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New Longhorn Screenshots And Schedule
Mozillabird writes "WinSupersite has recently updated the Longhorn release schedule and has provided some new screenshots of Aero. The first beta of Longhorn is May 2005, though there is some speculation about how much of Avalon and Aero will be implemented in that beta. The "big beta" is scheduled for this Fall."
Looks like the biggest selling point in the screenshots for longhorn is its new fast "searching" "feature" that looks remarkably like apple's new "Spotlight"...
(Sarcasm)But hey, if you cant beat them... cheat them.(/sarcasm)
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
Or does the Aero theme not look that revolutionary? It kinda reminds me of Bluecurve actually...
Is anyone else just not impressed here? I'm not a big fan of the uber-eye-candy shiny GUI's, and I know for a fact that a lot of seasoned Windows users aren't either. I favor the cleaner toolkits like GTK and the Blender toolkit, which manages to find a good balance of eye candy. No highlights, no annoying gradients to make us think that the buttons are made from glass-tic, just a relatively clean GUI.
I'd like to see how a GUI like this "Aero" will go over with the Windows users who instinctively switch every XP box they touch to "classic" mode.
"...just a polished-looking old idea."
Just like Linux with Gnome, KDE (etc...) and OSX are just polished versions of an OS that was designed 30+ years ago.
I don't believe this. This is market speech. This is totally impossible. If this is the case, we will see the end of the Microsoft monopoly with the release of Longhorn.
Why run Longhorn and upgrade all your apps (except for the one for which the vendors have died out, but 50% of your department insists on continuing to use because it 'just works'), or run them in a Virtual Machine, when you can get Linux, for free, run Wine, which will offer better compatability, or run either a) Qemu, b) VMware, or c) Remote Desktop into a Windows XP server box for legacy apps.
I refuse to believe this thing about compatability, because the entire Microsoft monopoly is built on compatability. Microsoft would never drop such a golden ticket into the hands of Windows opponents.
If this is true, it makes the barriers to either Mac OS X or Linux transitions non-existent. Windows would have to compete on merits alone (security, usability, extensibility).
Bwahahaha. I'll go back to the real world now. This'll never happen.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
But the whole evolution of Microsoft's UI in the last 10 years has centered around stealing screen real estate for useless chrome, unnecessary widgets or information of no utility.
Look at WMP. WMP 6.4, the pinnacle of usability and compact design (and yes, I now use Media Player Classic), devoted all but a thin border, compact progress bar, and menu bar to content. WMP 10, on the other hand uses up as much space with stupid buttons, goofy widgets of questionable use, some Photoshop flunkie's shiny excretions and other useless noise, as the actual content itself (for videos obviously). It's huge, ugly, hard to use, and the Classic skin seems to have been retired, which was the only one I found to be useful and not butt-ugly or goofy-looking, as opposed to some art-school dropout's idle doodlings...
You can't expect them to reverse this long trend by devoting more screen space to content! It's all about the application and Windows is becoming like pop music stars who are popular not for their music or talent, but for their clothes, looks or bad behavior. Microsoft, for whom I used to have a fair amount of respect as a UI designer, has fallen into the same trap that has infected every other major software developer since 16-bit color became the norm and the Web helped set back UI standards 15 years... they are more interested in looking "pretty" than being more functional.
I'll give them one thing, the default Windows XP theme was the ugliest Windows UI since Windows 2.1 (which suffered primarily because it was stuck in 16 colors with exactly 1 palette), but Aero actually looks half-decent, if, typically for MS, cluttered and overly busy. At least it's not ugly. A bit rococo perhaps, but not ugly.
Still, I imagine that, should I ever find myself using Longhorn, the first thing I'll do is turn it off and go back to the Windows 2000 style, which combined the best functionality with minimal but attractive artistic improvements. But at least Aero doesn't look like a busybox for holding the attention of babies or MS executives.
Of course, I can't imagine any reason to ever upgrade from Windows 2000, or XP for my laptops that came with it. What could MS possibly offer in Longhorn that an average user would ever want or need? Mostly more protection from all the bad design decisions MS has made over the last 20 years, I suppose. Also, I like the fact that a gigabyte of RAM is still considered a lot. I imagine that will be the minimal reasonable requirement to do any real work with Longhorn, just like 128MB was for Windows 4.0, 256MB was for Windows 2000* and 512MB is for XP.
Hell, I still use Visual C++ 6. It lets me get the work done that I need to get done efficiently and effectively without bloating me up another half-dozen byzantine technologies getting in the way of me doing work (although I am impressed by what I've read about the compiler in the 2003 version). Actually, I'd probably upgrade, but none of my clients want to. Watcha gonna do? If it works, don't break it.
* I actually ran 2000 with 64MB on a laptop for some months back around 2000. It actually wasn't too bad as long as I didn't load more than one or two programs, but for any serious work, it wouldn't have been usable.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Apparently file extensions are still off by default. That "feature" has caused many newbies to double-click on what they think is a .jpg or .doc, only to find out that it's really an .exe that will screw up their system.
Whenever I work on somebody's computer, one of the first things I have to do is to make the file extensions visible. Why, Microsoft, why?
The screenshots look like someone from the Microsoft design team saw a Mac and a Fedora machine side by side, and shoved them together.
