Apple Mac OS X Leopard: Who's the Copycat Now?

Tags: Steve Jobs + Apple + OSX + Leopard + WWDC

lupus posted on Aug 11th 2006 11:33PM; via winsupersite.com/showcase/maco...

Apple Mac OS X Leopard: Who's the Copycat Now?

Steve Jobs announced ten new features for Leopard, the next version of OS X, most of which will seem more than vaguely familiar to Windows users...

64-bit application support
Thanks to the 64-bit Xeon chip that will be shipping in the new Mac Pro systems, Leopard will be fully 64-bit enabled (unlike Tiger, which is only partially 64-bit and then only on certain Power PC systems). That means that OS X will finally do what Windows XP x64 Edition did last year: Run 32-bit and 64-bit applications natively, side-by-side. Good for them.

Time Machine
Time Machine is a truly good idea: It helps you automatically back up everything on your system and restore earlier versions of files at any time. But this was a great idea over three years ago when Microsoft first added it to Windows Server 2003 as Volume Shadow Copy (VSC, or "Previous Versions" to end users). In fact, VSC is such a good idea, Microsoft is adding it as a purely client-side service in Windows Vista as well.

The Complete Package
Apple is integrating applications like Boot Camp, Photo Booth, and Front Row into Leopard. Previously, these applications were only available with new Macs, or in the case of Boot Camp, as a free public beta download. Sorry, but this is hardly impressive.

Spaces
Another truly major new feature, Spaces lets you utilize multiple desktops, each of which can contain its own set of application. Multiple desktops have been around for decades, and even the earliest Linux versions had this feature. Microsoft even implemented it in NT-based versions of Windows, though the company curiously never made it easy to access this functionality until it shipped a free PowerToy for Windows, called Virtual Desktop Manager, in 2001. It works an awful lot like Spaces, frankly, though Apple's version is obviously more polished and, well, Apple-like.

Spotlight
Apple's version of Windows Search will now search other Mac clients and workgroup servers, functionality that Microsoft will add to Windows Vista with the release of Vista SP1 and Longhorn Server in late 2007. It will also support advanced search features, like better search syntax, just like Windows Search. And, as with Windows Vista, you'll be able to launch applications and find recent items with Spotlight. Gee, Spotlight still seems an awful lot like Windows Search.

Core Animation
A low-level graphics technology aimed at developers, Core Animation will usher in a new generation of graphically animated application. Time Machine's hokey effects were designed with Core Animation, but I'm hopeful that other developers will do something cool with it (Apple did show off a gorgeous screensaver it created with the library). The end result is that Core Animation will not directly effect end users in Leopard until developers take advantage of it. Clearly, it was thrown out as a bone to the developer-heavy crowd.

Accessibility improvements
Apple is working to dramatically improve how well Leopard will work for people with disabilities, and they certainly deserve some credit for this work. Leopard will new voice technologies, Braille support, positional audio cues, and extended keyboard capability, in addition to closed captioning. The voice feature seems like a decent improvement, but didn't sound any better than Vista's voice synthesis.

Mail
Apple's Mail application (often called Mail.app in reference to its beginnings on the NeXT platform) is being updated with some truly lame features: Stationary, notes, to-do notes, and RSS. Ugh. These aren't major features, and they're certainly not worthy of the time Jobs gave them during the keynote. Outlook Express users have been clogging the Internet with Stationary-based HTML email for a decade, and it's as unwelcome now as ever.

Dashcode and Dashboard improvements
Hoo-boy. Destined for the same thrash heap as Automator and Sherlock on most user's Macs, Dashcode lets developers build Dashboard widgets with templates, debugging tools, a visual editor for CSS, and other tools. For Dashboard itself, Apple is allowing users to sync Dashboard widget preferences to two or more Macs, but only when you pony up $69.99 a year for the .Mac service.

iChat
Leopard will include an enhanced version of iChat that includes multiple-logon support, invisibility, animated buddy icons, video chat recording, and tabbed chats. These are the types of features many free IM applications already include, so it doesn't sound particularly compelling.

