ZDNet writer proclaims Apple Leopard a ripoff of Vista
There will always be the Dvoraks and general naysayers spouting flamebait and ignorant nothings regarding Macs and their beautiful operating systems; if there weren’t, well, Microsoft would be SOL. However, as someone who respects quality writing, I cannot let this go: Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet has established herself as the most technologically ignorant writer on the internet with her article, essentially saying that OS X Leopard is a half-ass attempt at replicating Vista.
Foley begins her attack with a statement that although she expected the WWDC opening keynote to be a ritzy, rock-star like worship of Steve Jobs, she found it to be a display of, “many technologies in the forthcoming Mac OS X “Leopard” release that already exist in Windows Vista.”
She continues, “To this Windows-show veteran, however, the WWDC developer audience seemed positvely effusive.”
Well, you must, as a Windows-show veteran, know everything there is to know about the computing world, now don’t you? As such, I expect your forthcoming comments to be truly insightful…
“I don’t remember ever hearing thunderous applause when Microsoft showed off Flip 3D or Vista’s ability to preview thumbnails of documents. The “wows” were few and far between. Yet when Jobs put almost identical versions of these features in Leopard through their paces, there were lots of oohs and ahhs.”
Mary Jo, you didn’t ever hear thunderous applause when flip 3D or preview thumbnails because it had already been done, in something called OS X Tiger. It’s hard to be impressed with old technology.
Furthermore, the “thumb previews” are not a new feature; had you been paying attention (and known anything about Tiger) you would recognize that he was highlighting old features to strengthen the benefit of Quicklook…a feature Vista does not have. It is far beyond the capabilities of Vista.
“But if you’ve seen Vista, there’s no way you could help but compare the feature-complete Leopard beta Jobs showcased with Windows Vista. And — surprise — Vista looked pretty darn up-to-date in comparison.”
Really?? I guess there is a comparison..in that I can compare Vista as a pathetic attempt to replicate software advances existent in now-outdated operating software designed by Apple..that is a comparison, for comparison’s sake.
Don’t stop now, it gets better…she attempts to back up her faulty logic with a few points…after all, points to an argument mean validity, right?
1. New Leopard Desktop: Not a whole lot different from Vista’s Aero and Sidebar.
Triston says: Hmm. I think if you’ve ever heard of an OS called Tiger, you will realize that Vista’s Aero and Sidebar are simply a system-heavy knock-off of technology existent in Tiger…just because Leopard isn’t 20 years ahead of both OS’s doesn’t mean that it is a replica of Vista.
2. New Finder: Many of the same capabilities as the integrated “Instant Search” in Vista (the subsystem that Google is trying to get the Department of Justice to rule as being anti-competitive). The new Leopard Coverflow viewing capability looked almost identical to Vista’s Flip 3D to me.
Triston says: If you’ve ever heard of Spotlight, you would know that Instant Search is a fairly decent knock-off of the search tool. I must admit, Instant Search might be the only good thing going on in Vista, but if you think Windows revolutionized it, you must also think that the entire Windows OS was completely Bill Gates’ idea…you probably do.
3.QuickLook: Live file previews — just like the thumbnail preview capability available in Vista.
Triston says: Mary Jo, if you paid any attention, you’d realize that Jobs noted that the thumbnail preview was existent previously, and this new feature lets you completely preview any file outside of the actual program to conserve system resources.
4.64-bitness: Leopard is the first 64-bit only version of a desktop client. Vista comes in 32-bit and 64-bit varieties. And most expect Windows Seven will still be available in 32-bit flavors. Until 32-bit machines go away, it seems like a good idea to offer 32-bit operating systems.
Perhaps, had Microsoft not tried to milk consumers for every dollar by promoting low-end software that could “run” Vista (but not really, when it comes down to the only features that differentiate it from XP), they would have been honest and said 64 bit is where we’re headed…we’ll help you get there. Apple has made every one of it’s computers (nearly) 64 bit (as of recent times). How many computers on the market are 64 bit for Windows? Apple doesn’t milk consumers, it takes steps towards advancement, and helps consumers get there as well.
5. She says something about how core animation didn’t impress developers at WWDC..I think she was must have gone to the toilet during this part of the presentation, because I watched it, and many people are audibly impressed.
6. Boot Camp. You can run Vista on your Mac. Apple showed Vista running Solitaire in its WWDC demo. But I bet those downloading the 2.5 million copies of Boot Camp available since last year are running a lot of other Windows business apps and games.
