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Updated: Apple makes copycat jibe at Microsoft

Time: 17:06 EST/22:06 GMT | News Source: PCPro.co.uk | Posted By: Todd Richardson

Posters on display at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference are taking an undisguied swipe at Microsoft's Longhorn, the next version of Windows. MacMinute reports that the banners make less-than-subtle suggestions that Redmond-based Microsoft might copy one or two things from Mac OS X 10.4 'Tiger', which will be previewed for the first time this evening.

Update: To check out the banners, click here.

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#1 By 8556 (12.217.173.227) at Monday, June 28, 2004 10:56:44 AM

Msucks: I don't believe that anyone doubts that Apple was and is, under Steve Jobs, more innovative than Microsoft. Sony's Beta was more innovative than VHS also. Microsoft has the superior marketing force and after assimilating Apples latest and most excellent features will surge ahead again in sales and influence.

One button mice suck.

#2 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at Monday, June 28, 2004 11:05:19 AM

MacOS has gained more and more Windows features since OS 8.
OS X mirrors Windows more than it does older MacOS versions.

Anything to get some free press though, and keep the core blinded by the hype. As open as MS has been about Longhorn's featureset, it's not surprising "Tiger" could get similar features. As in the past, they'll likely be partial implementations hyped to give the appearance of being the same as the MS version.

#3 By 1643 (64.73.227.129) at Monday, June 28, 2004 01:20:42 PM

# 5 I don't think he saif that...stop the FUD and lies.

#4 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at Monday, June 28, 2004 02:22:11 PM

OS X is currently (but wasn't always) based on Next.
OS X does not now and has not ever had an accelerated 3D UI, not to mention MS had such a UI running publicly well before OS X was near completion. #6, you haven't given any facts, only hype and inaccuracies.

From MacCentral http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/06/28/liveupdate/

"Jobs said that Tiger will debut about 150 new features, including the ability to run any process in 64-bit, finally making use of some of the core architectural improvements introduced last year with the PowerPC 970 CPU that serves as the heart of the Power Mac G5 system. Also new is a search technology called "Spotlight" that Jobs said "is years ahead" of Microsoft's new operating system -- it works similarly to the song search technology in iTunes, and can find files and content in standard formats. What's more, it's extensible, and works with most current applications. It's integrated into the Finder, Address Book, Mail and System Preferences."

Who exactly is (trying to) copy whom??
More hype, and more attempts to beat MS to the punch, while only offering a shadow of the complete vision.

This post was edited by n4cer on Monday, June 28, 2004 at 14:32.

#5 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at Monday, June 28, 2004 03:07:43 PM

n4cer, Apple's had the "Piles" patent for over 10 years. BeOS had these features for years and everyone who developed them for Be has been with Apple for over 2 years. If Apple is copying Microsoft (which they aren't... as has been said, these search features can be done and are being done without a database layer), then Microsoft is copying BeOS and other attempts at metadata- and db-driven file systems done or prototyped well before it. And, how exactly do you copy something that doesn't exist yet?

And MS did not have a 3D accelerated UI before OS X was near completion. Come on, dude.

#6 By 3 (81.100.93.146) at Monday, June 28, 2004 03:55:22 PM

and damn---ichat really blows messenger away at last with the multi-cam and group audio.

#7 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at Monday, June 28, 2004 04:13:06 PM

WinFS does exist. There's developer documentation and actual OS builds available now from MS. MS has been working on what has become WinFS since at least 1992. According to some, MS thought they'd need it to compete with OS/2. BeOS didn't publicly debut until October 1995.

MS did have a 3D accelerated UI before OS X. It was called GDI2k. There was also Chromeffects (which, according to an MS employee, was demonstrated to Steve Jobs, and offered to him along with DX), and MSR's work previous to those projects. Apple still doesn't have an implementation that fully accelerates all rendering of their UI.

#8 By 3 (81.100.93.146) at Monday, June 28, 2004 04:25:16 PM

Chromeffects wasn't a OS wide 3D UI though was it, it was also rubbish which was why it got dumped! It was being made for developers to use as IE effects.

#9 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at Monday, June 28, 2004 04:27:45 PM

Chromeffects wasn't but GDI2k was, as was the tech behind Task Gallery.

This post was edited by n4cer on Monday, June 28, 2004 at 16:28.

#10 By 3 (81.100.93.146) at Monday, June 28, 2004 04:34:55 PM

I guess you won't agree here anyway, but surely something like GDI2k doesn't compare to a proper OS? And if we're nitpicking, alphas of OS X were around before GDI2k was showing off some 3d UI. I think most people here are talking about a 3D accelerated OS UI. Not any random UI you can come up with.