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Comments

	Meg says: A Mac "search" function has been around a long time, buddy. Spotlight compared to Windows is apples to oranges (no pun intended). Spotlight is a search function (yes, just like Windows and yes, just like OS 9 and lower Mac) but it performs its entire search in one or two seconds. No exaggeration. I've dabbled with the PCs at my school(s) and the search function can take anywhere from 2 to 20 seconds. And you compare this to Spotlight? Sorry, I had to correct you on that. Mac's not "copying" a search feature, it's been upgrading it. And I had to say -- Mac isn't really copying it if they're releasing it half a year (or more, knowing MS) before them, are they? How does one copy another when neither have produced a product? You can copy a theory, sure, but it's not the same as having a live sample. "Microsoft will add to Windows Vista...in late 2007" Leopard is due EARLY 2007 (or even late 2006... I'm giving them some slack). Technically, wasn't Longhorn due in 2004? I haven't heard Vista's voice program, but at the moment, comparing the two current systems, my Apple tops your PC not only with about 20 MORE voices, but they read a bit smoother, too. "many free IM applications already include" HAHAHA!! Are you joking?? AIM didn't come out with a video feature until after iChat. True, MSN has had webcam a few years... As has Yahoo!... But none the quality iChat-to-AIM provides. And since we're comparing iChat to PC, we have to compare it to free AIM, since that is its PC counterpart. Show me an AIM program that can replace your background environment with a movie and still run at a godly FPS for a chat program. AIM still doesn't let you resize your buddies cam window, so you're stuck with the tiny screen. Unless I haven't been paying attention, AIM doesn't have tabbed IMs either... So right there, I don't even know what you're talking about. In my peronal opinion, if you're going to write a news article -- Don't be so stupid about your subject. Dirty your hands a little, go touch a Mac. You don't know what you're talking about in a fair portion of this, and your blatant dislike for Macs proves your lack of candidacy to even write this article. Next time, find someone neutral on this "Apple vs Windows" fight. Either someone who hates 'em both, or someone who loves 'em both, but not you. You're too bias. Posted: 09/06/06 18:05
	Doug says: GO Meg!!! This guy's just an angry idiot with an agenda Posted: 02/19/08 16:35
	Ace says: I used to be on the windows side of this debate, but then I figured I'd give a Mac a try, and I loved it. And of course the features are "vaguely familiar" - they are still computers! They both are required to do the same things by the end users. Search, as stated by Meg, is much better on mac than it ever has been in the past on Windows (I haven't gotten Vista, but know my way around XP and earlier Windows systems better than most). For the spaces comments: Many users don't even know about the powertoys that are released for Windows OSes. And why don't they build those into the operating system to start with? Oh, I know - because MICROSOFT DOES NOT WRITE THEM - the ones for Vista hadn't been released when my friend got his new computer, because the group that does the writing of it is community based, and they cannot write something for proprietary software until it hits the shelves. Is it a bad thing that Apple is only dependent on itself for these things? Your comments on Mail aren't good either - the stationary feature may not be in common use, but certainly some people do make use of it elsewhere. If those people ever go to an Apple, they won't be left in the dark anymore. As far as I know - Dashcode also works when you have two computers connected via Firewire as well. And seeing as using it is doing a lot more than sharing files, there really should not be much complaining about that. iChat is made by apple. What is made by Microsoft that compares? Nothing. Last time I checked, you still have to go to download AIM before you can IM anyone. And yes, there are plenty of free clients, but with the nature of them being free clients, they do not have much advertising, and thus people do not know of them unless they happen to type pidgin, for instance, in a search. Posted: 03/03/08 07:47

Meg says:

A Mac "search" function has been around a long time, buddy. Spotlight compared to Windows is apples to oranges (no pun intended). Spotlight is a search function (yes, just like Windows and yes, just like OS 9 and lower Mac) but it performs its entire search in one or two seconds. No exaggeration. I've dabbled with the PCs at my school(s) and the search function can take anywhere from 2 to 20 seconds. And you compare this to Spotlight?
Sorry, I had to correct you on that. Mac's not "copying" a search feature, it's been upgrading it.

And I had to say -- Mac isn't really copying it if they're releasing it half a year (or more, knowing MS) before them, are they? How does one copy another when neither have produced a product? You can copy a theory, sure, but it's not the same as having a live sample. "Microsoft will add to Windows Vista...in late 2007" Leopard is due EARLY 2007 (or even late 2006... I'm giving them some slack). Technically, wasn't Longhorn due in 2004?

I haven't heard Vista's voice program, but at the moment, comparing the two current systems, my Apple tops your PC not only with about 20 MORE voices, but they read a bit smoother, too.

"many free IM applications already include" HAHAHA!! Are you joking?? AIM didn't come out with a video feature until after iChat. True, MSN has had webcam a few years... As has Yahoo!... But none the quality iChat-to-AIM provides. And since we're comparing iChat to PC, we have to compare it to free AIM, since that is its PC counterpart. Show me an AIM program that can replace your background environment with a movie and still run at a godly FPS for a chat program. AIM still doesn't let you resize your buddies cam window, so you're stuck with the tiny screen. Unless I haven't been paying attention, AIM doesn't have tabbed IMs either... So right there, I don't even know what you're talking about.

In my peronal opinion, if you're going to write a news article -- Don't be so stupid about your subject. Dirty your hands a little, go touch a Mac. You don't know what you're talking about in a fair portion of this, and your blatant dislike for Macs proves your lack of candidacy to even write this article. Next time, find someone neutral on this "Apple vs Windows" fight. Either someone who hates 'em both, or someone who loves 'em both, but not you. You're too bias.
Posted: 09/06/06 18:05

Doug says:

GO Meg!!! This guy's just an angry idiot with an agenda
Posted: 02/19/08 16:35

Ace says:

I used to be on the windows side of this debate, but then I figured I'd give a Mac a try, and I loved it.

And of course the features are "vaguely familiar" - they are still computers! They both are required to do the same things by the end users.

Search, as stated by Meg, is much better on mac than it ever has been in the past on Windows (I haven't gotten Vista, but know my way around XP and earlier Windows systems better than most).

For the spaces comments: Many users don't even know about the powertoys that are released for Windows OSes. And why don't they build those into the operating system to start with? Oh, I know - because MICROSOFT DOES NOT WRITE THEM - the ones for Vista hadn't been released when my friend got his new computer, because the group that does the writing of it is community based, and they cannot write something for proprietary software until it hits the shelves. Is it a bad thing that Apple is only dependent on itself for these things?

Your comments on Mail aren't good either - the stationary feature may not be in common use, but certainly some people do make use of it elsewhere. If those people ever go to an Apple, they won't be left in the dark anymore.

As far as I know - Dashcode also works when you have two computers connected via Firewire as well. And seeing as using it is doing a lot more than sharing files, there really should not be much complaining about that.

iChat is made by apple. What is made by Microsoft that compares? Nothing. Last time I checked, you still have to go to download AIM before you can IM anyone. And yes, there are plenty of free clients, but with the nature of them being free clients, they do not have much advertising, and thus people do not know of them unless they happen to type pidgin, for instance, in a search.
Posted: 03/03/08 07:47