What is Leopard Up Against in Vista?
Before too long, Vista will be released upon the world. Will it be a match for Leopard which will follow a few months later? What will Leopard be up against? What will it take for Apple to convince people a Mac running Leopard is better than a PC running Windows? Can Apple do that?
Let me present an email I got from a techie friend in the Windows world:
Well, I can actually say, I really like Vista.
Really fast, prompts with security crap all over the place which I like too.
Hmm, MS have released some good software finally
Of course, Mac users will be gagging on the coffee and it’ll be spluttering out their nose all over their pristine white/black/silver (or white & black) Macs. Especially that line about liking all those security prompts.
I wonder what those prompts say? Maybe:
Hi. Whoops. Hang on, don’t panic. I’m not a virus, this is Vista talking to you. Just a friendly reminder that I might look pretty hot but I’ve actually got more holes in me than Albert Hall. So I’ll pop up every now and again just to reassure you that installing every security program on the planet is a good thing. See you soon!
A few minutes later:
Hi, me again. Am I still running? Huh!! That’s pretty good! You must know something about computers. Anyway, just popped up to say I’ll leave you alone for a bit.
Another few minutes later:
Hi! Guess who? I hope you don’t get sick of me, coz it’s really important I keep popping up and reminding you about all the risks of using me. Next time I’ll tell you a few. Bye-ee!
Just when you’re taking a sip of coffee:
Panic! Panic! Abandon ship! BWARRP! BWARRP! BWARRP! Hey I hope I didn’t scare you. Just testing the ol’ warning system. All part of the security. I am here to serve.
And much too soon:
Hey dude. Can I call you dude? We are old friends now. What you need to know is, basically, I’m totally crap. Looks can be deceiving. But hey - you’re the one using me. Chortle, chortle. Oops, back soon, gotta give some resources to Aero - he needs all the resources he can get. Between you and me, he’s a . . .
Not much later at all:
Smart alec Aero cutting me off before. Anyway, what’s he know? Security’s what’s important. And the best prevention is lots of messages. Me popping up. Lot’s of reminders. That’s the way to go. Coz you gotta be really careful. There’s lots of viruses, infections, spyware, trojans & adware out there - let’s just call it VISTA for short, eh? I kinda like that name. Catchy, eh? Well, better go. See ya soon.
And so on.
It’s funny you know, after installing Windows on my Mac, the thing that struck me most was the pop ups. The little bubbles reminding me to do stuff. They started to drive me nuts. And it seems Vista is going to have more because Windows users like them - and even need them.
I use Growl on the Mac and it’s wonderful. Apple should buy it and integrate it. Growl tells me something has happened that I want to know about.
Windows just nags. The messages in Windows all seem to be reminders. “Don’t forget to get a virus checker” “Don’t forget to activate” “Did you put the cat out?” “Have you got that huge pimple between your shoulders checked out yet?”
So what is Leopard up against?
So okay, we had a bit of fun, but now to the main question.
The other part of that email is that he likes Vista and is impressed. Sorry Leopard. Game over. This scenario is going to be repeated all over the place. Every magazine that reviews Vista, every IT manager that sees it, everywhere you are going to hear how great Vista is. Why? Because it is better and looks much better. (Ironically, it’s better because MS cut so much out of it.)
That’ll be enough for them. I tried telling him it was all copied from OS X but it was as if I hadn’t spoken. No acknowledgment of all. To Windows users, the copying OS X issue is irrelevant. Vista users aren’t going to give a rat’s brass monkey (no I don’t know what that is but it sounds good). They don’t care who invented things first. All that matters is that their system, Windows, does it now.
It’s a good thing that Leopard is coming out after Vista, after the gushing has abated. Otherwise Leopard will be lost in Vista’s adulation.
Lastly, I got an email from him a few days later that simply said:
First bug found. Hard disk corruption for no apparent reason.
The casual acceptance is what strikes me about that. No cursing, no name calling, just an acceptance. Hey, it’s only a hard disk corruption.
Although this is just one guy, it’s a reasonably safe generalization to say it’s fairly reflective of Windows users. We know Mac users stick to Mac because of a sometimes blind devotion, but Windows users are just plain apathetic. Whether it’s a plethora of messages or a behind the times OS or bugs that crash the system or even all the possible infections, it just doesn’t bother them enough. They’ll switch when it hurts enough. And Vista is not going to hurt enough.