#11 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at Monday, June 28, 2004 04:44:02 PM

This is also what I'm talking about. All of the mentioned UI (except OS X) used the graphics card to accelerate rendering of the UI, including drawing of the actual UI elements. The OS X alphas (and OS X today) still did not accelerate drawing of the UI. OS X didn't even accelerate window management until the introduction of Quartz Extreme.

#12 By 11888 (64.230.8.103) at Monday, June 28, 2004 04:45:05 PM

Parkker's parents are clearly not monitoring his internet usage again.

#13 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at Monday, June 28, 2004 05:02:06 PM

When GDI2K still can't render alphas correctly, who cares if it is hardware accelerated? Transparencies aren't what slow down OS X... so you are talking about a UI element (transparencies) which have actually shipped in the OS for 4 years and do not need HW acceleration when done properly... Nearly no one utilizes GDI2K, so to claim that it accelerates everything and is used throughout the OS is simply nonsense... It's not good enough to be used throughout Windows...

#14 By 3 (81.100.93.146) at Monday, June 28, 2004 05:04:05 PM

January/February is not a year away, least not in my 12 month year. Surely you should also be mentioning that this is a year and a half update instead of the usual yearly one you moan about Parkker.

#15 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at Monday, June 28, 2004 05:04:14 PM

Please, n4cer, don't claim Cairo circa 1992 was ahead of BeOS. There were plenty of attempts at such systems before Cairo as well... but only more functional. Cairo was such a mess that it's still not available 13 years later and counting.

#16 By 2332 (65.221.182.2) at Monday, June 28, 2004 05:17:04 PM

Ah Apple... lots of fluff, very little content.

Does OS X.5 look as good as Longhorn will look? Maybe. Has Apple fudementally changed the way people will think about the relationship between documents, applications, and communications? No.

That's what taking Microsoft so long. It takes a long time to produce such as massive paradigm shift. There is lots of infrastructure to build (WinFS, Indigo, Avalon, WinFX), and lots of people they need to get on board.

What Apple has done is perhaps produce the least significant portion of Longhorn (Avalon) and pretend they're ahead of the game.

While Microsoft is really hunkering down and making Windows the best software platform (by FAR), Apple keeps slapping a pretty face on their OS and claiming victory.

If Longhorn works as planned, Apple will become an interesting footnote in the history of the PC. They're not going to know what hit them.

#17 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at Monday, June 28, 2004 05:35:14 PM

GDI2k is not the same as GDI+. GDI+ is not accelerated.

After seeing "Tiger's" offerings, it's clear that Apple is trying to beat MS in their usual manner -- taking the basic idea and trying to sell it as the full vision.

The featureset targets many of the areas MS has repeatedly discussed and shown demos of. Few are fully comparable implementations, but it's enough to sell to the userbase and maintain the copycat hype when MS comes out to a wider audience.

#18 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at Monday, June 28, 2004 05:37:25 PM

Yeah, I saw that stu. Another third-party dev bites it as Apple gets a Sidebar competitor (which doesn't even fit the paradigm of glancable data).

Nice take off of Apple's LH quip too :) (Konfab's homepage)

This post was edited by n4cer on Monday, June 28, 2004 at 17:39.

#19 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at Monday, June 28, 2004 06:04:15 PM

"It takes a long time to produce such as massive paradigm shift. "

Or you can rapidly but steadily introduce evolutionary shifts. Live searching was already advanced a year ago. Now it searches metadata. And without a DB layer. In other words, Apple is where BeOS was years ago and a year or two ahead of MS. 10.5 (this is 10.4, not 10.5, RMD) will probably include the piles UI although queries are available with Tiger.

"(which doesn't even fit the paradigm of glanc[e]able data)."

I would say it DOES ... moreso than the sidebar. "Glanceable" data should NOT be persistent... it should only appear when you want to glance at it. In Tiger, hold one key, glance at it, let go of the key, it disappears.

#20 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at Monday, June 28, 2004 06:25:15 PM

ssfreitas, "smart folders" are the core functionality, but "piles" have a very unique UI which would present contextual options, would display graphical feedback about the query, and would allow you to "browse" the query directly from the iconic representation.

From the Search/Spotlight window and from the Finder where you can create and modify "smart folders" you can access all the features, but there is not the significant UI change that piles would introduce.

However, I think we are essentially in agreement... Apple is slowing introducing features which do not perform the same way as WinFS, but which do accomplish the same goals/functionality. And all without reinventing the wheel... so adoption will be rather quick and seemless.

This post was edited by sodajerk on Monday, June 28, 2004 at 18:26.

#21 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at Monday, June 28, 2004 06:42:00 PM

"I would say it DOES ... moreso than the sidebar. "Glanceable" data should NOT be persistent... it should only appear when you want to glance at it. In Tiger, hold one key, glance at it, let go of the key, it disappears. "

More like, stop what you're doing, press a key, wait for the context shift, refocus your vision and find the gadget you want, then go back to your desktop to resume your work. Glanceable would be like the system clock.

