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Jobs Claims Microsoft Is Shamelessly Copying
Nicholas Roussos writes "Steve Jobs was outspoken at a recent annual shareholder meeting. He claimed 'They are shamelessly copying us', referring to Microsoft. Of course, Microsoft has done its share of pointing fingers as well." From the article: "Most telling, Jobs said is that Tiger, the next version of Mac OS X, will go on sale later this month, while Longhorn is still more than a year away."
Search: Tiger will feature a built-in local search technology called "Spotlight" (technology built upon the search engines that Apple currently uses to search iTunes and e-mail). Microsoft has said it plans to offer a similar local-machine search engine for Longhorn that will be based on the company's Windows File System (WinFS) technology.
Scripting:Tiger will include a front-end scripting environment known as "Automator." Longhorn will include a new scripting shell (currently in beta test) known as "Monad."
Built-in RSS support: Tiger will embed an RSS aggregator into the Safari browser. Longhorn will include an embedded RSS feature in the user interface.
Info-Display Panel: Tiger will have an information-display capability called "Dashboard." Longhorn will have an information-display panel called "Sideshow," to which users can "pin" collections of items of interest.
Integrated Instant Messaging/Video Chat: Tiger will feature a souped-up version of iChat. Microsoft will embed Windows Messenger (a sister to MSN Messenger), which also will likely feature video-chat.
64-Bit Support: Tiger will include extended 64-bit capabilities. Longhorn allegedly will be optimized for 64-bit systems.
As many an Apple advocate has pointed out, Tiger is set to debut at least a year before Longhorn. That's a pretty significant head start, especially for folks who have no corporate edicts, application constraints or other limitations on which hardware/software platform they choose.
Nazi Pope Emblem
If M$ had a customer base as small as Apple's, I'm sure they'd be able to put out new releases every six months as well.
Apple's putting out new major versions about every 18 months these days.
They licensed the GUI and the mouse from Xerox. Stop getting your knowledge "out of the air" and look it up. Xerox was paid a significant amount for them, including apple stock.
And I hear with Tiger, you'll be able to format a floppy disc, and browse the web, at the same time!
Does anyone else rememember when Apple used a similar phrase in their advertising, long after Windows had pre-emtive multitasking? My guess is: probably not.
didn't apple steal the whole idea of the graphical interface and the mouse from xerox?
No, Apple licensed it from Xerox. So did Microsoft, for that matter.
(You cannot even post without being anonymous, shows you stand by your comment) . Why is this falsehood still presented as fact? Apple licensed the GUI from Xerox but MS copied their desktop metaphor from Apple. How many times does it need repeating until the trolls and the uninformed shut the fuck up and bring different points to the table?
Jonathanjk.com
Just to feed the troll, no, it's not. Apple invented its own Desktop widgets with the original Macintosh. Remember Stickies, Calculator, Scrapbook? Konfabulator isn't a terribly original idea, although pretty and good for the wow factor. At least with Dashboard, you get something that's built-in, and therefore less of a processor- and memory-hog. Also, it actually has an accessible API that uses industry-standard programming and scripting languages.
Finally, one of the biggest disadvantages for would-be Konfabulator developers is the fact that they can't sell a module until the user buys Konfabulator. Daring Fireball had a great article on this; I suggest you check it out.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
Do you not know anything?
Mac OS X was launched March 24th, 2001.
Windows XP was launched October 25th, 2001.
Apple has been consistently ahead of the game. Did you think that Tiger is merely a step up from OS 9?
Your '3 years ago' comment indicates so.
Of course not. They used a smaller (laptop) hard drive. 2.5" drives tend to have slower performance than full-sized 3.5" drives, so this is no surprise and hardly an issue worth discussing.
Going with the flawed metaphor, Steve actually licensed the TV.
Jonathanjk.com
When they're talking about search, they're talking about Spotlight, which is metadata search. Locate is simple path search. Granted, find has some metadata capabilities, but nothing that compares to Spotlight.
Regarding scripting, Automator is a GUI front end to AppleScript that allows one to represent a script as a number of steps intead of actually writing the script.
The others you mentioned are pretty much right, though.
We all know Apple invented the ... Media Center PC, PocketPC, XBox, ...
Yeah, they're called Mac TV, Newton, and Pippin.