Perhaps it's just the techno-nerd in me, but I can't stand it when my computer tries to hide things like actual file locations from me, which is what the new Explorer seems to be doing. The very first thing I do when I set up a Windows machine is turn off all the GUI "features" that hide the contents of directories, file extensions, and menus from me.
Does anyone actually find these features useful?
when an OS meant more than 'ooh what nice eye candy'. Sadly
that seems to be all anybody cares about any more. Or have
we reached the point where there is no innovation except
(debatedly) in how the UI is presented?
Although Linux was very similar to Windows in look and feel, even as far back as 2001, many people said that it was too different, that the learning curve was too steep; things were in different places than expected, and that there were too many options.
That was one of the main reasons why people said they wouldn't consider using Linux. It was one of the main reasons many people wouldn't use Open Office.
Could it be that upon the release of Longhorn, people may find Linux to be more familiar?
I've heard many consultants say that businesses (mostly small businesses) won't switch from Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Office, even though alternatives would definitely suffice, purely because their employees (or at least some of them) can't handle change.
Many people still use insecure Microsoft solutions, because they feel overwhelmed when presented with something even slightly different. Look at the hassle getting people to switch to the more secure Firefox Web browser!
I guess that the new look and feel of Longhorn is either going to cause people to postpone upgrading as long as possible, or even give people more incentive to try out Linux. I mean, if you're going to have to get used to something new anyway, why not put Linux in the mix?
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
The point is, it is only stealing if you take it from someone against their will. Apple, as far as I can tell, does things the proper way, whereas Microsoft often does not.
Yup, they're mock-ups and not very good ones at that. Since they're being touted as screenshots, it brings into question the validity of anything else in the article.
Do you realize how many patents are thrown around each year by these two giants? Tons. Having the patent for something is in no way indicating that it will be used in future products. To be honest I would highly doubt MS goes through all of Apple's patents, picks out a random one that hits its fancy and decides to make that the flagship feature of it's new OS.
Wow. I see post after post as a litany of stuff people feel Microsoft ripped off from others. But does it matter?
Microsoft, like every other OS manufacturer on the planet, has had search capabilities of some sort or another forever. They're making their's better, Apple is improving their's, etc. Who gives a shit whether Apple or Google or Microsoft starting improving search funtionality first? I happen to be glad that they're making the effort. It will probably be a useful addition.
Guys, grow up. Unless they're breaking some sort of IP law, you should be applauding them for implimenting the good features of other OSs instead of knocking them down. Linux, OS X and Windows all share a shitload of similar look and feel features as well as mountains of similar features under the hood. Who used the first hard drive? Who used the first start menu-style button? Who put "disk drives" or "My computers" on the top, left of the desktop? Who put a trashcan on the desktop? The fact is, IT DOESN'T MATTER anymore because they all have 'em now.
Spend yout time dinging the company that doesn't impliment a good feature. Leave MS alone if they're actually trying to things that look or work better.
TW
TW
They filed for the patent in 2001. Kai Krause demonstrated something very similar to me and others in about 1997. I can't imagine Kai didn't show that demo to at least some people at Apple.
So did Apple 'copy' Kai?
(For the record, I don't care much myself - I just get tired of the relentless "Microsoft just copy but Apple innovate" stuff. It's not always true.)
I use Linux and Windows both. They're suited best for different tasks, different people. But I'm definitely not so much a Windows guy. Here's why:
Linux can be very stripped-down if you want it to be (word to the Gentoo-ers -- yeah!). I can arrange my personal directories exactly how I want them, and I can get to everything I need very quickly, thanks to the omnipotence of the command line. Basically, Linux has the feel of a complex math equation that has been totally factored down to its optimal simplicity.
But Windows seeks to acheive a similar feeling of simplicity not through elegant design, but through showmanship: a veneer of simplicity acheived through even more underlying complexity. It throws all these abstraction layers over your files and your tasks, so that you have to rely on more software to do your stuff.
If there's one thing programming has taught me, it's that software is one of the most unreliable things humans have ever made. If the same task can be accomplished with less code, then you have better code -- always (unless less code results in horrible machine efficiency or lack of modularity).
If I want to get to all my stuff on my Linux partition, I just click up /garage.
If I want my stuff on Windows, I click into D:\. Not too bad, but wait -- all those abstraction layers in Windows constantly insist that I keep my files in C:\Documents and Settings\alucinor\My Documents. But what if I don't want to keep my music files in C:\Documents and Settings\alucinor\My Documents\My Music? Just set an option, right?
Heh ... I do that, and it ~would~ normally work. But since there's so many abstractions, so much software, I often will find crap getting stuck in the My Music folder yet again later, sometimes by the same program.
What I don't like about the Windows design philosophy is that they want to take your computer use into their hands, and they do it acting as though those hands of theirs are perfect. But when they're less than perfect, it just gets annoying, and their hands get in your way.
"Quit auto-archiving my media files, Media Player! Just show me a directory structure instead of artist/album breakdowns of what's in the My Music folder! I just want to burn a cd, dammit!"
Yeah. Looks like WinFS is just going to throw even more sediments of imperfect software in the way of what I want to do. "They're features!"
Advice to OS makers: let the OS stay in the background. Too bad that's impossible for a company that ~has~ to make the OS seem important.
When I use Linux I don't think about using Linux. I just use it.
When I use Windows I'm constantly reminded that I'm using Windows. That's bad design. But I suppose it's necessary when your business is the OS.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.