"What's the difference between Apple's implementation of system-wide metadata indexing and seamless multi-repository search and the one in Longhorn?"

For one thing, (just from looking at the product page) it doesn't seem to have any relational tracking capabilities. In Longhorn, the system can automate certain tasks and the acquisition of metadata for items based certain criteria. For instance, filling in the metadata and grouping pictures acquired based upon entries in your calendar.

"The only wheel-reinvention feather I see in the hat of Microsoft is their modular web services technology, but since it's (yet another) proprietary Microsoftian technology, I have to wonder how much adoption it'll get."

What are you talking about? All of MS' web services technology uses standardized protocols. It kinda has to in order to communicate with other web services vendors. That's what all the WS specs are about.

#22 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at Monday, June 28, 2004 07:16:20 PM

"For one thing, (just from looking at the product page) it doesn't seem to have any relational tracking capabilities. In Longhorn, the system can automate certain tasks and the acquisition of metadata for items based certain criteria. For instance, filling in the metadata and grouping pictures acquired based upon entries in your calendar."

Sure it does. Your scenario sounds rather vague so I don't entirely follow it... but I see nothing that prevents it. In fact, the functionality all seems to be there.

"More like, stop what you're doing, press a key, wait for the context shift, refocus your vision and find the gadget you want, then go back to your desktop to resume your work. Glanceable would be like the system clock."

That sounds, despite your lame attempt to make holding down a key sound onerous-- after all, if I have to glance at the side of the screen, aren't I "stopping what I am doing, refocusing my attention, finding the gadget I want, then going back to my work"--the only difference is showing and hiding versus always showing and/or using a clickable widget to hide the sidebar, exactly what is meant by glanceable. Microsoft happens to confuse glanceable with always on, always present, but that's their lack of understanding.

This post was edited by sodajerk on Monday, June 28, 2004 at 19:22.

#23 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at Monday, June 28, 2004 07:39:25 PM

Will Parkker learn to read?

"Tiger ships with 64-bit ready Xcode development tools, so you can take full advantage of the Tiger’s enhanced 64-bit capabilities right out of the box. Tiger’s new 64-bit pointers enable individual processes to access massive amounts of virtual memory. The enhanced kernel, plus a 64-bit version of libSystem, let command-line programs, background daemons and network services directly manipulate up to 16 exabytes of virtual memory. That’s enough to address all the physical memory on an Xserve G5… or a cluster of millions of them.

Tiger’s LP64 model for 64-bit pointers means that developers can easily port code written for other 64-bit UNIX systems. LP64 support in Tiger provides for 64-bit long, long long and void* as well as 32-bit int data types."

"Xcode gives you the tools for building and debugging 64-bit applications for PowerPC G5 and Mac OS X Tiger, as well as letting you create Fat Binaries that contain both 32-bit and 64-bit executables."

#24 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at Monday, June 28, 2004 08:10:57 PM

libSystem, LP64, programs will have access to either 32- or 64-bit pointers, fat binary compatibility, and every thread having full access to 16 exabytes of memory is fake, huh?

Maybe even more significantly, Xcode will allow for auto-vectorization too. No more specialty Altivec coding is necessary. Woo hoo.

#25 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at Monday, June 28, 2004 08:17:05 PM

With the sidebar, the content is arranged in one column. The content within will generally remain in the same order.

With Dashbord, there's a context shift, both with the system and the user. Plus, it's basically like a second desktop where you have the same potential for clutter. It'd be like in Windows, if you used the "show Desktop" key-combo, looked for something on the desktop, then switched back to the apps you were using. Or (to use a driving metaphor) turning your head to see what's behind you while driving (Dashboard) instead of just glancing in the rearview mirror (Sidebar).

#26 By 3339 (64.160.58.135) at Monday, June 28, 2004 08:25:49 PM

"Just because it has 64 bit memory address capability does not make the OS 64 bit. It is still just a 32bit OS running on 64 bit hardware, just like Windows XP can run on AMD64 hardware."

No, you are wrong. I listed memory addressing as one of the 64 bit features. Why are you ignoring all of the others? They are adding the 64-bit APIs, fool. As the quote above says, existing 64-bit Linux apps will run on Tiger. XCode can create 64 bit apps and fat binaries.

You are the only thing fake here, Parkker.

#27 By 11888 (64.230.8.103) at Monday, June 28, 2004 08:57:25 PM

Sheesh, Parkker needs a girlfriend. There seems to be a lot of pent up something there.

#28 By 8589 (66.169.175.39) at Monday, June 28, 2004 09:54:01 PM

I have learned to just ignore the MS bashers. They are either Linux fanboys, or Mac-n-trash droids.