-Bb
Those of us not born yesterday remember Bill Gates vaporware announcement of "Windows" soon after the original Mac came out. The first usable version of Windows was version 3.1 released in 1993, nine years after the original Mac OS. Windows was a shameless imitation of the Mac OS (both copied Xerox OS). MicroSoft had a year headstart in working with the MacOS because it wrot important Apps like Multiplan.
TabletPC
Newton ...
Media Center PC
Except for TV, any Mac with iLife ... and there was an Mac with a TV tuner built in ...
Pocket PC
Newton again ...
XBox
Pippin ...
To mention nothing of Palm, ReplayTV/Tivo, Nintendo, and so on. Not one of these "innovations" from MS is truly innovative. Perhaps the only innovative item above is the Newton, and Alan Kay had the idea with his Dynabook first.
Copying is usually how progress happens. Even the most innovative product is build upon prior ideas.
SteveM
Then how do you explain this quote from The New York Times?:
"In the suit, filed last Thursday, Xerox accused Apple of unlawfully using, in two of its computers, copyrighted Xerox software that controls desktop computers. Xerox also argues that Apple has undermined Xerox's ability to license its own software widely by suing two other companies marketing similar software."
The suit was eventually thrown out and perhaps Apple bought a license later, but it's clear that Xerox believed their interface had been stolen.
By the way, in those days it was often assumed that copyright covered not only source code, but "look and feel" as well.
Do you mean like how Apple came out with Safari and everybody copied it?
Not everything starts with Apple. It's a give-and-take from all parties (as you've somewhat alluded later on).
Basically, Xerox had point and click for selecting text, there no 'click on a file to open it' or any other GUI features in the OS, just in one word processor. Read the article, it is a great read.
It really is too bad that there are so many M$ fanboys out there who need to believe that Apple isn't the big inovator of the OS world.
The truth of the matter is Xerox invented the wheel and Apple went and invented the Maserati.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
God You Guys Suck. This argument is crap and always has been:
:
From (http://www.mackido.com/Interface/ui_history.html)
There is an ongoing myth that Microsoft is justified in ripping off the Macs User Interface, because Apple had ripped off the MacUI from Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). Many go on to further say that Apple took the UI from the ALTO or STAR. Of course the people that say this have never used a Mac and an Alto or a Star, or they would know how silly these claims are.
I want to point out that philosophically and morally, theft by one does NOT justify the theft of another. If Apple did steal their UI from Xerox (which they did not), that would not forgive Microsoft of the same crime -- that would only make Apple guilty of a crime as well. So using this as a rationalization for Microsofts theft from Apple is void of any merit.
Apple and Xerox
Apple did not "rip-off" the Macs UI from Xerox. Apple had hired some people from Xerox (like Jef Raskin, Bruce Horn) who believed in concepts of a Graphical User Interface. These concepts are pretty broad -- like making a computer easier to use by using graphics (icons), using menus, windows and making a consistent interface to do things. The work on these concepts predates Xerox PARC -- in fact it was many of these peoples individual work on those concepts that got them hired at PARC. So Xerox (PARC) brought them together to refine them.
Apple's work on GUI's predates Steve Jobs visit to Palo Alto Research Center. Apple had already had the same broad goals of offering an easier to use computer, and possibly using some of the same concept (like menus, icons, and graphics).
Remember the following: Icons were not new, we had been using them for years for international street signs and so on -- they were only new on computers. Menus were not new, text based menus were being used and had been for a while. Graphics weren't new, though how much they were relied upon was new. The concepts of User Interface (Human Factors) was not new, it was just a little newer in applying it to computers.
Jef Raskin had worked at Xerox, and he was tooting the "easier to use" trumpet, with his vision of what that meant. He brought some of those ideas from Xerox, but he had brought some of those ideas TO Xerox as well. Later, he convinced Jobs to visit Xerox PARC, and Jobs became an immediate convert (for ease of use).
What Jobs saw at Xerox was a prototype Smalltalk development system. He did not see either a working ALTO or Star (which was developed much later).
Apple paid
Jobs was so hot on the concepts of UI, and the living Demos he say, that he, later, negotiated a deal with Xerox. He gave Xerox a large sum of stock in Apple (worth Millions) if he could come back, and bring some programmers -- to inspire them more on the concepts of GUI. This was like a one-day tour. This was agreed to by Xerox, and so by no stretch of the imagination could this be called "ripping-off".
