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Why Panther May Tear Up Longhorn
Sophrosyne writes "Microsoft Watch has presented an article on Longhorn, which is due not before 2005, and compares it with Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther), which may be released this September. The article touches on some of the areas where Windows is ahead in operating system design and technologies, as well as how Panther plans to compete. Included in Microsoft Watch's article were links to a Extreme-Tech article on Desktop compositing, and 3D User Interfaces. It also contains videos of Longhorn's 3D Quartz-like user interface in action." If processor power is so important, why are we so willing to waste it on making windows do funny things when we move them around? Just wondering.
Its not 3d!! If you look, all the windows are orientaed the same way, towards the screen. THey got useless crap, and stuff rotating around, and more of their damned processor eating animation, but thats it. All the other 3d interfaces ive seen have been just that, where you can put somehing off to the side and view the window at an angle, or turn your viewpoint around, so you leave something behind your head, essentially. THis is just more eye candy, that will fuck up my end users, and crash more often.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Yet another way windows can useless tax the entire systems resources. It seems as computers get faster, windows gets more uselessly taxing. We never get to experience something new in how fast windows load and apear because windows adds so much to take advantage of everything we have.
I was a UNIX head 10 years ago, then I was a mac head about 7 years ago, and finnaly I moved to windows when windows 3.1 came out. Now I am going back to UNIX/Linux/Mac. I would like to redefine windows use as a proff of concept platform. When a new tech comes out it seems like it only works for windows for a while, then it moves to Mac and later UNIX/Linux. Windows is so restrictive and not very powerful. It forces me to things their way and conform my system to them and their products and technologies. Unfortunatly they have a software and hardware dominace in the market place. I think thats what they call a monopoly. Well I hope this will change with the new release of the Mac OS. The new MacOS already does things that Microsoft says it will include or be able to do later. Maybe this will end the monopoly that they hold if more companies switch. Go Apple!
No.
microsoft single largest source of revenue is licenses bundled with the sale of new PCs. If they release something new that runs just great on existing old computers they lose *tons* of revenue. All MS operating system and software updates will require new computers for that reason.
What I got out of the article is that because OS X 10.3 will be released before Longhorn, it's gonna "tear up Longhorn".
What a load! I love OS X but just because its out first doesn't mean it will be better than Longhorn. That list of longhorn's feature set is full of HUGE features and while Apple doesn't have to worry about things like providing a digital image catalog (a la iPhoto), other things like file system search features that takes english language strings and not query language are not so easy to deflect.
I do believe by 2005 when Longhorn is out, Apple will have made amazing OS X gains, heck it might even be OS XI by then, but I do NOT buy first to market wins.
Resistance is futile.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
"What do you mean Panther will tear up Longhorn? Apple to suddenly have 90% market share?"
Tear up meaninging... that Apple will lengthen the gap with which its OS is better than Windows.
"Shiny spinny stuff is cool and all that, but windows doesn't have huge market share because of an amazing interface."
That's for sure.
"It is because they arrived at market at the right time, with the right product, with the right marketing strategies.
The vast majority of consumers don't CHOOSE windows... it is chosen for them as the result of illegal business practices which caused microsoft to dominate the industry...
"(Perhaps not morally right.. but the proof is in the pudding as far as $$ go)"
You bring up an interesting point... The best way to gauge user preference is to measure boxed OS sales... something Apple has consistently outpaced Microsoft by a large margin.
For a while now, I've been thinking that OSes ought to have a couple of different graphics modes. When you're just sporting around the internet or moving files about trying to look busy, the windows should dance and swoosh and have shadows and transparency. Use up all those extra processor cycles. When you start rendering your hour long video composition, they should chill out. Window borders should drop down to 256 colors, shadows should disappear, windows should just close, rather than slither away. It would be nice to have a switch somewhere ( EyeCandy: On/Off ), and even nicer for the OS to flip that switch automatically when the processor load gets really high for more than a few seconds. My 2 cents.
The problem with that theory is... all pcs from major manufacturers come with wait for it.... windows. This makes it the most popular by default. Most people do not seem to bother trying to educate themselves about alternatives. If you look at UI features of Longhorn, they are borrowing heavily. I'm a mac user but I also have an XP machine at home and I'm a windows/.net developer at work. I'm glad to come home to a machine that has run without reinstalls or defrags since Oct 2002 when I bought my eMac.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
No, I disagree. I know it's the conventional wisdom to say "3D GUIs aren't practical" but I'd like to think that reality isn't constrained by our collective imaginations. Just because you're unable to conceive of a practical 3D GUI doesn't mean one doesn't exist. To be fair, I can't imagine what would work either. But before 1962 there was a similar amount of uncertainty about 2D interfaces.
If I was to extend my imagination - something I'm not very good at - I would like to see a feature where I can "spin" my point of view to see windows that are virtually sitting to my left or behind me. I think that'd be far more useful than multiple virtual desktops; the ON-OFF nature of virtual desktops is painful and it means you need "Move to Desktop 3" buttons, and sticky pushpins, and other stupid concepts. I would prefer a single 3D space that was essentially a large virtual desktop where you only see the windows directly in "front" of you.