Microsoft RULZ, get over it you also rans. As a matter of fact, get out of here. YOu are not wanted or welcome. As I have posted many many times, this is activeWIN.com, which used to be ActiveIE.com Byron, Macs suck. Just go into any BestBuy, Compusa, Fry's ... and you will see their computer departments are devoted almost entirely to Micorosft based PC's.

Byron, I remember back when IE 4.0 was in beta, you were a Microsoft supporter. You let these idiots play havoc with your mind. It is time to come home. Come home to Microsoft.

P.S. I won't respond to flames, or idiots. Only those that agree with me.

#29 By 135 (208.186.90.168) at Monday, June 28, 2004 10:53:19 PM

So... Did everybody else get a Microsoft IT Securety Guidance Kit in the mail?

#30 By 9589 (66.57.159.150) at Tuesday, June 29, 2004 12:40:47 AM

Apple = irrelevancy hurtling toward oblivion . . .

The only realistic bet to make of Apple is when Microsoft will have to bail them out again!

#31 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at Tuesday, June 29, 2004 09:47:53 AM

Say the keynote. Solely going on the way Jobs used Spotlight, it's more like Windows with the Indexing Service or (obviously) BeFS than WinFS.
Spotlight doesn't seem to support natural language searches. Either that, or Apple just didn't expose it in their UI. All of the searches Steve did were rigid, using UI controls to apply rules to the searches. He claimed you could do something like "Give me all documents from Steve Jobs related to WWDC 2004", but when actually demonstrating, he just typed a few keywords, then used the UI controls to filter by date, etc. Like I said, if true natural language searching is there, then good, but this was a bad demo on Steve's part.

There's also the disconnected feeling to the search tech because they used several different approaches. The Finder search combines the search from other apps, but it still only uses the metadata for each individual file like current Windows versions. There's no way to utilize the metadata to automatically build relationships between the files. The only way to come close is either through the usual folder hierarchy or if you can somehow associate content from several places into one smart folder (like manually dragging a set of items to a smart folder), but this wasn't shown. It probably can't be done since the smart folders are just static searches. Though you could manually add the right metadata for the file you want to fit the smart folder's static querey.

I may update later after watching the rest.

The Windows Media quip :)
Too bad they'll also have to support it if they want to play all HD-DVDs, and Windows Media consistently tested as having the same or higher quality encodes than H.264 and it's simpler to implement and requires less power.

This post was edited by n4cer on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 at 09:54.

#32 By 2332 (65.221.182.2) at Tuesday, June 29, 2004 09:59:58 AM

#27 - "What's the difference between Apple's implementation of system-wide metadata indexing and seamless multi-repository search and the one in Longhorn?"

I don't believe I made any comments about Apple's metadata system, although the first thing that comes to mind is the way they're using it. Windows has had file system meta data for quite a while now. Many file types have "extra tabs" in the properties dialog that can contain more information about that particular kind of file. This data is nearly useless.

What WinFS allows you to do, and what the Mac metadata system does not and cannot, is establish meanful relationships between data in addition to the extra information about that data. This is one of the big keys to how Longhorn will change how we use our computers.

"The only wheel-reinvention feather I see in the hat of Microsoft is their modular web services technology, but since it's (yet another) proprietary Microsoftian technology, I have to wonder how much adoption it'll get. "

I suggest you watch some of the longhorn concept videos. Each of these "pillars", as Microsoft likes to call them, are just pieces to the puzzle. They're all part of Microsoft's effort to get rid of the tired computing analogies like files, folders, desktops, etc.

The line between documents and applications will soon blur or entirely disappear. This is something that Apple simply will not be able to duplicate because it rests entirely on code access security in .NET - something Apple has no equivalent of. (Unless you count the .NET implementations that run on the Mac, but Apple has completely ignored those.)

Again, Apple is making things pretty while Microsoft is doing the real innovation.

Oh, and by the way, Indigo (the "modular web services" thing you mentioned" is hardly proprietary. It's based on open specs, all of which will be submitted to the ISO and ECMA, just like much of .NET is. (And unlike Java, I might mention.)

This post was edited by RMD on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 at 10:02.

#33 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at Tuesday, June 29, 2004 10:40:24 AM

Core Image/Video

Apple is slowly building their version of DirectX. Core Image/Video is Apple's version of DX Media. DX already supports realtime image/video manipulation and filters/transitions. Windows Graphics Foundataion (in Longhorn) provides a more generalized platform for using GPUs for visual as well as non-visual (general purpose) processing tasks. Docs/slides are already available detailing this.

#34 By 15705 (69.22.124.228) at Tuesday, June 29, 2004 12:56:47 PM

Thanks, gotq. Posting on front page.

#35 By 2459 (69.22.124.228) at Friday, July 02, 2004 02:55:49 AM

Only if running MCE.

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