“Message from Jeremy: To all Tech IT Easy readers, who could obviously not necessarily remember the initial announcement, I have invited my friend Steve to help me try to provide you, dear readership, with everyday better technology insights. Steve’s mission statement is that there’s no mission statement: what matters most here is to raise the right issues on underlying market trends, bringing to light new software, Internet services and consumer electronic devices. Steve, the floor is yours…”
I have explained earlier why I believed in Leopard, a truly innovative system despite the apparent lack of “wow” features. In the same post I expressed sarcastically my criticism of Apple copying Microsoft, mainly when it came…to delivering their OS on time !
Now Apple has unveiled a newer version of their latest OS. And apparently a few things have been directly inspired…from Vista !
Here we go :
1) Semi-translucent menu bar. No comment there, this is a pure ”photocopy” of a feature from Vista.
2) 3D & translucent dock. Although the dock was originally developed by Apple, Microsoft has also launched a kind of dock in Vista (and so did Sun by the way, in their breakthrough Looking Glass interface). And, guess what ? The latest dock from Mac OS resembles Vista’s !
3) QuickLook seems quite familiar to the users of Windows XP or Vista. Now there is an instant preview system in Mac OS. Apparently the system seems slightly superior in Leopard since you are now able to browse directly pages of a document without opening it. Nonetheless, listening a MP3 or viewing a video on the system was a Windows feature for decades (at least 2001).
Let me tell you a last thing : actually, I couldn’t care less about all these copycat games. In the end, these interface improvements benefit the end user, right ? So some kind of inspiration/copying is useful, and, dare I say, necessary for the progress of mankind.
Now, Kari, Vincent, and Marc, you can start firing in the comments section 
as long as it is just for the desktop interface, i’m not really worried about this aspect.
OSX advantages are somewhere else
This leopard seems exciting (i mean for the 250 other features that you haven’t listed here
),
i would have also enjoyed a mail 3.0 with the 3 colums display
Comment by Thomas — June 15, 2007 @ 08:47
Actually I don’t have much to fire about. There’s only so much innovation that can happen in a 2d graphical user-interface. And since I’ve never used Vista, I can’t really say much on their similarities either.
To me a desktop—and that’s mainly what we’re talking about here—has a very simple function: be there, let me drop stuff on it when I need to, and go away. The OS, apart from being stable and supporting application-development, does not matter so much.
Regarding the stacks-feature to remove clutter from the desktop. That just means that I can move my clutter to another folder—which is the same as moving the trash in my room under a carpet. Not a real answer to a problem.
What I hope to see more of in Leopard, is easier ways to manipulate meta-data. The info-window is one step to distant, I’d rather have the option in save-dialogs to easily add spotlight-comments, like tags. That can really radicalise the organisation process.
Quicklook, and that being integrated in Coverflow, is awesome, as that is the way I search a lot of my data, by browsing for it. Everything else I do with spotlight (which needs improvements) quicksilver (which rocks!) and now butler (which is pretty cool as well).
I never use the dock and am happy that Apple is at least doing a little bit to remove the ever-present menu-bar, though I would prefer to just hide that too.
Comment by Vincent van Wylick — June 15, 2007 @ 10:20
For your information, Vista/Aero is just a copy from Compiz/Beryl of the Linux desktop. So when OSX copies Vista, it’s really just a copy of Linux.
Comment by John — June 22, 2007 @ 05:18
Well, maybe. But then: who really cares ?
Comment by Steve — June 22, 2007 @ 15:42
You should’ve linked to a video , John.
Anyway, I can’t tell who’s copying who anymore, and unless someone starts patenting and suing, it really doesn’t matter.
Comment by Vincent van Wylick — June 22, 2007 @ 16:18
I think you need to grow up, apple didn’t copy microsoft, its the other way around! in mac os x there is a thing called Widgets for the dashboard, With microsoft, they just took the code, tweaked it for vista and changed the name to Gadgets. Anyway, who cares for microsoft, they are stupid and dumb and i think that they should get a life.
Windows vista: The “wow” starts Now
Mac os x: The “wow” started 5 years ago
Comment by jordan — June 25, 2007 @ 10:43
Jordan, I think you need to read between the lines. Steve’s post was intended to be humorous, not to incite flamewars.
Strange how people can get so worked up about a bunch of code…
Comment by Vincent van Wylick — June 25, 2007 @ 11:21
Thanks Vince, you’ve got it.
BTW, I still stick to my point. I don’t give a f…k about who copies the other, as long as it benefits the industry on a whole.
Comment by Steve — June 25, 2007 @ 11:22
Now this seems like an innovative desktop to me. Or rather, a useful one.
Comment by Vincent van Wylick — July 3, 2007 @ 23:45
Vincent, this is GREAT.
At first I believed it was a kind of joke…
please post about it !
Comment by Steve — July 4, 2007 @ 01:04
Yeah, blog about it Vince, it’s just an amazing idea.
Comment by Jeremy Fain — July 4, 2007 @ 01:10