Triston says: Actually, if you knew the truth about OS X, you’d realize that most Mac users only run Microsoft programs out of necessity…if you think about it, if a user MUST user Windows and is using it for more than business apps and games, why not just buy a cheap PC?
7. Spaces: A feature allowing users to group applications into separate spaces. I haven’t seen anything like in in Vista, but the audience didn’t seem overly impressed by it.
Triston says: you know why they weren’t impressed? Because we’ve been able to do that since Tiger with Virtue Desktops (sorry Apple, but you know as well as I do that you stole the idea). It’s hard to be impressed with old technology. If it isn’t impressive or difficult, why isn’t it in your all-powerful Vista?
8. Dashboard with widgets. Isn’t this like the Vista Sidebar with gadgets?
Triston: No. No it isn’t.
10. Time Machine automatic backup. Vista has built-in automatic backup (Volume Shadow Copy). It doesn’t look anywhere near as cool as Time Machine. But it seems to provide a lot of the same functionality.
Triston says: oh, well…whew. I should switch to Vista then, if it already has that feature. Granted, it’s not as cool, but why settle for something flashy? Why not play the guessing game of blue screens of death, malware and spyware, and constant backups when I could get Leopar with Time Machine? Where’s the work in that?
While I understand that Foley was simply looking for a fresh, controversial angle for her Leopard story, it seems to me, that in this case, she’s launched an attack that isn’t grounded in reality.
Related Posts:
June 12th, 2007
I felt the same: I just can’t accept someone is payed to write such an ignorant imbecil article…
She didn’t need to be a computer geek: she just needed to at least do her homework.
Every single feature she claims is a copy from Vista was already in Tiger: can’t beat that stupidity.
June 12th, 2007
It seems to me you have all completely misread the article. You can’t look beyond your own narrow vista (no pun intended) and simply interpret absolutely everything as “misinformed Apple bashing.”
I know Mary Jo Foley to be a serious reporter who looks at Microsoft with a critical eye. She makes some valid points about this keynote and this release of Leopard.
There *are* many things in Leopard that, viewed from afar and not as goodlooking, are similar to what’s in Vista (and even XP to some extent).
And yes, I am an Apple user. But it seems an exception to the rule, since I’m no fan boy.
Something like “The iPhone will not flop thanks to its impressive Web 2.0 capabilities” (currently in the sidebar here) just shows that you will eat up what Apple shovels.
It’s obvious (I found that part of the keynote truly cringeworthy) that developers don’t want to build a two-point-oh website to get on the iPhone.
They want an icon in the home screen, no matter how similar you can make a web application look. Watch the keynote again: the guy who does this part of the demonstration KNOWS he’s selling an inferior option.
Not to provide an SDK and telling developers that making their app in Safari is the better option is simply a cop out. Period.
Oh yeah: people that declare “they will never visit a site again”, based on one article they didn’t like, need to grow up.
I’m not fond of many things I read here, but I come back because I want to read as many viewpoints as I can before I make up my own mind.
Try it!
June 12th, 2007
Tiger impressed me, Leopard was a let-down.
June 13th, 2007
@ Lars
“I know Mary Jo Foley to be a serious reporter who looks at Microsoft with a critical eye. She makes some valid points about this keynote and this release of Leopard.”
Yeah, but what she gets right is obscured by her laughable ignorance of her main subject. Seriously – comparing Finder coverflow to Flip 3D? They do completely different things. It is striking that she has chosen to cite the most striking similarities between Mac OS versions 10.1-4 and Vista as evidence for Apple’s mimicry of Redmond’s finest. The stuff that’s new to Leopard (Time Machine, Spaces, Stacks, iChat enhancements, Core Animation, Finder coverflow) she admires, overlooks, or misunderstands.
I agree with her that Leopard is not light-years ahead of Vista. But it is Microsoft which has been playing catch-up. Mac OS is still, imho, the better OS by some margin. And you know, Apple has time for another couple of upgrades before ‘Vienna’. Apple came a long way between the launch of XP and Vienna, and will step ahead once more in October.
You’re totally right about the iPhone thing, by the way. Jobs Reality Distortion in full effect there!
June 13th, 2007
Your unflagging, fanatical man love crush on “Steve”, (who will never sell out) and all things Apple ,makes reading your Blog entries akin to 17 Magazine articles on boy bands in the ’90’s. Do you have a decal of Steve Jobs pissing on Bill Gates on the rear window of your hybrid?
