only used for composition. So since Quartz is a closed-source system, it is hard to say whether Apple can implement something alike to Avalon without requiring a massive rewrite. But being so secretive, nobody really knows what the next version of OS X would bring.
I was going to respond to Rayiner. Avalon is a Compositer too. I read the SIGGRAPH presentation and everything MS has on its PDC site about avalon. From what I can say they are very similar. Unless Raynier can com and point out the techincal differences which make them completely different technologies. He was correct in pointing out that QE uses bitmaps and Avalon will be capable of vector graphics. In Apples own tech docs and ARStechnicas article quartz is clearly mentioned to have vector capabilities too.
QE creates openGL textures and the whole destop is a OpenGL 3D scence. Avalon uses direct3d. Raynier needs to come out and explain the difference on how one is rendered on the GPU and the other is not. None of the techdocs expalin how avalon is going to create gui widgets in a window directly on the gpu without any cpu cycles.
Look I don’t care how many comments were directed to me, You have not given any convincing proof. If you are counting comments directed at you you found two. I can find a lot more than that directed toward you.
http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/02q3/macosx-10.2/macosx-10.2-8.h…
“Quartz 2D (formerly “Core Graphics Rendering”) is a vector-based 2D drawing library.
he Mac OS X System Overview describes its capabilities succinctly:
[Quartz 2D’s] APIs allow you to create text and images by specifying a sequence of commands and mathematical statements that place lines, shapes, color, shading, translucency, and other graphical attributes in two-dimensional space. You do not need to specify the attributes of individual pixels. As a result, a shape can be efficiently defined as a series of paths and attributes rather than as a bitmap.”
…….
“Applications issue drawing commands using one of the various drawing APIs; the drawing APIs produce a bitmaps based on these (possibly vector-based) drawing commands; the window server, now an OpenGL application itself, retains the resulting bitmaps as textures on polygons in an OpenGL scene and composites them into a pleasing, cohesive final image on the screen by issuing OpenGL drawing commands.”
For clarification (should have done this along with the screenshot): The screenshot is real and it’s the same build as the one they demonstrated the DCE effects with on WinHEC. The shot was taken on one of those giant plasma screens and used in a PowerPoint presentation available at Microsoft: http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/6/9/669C56E3-12AF-48C5-AB2…
Download page here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/pdc/agendaandsessions/sessions/def… (Client CLI341, “Avalon” Graphics and Media (Part 2): Using Graphics, Animation and Composition in Your Applications)
I may be 2 years away, at min, but its ugly. i was extremely unimpressed.
Not to mention how much the Microsoft fanboys hype it up like it will be the second coming of jesus. but give me a break, it wont be out for a long time, but people still act as if its product right now to compete with. its pretty interesting, in the past, linux had to compete with whats out, not it has to compete with whats not even out.
Longhorn, is just continueing XP, which was mind numbing, its hideous, and i have never seen XP run at a reasonable speed. win2k (pro, not server) is the height of the microsoft product line, its downhill from there
(during that type i should expect all VHS to be erased, (futurama?))