And that’s what Leopard is up against.
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Comments
I’ve heard more than many people say Office 97 was the zenith and if MS aren’t going to make Office more usable, then Office 97 suits them fine. (Tho personally I prefer Office 2000 as it was more stable.)
In the Mac world, I don’t know. v.X is my only experience of Office on the Mac.
MacBU on their blog have said there’s 30,000,000 (yes, 30 million) lines of code in Mac Office 2004. Each programmer has been assigned 428,000 lines to convert to intel. -CH
Wow, no wonder it is beautiful to behold! Thanks for that tidbit of trivia info, Chris.
Mac faithfuls give our cheers and toast a glass of the old one for these Mac dudes/dudettes inside MS’s cellars and labyrinthine halls at Redmond. These folks are doing great Mac duty and service (and some good $$$, I suppose).
I just noticed the banner ad (top) is Office Mac. Are the new AM banner ads context sensitive? I’m just curious.
Here’s the link robo to the post about those 30,000,000 lines.
http://blogs.msdn.com/macmojo/archive/2006/11/03/it-s-all-in-the-numbers.aspx
They’re not saints, (nor really even a religious order though you might think so), they’re a corporation.
No argument there, Ben. I just wish many many many Mac partisans would keep this in mind when they’re out blindly and vociferously defending even the most questionable of Apple’s actions or policies.
Keynote is much much better then Powerpoint and works seamlessly…But where is the spreadsheet? That’s such an essential tool for an office! Apple must invest into development of the office suite and re-work iWork in order to get the full set of the office applications.
But are iWork and Office really even competitors? I regard them more as compliments to each other with some overlapping features.
Keynote and PPT seem the most similar, but Keynote’s strength is templates and ease-of-use while PPT’s strength is customization and power. Admittedly, I don’t use presentation software that much (thank god), but that’s my impression having used PPT in the past and trying out the Keynote demo.
Pages and Word seem more like completely different products. I would, for example, use Pages to create newsletters and resumes, while I would use Word to create manuscripts, treatments, and other more long-form documents.
And as y3k points out, there is no spreadsheet at all in iWork. There is no database software. I just don’t think they are even trying to compete with Office at this point.
Agreed, Beeb.
iWork is to Office, what iMovie is to Final Cut.
Thanks, Chris for the 30MLOC link…
So I went there and found this blog by one of MacBU lead devo: A day in my life at MacBU. Pretty interesting life as a Mac developer working for Microsoft. He says this is his typical day of work! Great…
It’s a good thing they are not in the Redmond area (just found out too) and mingle with the other Silicon Valley phenoms like Google, eBay, Yahoo, etc.
I was at Mountain View/Sunnyvale/San Jose area a few months ago this year and the place is alive and grinding like it was prior to Bubble 1.0. It’s just amazing work/commute environment.
Never mind the traffic. That is a fact of life in a big city scene anywhere.
Like I said in the past, familiarization is a very powerful weapon - and Office’s most potent one against iWork and OpenOffice clones.
I have played with iWork - Pages and Keynote but found that I was more comfortable with Office since I’ve used that for more than decade since ‘95!
Pages and Keynote offers new ways for doing documents and presentations. And that should be applauded, indeed. Their “template’-based document creation is very powerful (reminds me of iDVD or iMovie).
I’m sure Apple will keep refining and adding to the current apps in iWork. I’ve heard of rumors of the “Cells” spreadsheet float around. The Database is not really necessary since Filemaker Pro is doing just fine by themselves. I don’t see Apple creating another DB when they own Filemaker.
What they need to add to iWork is iMail Pro and a contact/CRM-type of an application. That means, Apple has to come out with a corporate-based email/messaging server for OSX Server (a la MS Exchange). They could go open source or develop their own to include corporate VoIP/Skype/IM capabilities.
Now that would be serving the corporate market out right.
Although that would be competing with the golden goose (MacBU) for the same $$$, I doubt it will hurt. Competition can only make this Mac market segment blossom - both awareness and innovation.
iWork is to Office, what iMovie is to Final Cut.