“Let me say something here: if you don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t talk. Most assuredly you should not make assertments about a piss-poor operating system that is built on a foundation of donkey poo when you don’t know what the competition is offering or has offered in the past.”
You do realize many of the “revolutionary” features of OSX have been available in Linux for years ? Or would that mess with your self image, which seems to be tied to Apple for some odd reason?
June 13th, 2007
Ken,
LOL. I truly enjoyed the image of me driving a hybrid (no, I don’t have one, but hey…gas IS expensive) with that little grin on Jobs’ face as he urinates on Bill Gates..disturbing but I did laugh out loud. I’m sorry you don’t like the image I paint of Steve Jobs. In all honesty, if someone else was the captain of the Apple ship, that would be fine, as long as they produced as well as Steve does. I mean that earnestly.
However, I as a writer for an overtly Mac blog have to (in some regard) identify with both Apple and Steve, don’t I? Would you as an Apple fan want someone who wasn’t really immersed in the technology or the culture writing about stuff they didn’t really know about?
Yes, I do know that Linux has had many features both OSes are now flaunting as new. I also know I’ve used Linux and don’t care for it…just preference. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a great platform. My self image is in no way linked to Apple, except that I do write and edit a website dedicated to all things Mac…that would inherently mean it is part of my image, as a writer.
Thanks for the comments!
June 13th, 2007
Apple didn’t steal Spaces from VirtueDesktop at all. Most distros of Linux in the past 10 years have had virtual desktops. They’ve both just borrowed from open source ideas.
June 13th, 2007
The drones that Steve commands can be quite silly at times. Same with those that Bill commands.
But I agree with some of the comments regarding the iPhone. Big hype for technology of the past. I mean come on… if you are that much of an Apple fanboy that are going to run out and buy an iPhone that runs the web from the pitifully slow Edge network and call that the web, then you are just as much of a sucker as you were when Steve was pushing his vastly overprice proprietary MAC hardware! And when he bends you over to replace that sealed battery (sheer genius to keep the cash rolling in) you’ll just scream for more….more like the iPhone 2.0 which might actually support a high speed network like you already find on Windows Mobile devices costing less and have been on the market for some time.
To each their own.
June 13th, 2007
Dear readers
I was also not THAT impressed with the “new/secret” features which Leopard is going to have.
I’m developing on MS, Mac, Linux, AS400 and MVS…
To say, that Visa got copied is just plain stupid, Mac is still a unix based OS, so switching desktops or using drawers is nothing new, if you’re using Gnome on Linux or Solaris or Mac or whatever Unix based OS.
All these animated desktop behaviour can be found, if you’re searching the web a bit (try google on 3d linux desktop)…
I still love my MacBook Pro and I surely will feed it the Leopard.
June 14th, 2007
@Ken
Linux?
Donkey poo?
Man Crush?
I would say that BSD is not donkey poo.
I have been a linux user since 1994. I stopped using linux as my main machine since I finally realized that OSX did what I had been trying to get linux and windows (in vmware) do for about a decade. OSX just plain works. I have had almost 0 stress from my computer since getting my MacBook Pro.
Sure Karamba has been in linux for a while. I tried using it several times on several distro’s. It does not compare to Dashboard. I don’t remember anyone claiming that Apple invented the idea of widgets. Apple just did what they do best make things easy to use which brings me to the other point. 3ddesktop.
Sure 3d has been available in linux for a while. Do you use it? Can your mother use it? Can your grandmother use it? The only distro that has a decent X windows configuration tool is SuSE with SAX. Other than SuSE getting X windows configured PROPERLY is not fun. The nvidia and ATI drivers for linux are crap.
Guess what I don’t have to deal with those issues with OSX because it just plain works.
What is funny about your donkey dooky poo derived comments is that you clearly only have a view from your little corner of the world when the rest of us have grown tired of fiddling with a toy OS and have moved on to a REAL UNIX system.
June 14th, 2007
@ MicroNix
That is all you can come up with is the speed of the network for the iPhone? I am not buying the phone because it comes from apple. I am buying the phone because I am tired of the other smart phones that Suck. Windows does not belong on a phone. It is too unreliable. I have had several windows mobile phones and every one of them has the problem of locking up. “Hold on while I reboot my phone” does not work well in business. I have had 3 Treo’s. I constantly have to pull the battery out of the one that I have because it does stupid things like constantly turning off bluetooth for no good reason and locking up.