If you don't like that idea then don't bother pointing out the flaws. The poor example I've given isn't the point. The point is that there are benefits to a 3D desktop that you and I can't begin to imagine. It's easy to say "that'll never work". It's harder to actually invent something new. This is what distinguishes an inventor (dare I say... an innovator) from the boring masses of cynics.
and bogs down the video card, I'm sure that pleases the graphic and video enthusiests who use mac's eh?
Last I checked it's a gui system, performance is FELT by the speed that graphics render and draw... slowing down the video card may not slow the rest of the system (which of course uses no resources to send these instructions to the video card, oh no, that can't happen) but slowing down the video card kills perfomance in anything video related, kills performance when you try to do something like oh... move the quicktime window with something playing. Kills games and anything else that needs redenered. More important than real performance of course is that it makes the system FEEL slower.
Sorry, Linux desktop fans: When it comes to desktop operating systems, it's currently a two-way race between Windows and the Mac OS
The worst part of this is it's not true... linux desktop market share is overtaking Apples market hare by leaps and bounds... and with a bsd based mac I suspect it's not actually apple it's taking that market share from.
Because flapping-in-the-wind-flag-like windows are something that will REALLY boost productivity. Windows is now nothing more than a screensaver. "Oh, that's cool, what is it?" "Oh, that's my new screensaver, Windows" "Cool, can I check my email?" "Sure, let me reboot into Linux"
Actually what apple has that STILL blows ms away is the ability to script the UI, it's called applescript, and it's little spoken of and even more rarely seriously used because people on macs don't like to do things like type. So apple made it possible to record your actions and it would make the script for you... people still don't use it *sighs* that does more for the UI and productivity than any flashing, animated, wiggly, snap to dock effect could ever begin to consider. They develop these things because sadly enough people don't often buy things for real features and benefits... they buy what's pretty.
Actually, there is one major piece of software that takes full advantage of Quartz. They even advertize both in their product packaging and in the video they include with the 30-day free trial all the neat things you can do because their software is Quartz-enabled.
That would be Microsoft Office.
And this presentation coming from Microsoft I wouldn't be surprised if it ran on a Mac.
Regarding Extremetech's article: How extreme can their IT knowledge be if some forum member (!) has to enlighten them on that "Apple has being up and running with their Quartz Compositor engine in OS X, which is now hardware accelerated as Quartz Extreme in Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), and that MS is once again playing catch-up and acting as if it's new stuff." Hiding under stones much?
Besides: The public beta of Mac OS X came out September 2000 and Quartz was demo'd to the public half a year before that by Steve Jobs. So implementing wiggly windows takes MS 5 years. More like 6 (see above)...
Microsoft doesn't have to be formally unseated for the playing field on the desktop to radically change. If MS had a 80% share instead of a 90%+ share of the regular desktop market the other 20% would be a large enough market that *everybody would make multiplatform versions.
Where the article goes wrong is that it presents the fight like it's one about UI or OS features. It isn't. It's about legal and financial issues. Linux, Mac OS and Windows are all capable enough to write a letter, surf the web, and do your accounting on which is the vast bulk of PC use to this day. MS is trapped by the market and its own business decisions to need to increase growth in order for those options not to stay underwater (thus invalidating their entire company compensation scheme). Their efforts to extract more money from existing customers, to break the informal contract they have kept for decades on casual piracy, and creating more and more restrictive EULA's will end up with their market share eroding. Apple will benefit from this as will Linux but Linux will be hampered by their reliance on the GPL which is and will remain the main focus of MS' FUD attack.
I use a PowerMac G4 350MHz, 128MB RAM running OS X.2.5 and a 16MB video card (a riva or something similar) and even on this older machine, everything still runs smooth no matter how many programs i have open, and even with other programs running, i can play DVDs flawless too. i don't consider that a problem, especially with the newer machines with faster video cards and more video memory
I keep reading this and I want to see some actual data. I Googled for linux market share the other day and didn't find anything substantial. Would you mind pointing me to some credible studies? (Not trying to be a smartass -- I really do want to see some data.)
irb(main):001:0>
Actually, a PPC 980 is already planned, and it WILL be a fairly extensive workover compared to the PPC 970. While the 970 is a scaled-down version of the Power4 monster CPU, there is a Power5 set for release sometime in the next year. The PPC 980 (or 990, I forget which) will be a scaled down version of this new Power 5 CPU. Since the Power 5 is a MAJOR redesign of the Power 4, it would be logical to expect that the PPC 9x0 will be a "major" revision relative to the PPC 970.
IBM is NOT Motorola, so comparisons to Motorola's CPU revision history are irrelevant. Mota can't even figure out how to fab regulary on a 130 nm process...and yet IBM is preparing a full transition to a 90 nm process for PPC 970s at the Fishkill fab. Different league, different sport altogether when comparing Moto's and IBM's ability to design and produce advanced CPUs.
It is like comparing a 2003 car to a 2005 one.
But the scariest part is that the 2003 wins. gofigure