PARC was a research center -- meant to inspire development. But they did not really develop products (in the commercial sense), they developed ideas. Saying that Apple learning some of the base concepts and then applying them was "ripping-off" is like saying that Air-Bags are ripping off Newton -- because Air Bags work because they adhere to some of the laws of physics first expressed by Sir Isaac. A silly silly argument. Knowledge builds on knowledge. Xerox didn't see Apple as competition, that is why they let them in -- but they charged Apple, since Xerox believed that their research had value.
Apple was creating a product, and so they hired some of the same researchers from Xerox, to be brought to Apple to work on the Mac and Lisa projects. Those researches state quite clearly that the goals and implementation were quite different between Xerox and Apple. The following is an exchange between two of those research
Xerox was paid apple stock for apple to look at the stuff that Xerox did not care about.
soo...
how is that stealing?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Significant? Your joking, right? (BTW, I've got a 12" powerbook in addition to an XP laptop). The changes between OSX have been relatively minor, that's why they have been point releases and we aren't on OS11, OS12, or OS13 by now. The speed increases have been nice, but were very necessary because 10.0 was sluggish as hell.
You make me laugh, really hard, too. This is Slashdot, you know, you shouldn't say such assinine things like the Dock comes from the taskbar. Let's see a raise of hands for everyone who knows where the Dock comes from.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
Apple copied KHTML from Safari. Also Konqueror allowed you to search any of the sites in its web shortcuts list by simply typing the shortcut a ":" then what to search for (like "gg:newforge"). I say this feature beats out Safari's by a hell of a lot.
Also most of the things apple claimed MS copied has existed in Linux for a long time, especially 64-bits (my god how can he say something that stupid?)
As Apple supporters point out Tiger is scheduled to debut first, while pointing fingers they ignore developement dates.
Many of these 'copied' features have been promised by Microsoft since Windows XP (2001), however Tiger has only been worked on since Panther(late 2003).
So, who's copying whom?
I'm going to nitpick your nitpick, but the original license for the GUI from Xerox was way back in 1980 something, plus Apple did license the GUI to MS for windows 1.0. A loophole allowed MS to use it for future versions, something which Apple took them to court over and lost. You are talking about later events in Apples history.
Jonathanjk.com
So tell me why Apple remains stagnant at 3% of the desktop market and it's biggest commercial success in years has been the iPod.
m arketscan10.html
Simple, it's not stagnant.
Forbes Magazine: The conversion rate of iPod customer base to the Macintosh platform from PC "implies two points of global PC market share gain for Apple in 2005," to 5% from 3%, said Morgan Stanley, adding that the conversion rate for iPod owners could track closer to the 25% range going forward from 19%.
http://www.forbes.com/markets/2005/03/18/0318auto
No, the problem is hordes of incompetent/lazy/ignorant software developers who can't grasp the concept of a multiuser OS.
The Mac OS X dock is a clone of the NeXTSTEP dock, which predates Windows 95.
./ a few months back.
In fact, much of Mac OS X's interface is strikingly similar to that of NeXT, as is evident from those videos that were posted to
> They ship more computers than Dell
Nonsense. Dell ships more than 8 million PCs per quarter, Apple doesn't get much higher than 1 million. In terms of unit sales in the US, Apple is 5th, behind Dell, HP, IBM, and Gateway.
Microsoft, unyielding, relies on their own developers who are slowly (but rapidly gaining speed) migrating to the more stable Unix-based systems.
Actually, Microsoft's current systems are more a kluge of the Windows API onto VMS. NT has a great many VMS-isms, in part because one of the lead developers of VMS was hired by Microsoft to spearhead their more enterprise operating system. Microsoft had since licenced VMS technologies to put into NT 5 (2000, and 5.1, XP) and into NT6 (I guess Longhorn). Whether they are still persuing it, I don't know.
You may want to read a Jobs quote, in the transcripts of the "Triumph of the Nerds", part 3 Halfway through the page, Jobs talks about Picasso saying this.
Interface builder? Yup, Interface objects stored in .nibs? Yup. Has a dock? Yup. Has a Shelf? Yup. Implements the Open Step API? Yup (Cocoa). Uses Objective C? Yup. System objects start with NS? Yes sir.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Then you better smoke less pot because it is affecting your memory. Apple licensed the technology for the mouse and a limited form of point-n-click from Xerox to develop the Lisa computer. They took the tech they developed from the Lisa, extended it and created the Macintosh line from that. All this time Apple paid for their licensing form Xerox, in fact Apple still pays Xerox royalties on the tech they use in the Macintosh.