I don’t even bother trying to use the browser in any of the supposed smart phones that I have had. It is a waste of time because they can’t correctly display the pages.
I travel alot and I look forward to finally being able to go to a website to look up some needed info when I am away from home without having to pull out my laptop. I havent seen the phone yet but I am very confident that I will be able to actually use the web browser on the iPhone where it was useless on any of the other phones I have had.
Have you even looked an ipod? OMG this is going to be a sweet ipod. I know that many people are harping on the price… the latest treo is $579 from palm. This phone only has like 128M of ram (or close to that) The iPhone has 4 and 8GB. That is the only thing that I don’t like about the iPhone. 8G max and no sd card slot.
The other things that people are harping on apple for is that it is a closed environment. I am in a agreement that it is a good idea at the moment. I like the idea of keeping the iphone stable. If you really want your killer app on the iphone then go through apple and get it approved. That way we know that the iPhone stays stable.
If you don’t like it don’t buy it! Just don’t get drool on mine.
June 14th, 2007
i am glad that at least a few people are writing about what a load of BS this ZDNet blogger is shoveling.
i also find it interesting to listen to the reactions to the OS releases: MS releases a 5 year in coming cosmetic facelift to XP and all the windows users think it is just great, then Apple shows an 18 month (i believe) in coming upgrade to an OS that is already miles ahead and the Mac users are unimpressed.
i guess it says something about both camps expectations.
the OSS comments are interesting too. i was a linux and BSD user for 7 years before i bought a Mac, and i am glad they are out there. the stuff Apple gets from the OSS community is high quality. the OSS community needs to learn to adopt the Mac polish in return and we will have a couple of great systems to choose from. but windows, even the latest, is a distant 3rd place in usability, quality, stability and security. why would either Apple or the open source community copy that?
laughable.
June 14th, 2007
Reading this is like watching two midgets in a jumping contest.
June 14th, 2007
For some reason the good old Lord created Mac and than Win and now Lin, the reason is to give us the “livre arbitrio”
(freedom to choice), do you want your “livre arbitrio”?,
just test their browsers, and you will see with your eyes the amount of “money” IE takes to do a crappy job that others offer for free with 100% of quality (compared to IE).
Thank you Bill for given us such a low profille of quality.
Thank you Jo Foley for reminding me wath I have to run from. Apologies for my bad English, I’m still learning, till I die.
June 17th, 2007
@John
The donkey poo was actually a quote from the blog. See those funny little up-in-the-air marks?
Those are called Quotation marks. RIF.
My mother does use Beryl and likes the effects.
I’ve been in IT since 1981 and use OSX regularly.
I also use Winblose, Solaris and yes Linux. I’ve was an Apple certified repair tech in the 90’s.
Sorry if I insulted your real grown up operating system. I had no idea I was supposed to pick my tools by lowest common denominator.No doubt this reply will pass through many servers running the toy operating system.
If you have some spare time, you may want to cruise over to this site. They haven’t the message it just works.
http://www.macfixit.com/
June 18th, 2007
Hmm.. You are all recommended to look at the sun (or moon/start) outside and enjoy the fresh air. This Windows-Mac bashing will last forever. Why do you need defend one of those like ur religion? Windows Vista is good with regular bugs in early release, Leopard is amazing with improvement in visual design. But, so what? I like what i am using now.
June 24th, 2007
[...] Mac.blorge.com [...]
August 6th, 2007
I’d like to re-iterate the above comments that Apple didn’t steal from VirtueDesktops, rather, it decided to implement a technology that has been used in Linux desktops for ages.
And it isn’t hard to find a Linux distribution with beautiful 3D effects built in, such as Beryl and Compiz, which have since merged.
November 10th, 2007
>7. Spaces: (sorry Apple, but you know as well as
>I do that you stole the idea).
Yes, they stole it from Sun Solaris 2, circa 1992. Do your homework.
January 1st, 2008
is anybody else worried that this religious craze about all things apple being holy will start to hurt apple? frankly, it IS anoying that you could not see thumbnails in finder on a mac. very annoying in a machine that claims to be so artistic. windows has been doing this since at least NT 2000. period. its just a fact. by never accepting facts that don’t fit the apple is perfect mantra, are we not seriously going to hurt product improvements? why did it take apple 7 years to get that preview in, and i mean out the box, the way windows has had it? maybe because we are so busy burning everyone alive that dares not to spit (often ignorant) vile at PCs? just a thought.