You’re scaring me, Chris. I was going to use that exact same comparison. Seriously.
“Great minds” and all that.
Chiming in on the Jon Gruber thing. I have nothing but respect for the guy, and his blog is fantastic…but that doesn’t mean he is untouchable or that his writing cannot be looked at critically. I do feel like he comes off sometimes as an apple apologist and the konfabulator incident is a prime example. It doesn’t matter that Konfabulator was somewhat sort-of based on Apple’s very old desk accessories. From the language (widget) to the look and feel Apple pulled one on Konfabulator. Who knows, perhaps they learned their lesson from it with the recent integration of coverflow into iTunes.
Mad respect to Jon, and he does a lot of Apple, but I’d love to hear more of his thoughts on what Apple does wrong, or needs to fix.
From the language (widget) to the look and feel Apple pulled one on Konfabulator.
I don’t think there’s any question that Apple stole Konfab widgets. But even THAT is not entirely the point. My issue here with Mac-tards is that they are using the argument that taking the look-and-feel (and heck, even the NAME) is NOT stealing because the underlying technology is different.
But the entire Mac-tard argument that MS does nothing but steal from Apple is based SOLELY on look-and-feel, as it is inarguable that the underlying technology of Windows is fundamentally different (in fact, “look-and-feel” was the crux of Apple’s copyright infringement suit against Microsoft)
These are completely opposing principles and yet they are made virtually simultaneously when defending Apple from stealing while accusing Microsoft of doing nothing but.
What should apple have done, wanting to implement a Konfabulator-clone but it not being appropriate to use the Konfabulator architecture? Bought them anyway?
I think they should have arranged with the Konfabulator team to become part of the team/consult at Apple to reimplement it.
I don’t think there’s any question that Apple stole Konfab widgets.
I think there is a valid question here. It’s certainly possible that people at Apple had in mind something similar before Konfab came out. This is to give Apple the benefit of the doubt, something you’re loathe to do - but the point is nobody here knows the answer, those who pretend they do either saying:
1. Apple definitely “stole Konfabulator”, or
2. Apple definitely didn’t steal Konfabulator
...are equally “retarded”.
I’m coming to believe that Beeblebrox’s reactionary fury at anyone who gives apple the benefit of the doubt too often leads him to react with the same fury at anyone who ever gives apple the benefit of the doubt at all. Such a position is equally as foolish as the Mac Evangelists he rages against.
He won’t consider this a possibility, though.
Clarifying that I do think apple did the wrong thing with Konfab/Dashboard. I just think “they stole it” implies they stole the *idea*, which isn’t known.
It’s certainly possible that people at Apple had in mind something similar before Konfab came out.
And it’s certainly possible that Microsoft came up with Gadgets before either Konfab widgets or Dashboard widgets came out. After all, they have been working on Vista for a loooooong time.
And it’s certainly possible that the sun will explode in the next twenty minutes.
This is not a question of giving Apple the “benefit of the doubt” and it’s silly of you to reduce it to that when you know that’s not the case, as if Mac-tards have simply looked at the evidence and decided that the evidence was insufficient to judge one way or the other (which they ALWAYS do in every situation of course) - and that I, in my rage or whatever, am simply gain-saying.
They’re called WIDGETS for fuck’s sake. They LOOK IDENTICAL. They FUNCTION identically. To say that it’s giving the “benefit of the doubt” to Apple that they just happened to create them at the same time, while releasing them over a year later, is absolutely absurd. That’s not the benefit of the doubt, that’s sticking your head in the fucking sand.
To the person who posted this crap.
Does anyone know what the word BETA means? Hello !
Sorry, dude. This excuse only works for Apple products up to and including versions 1.0 of everything from software to hardware. If you complain at that point, then you’re stupid for not realizing that beta software isn’t the final version or for getting in too early. If you complain after that, then you’re doing something wrong or you’re a whiny vocal minority and should just shut up already.
What the fuck are you on about? Read my post!
The point I was trying to make is that I was ridiculed for mentioning hard disk corruption like it was no big deal, what I was saying (CLEARLY) is that Beta software has bugs and you use it at your own risk, I know this.
This is all so petty and stupid.
God, I was going to type more but I really couldn’t be stuffed!