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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."

128 of 868 comments (clear)

  1. Who's copying whom by Flexible+Typhoon · · Score: 5, Informative
    From Who's Copying Who article:

    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.

    1. Re:Who's copying whom by Grey+Ninja · · Score: 2, Insightful

      My god. If that's what they are quibbling over as being new innovations, then this industry is pretty well hooped. I see pretty much everything on that list as being evolutionary or been done for quite some time.

      Search: Maybe I'm missing something, but name one somewhat modern OS without a built in search function.

      Scripting: Again, maybe I'm missing something, but WTF!

      RSS: This (again) has been done in Opera and Mozilla for quite a while.

      Info Display Panel: No idea what this is. But it sounds like a web browser to me. It could be the single thing in this list worth fighting about though.

      Instant Messaging: Who on earth wrote this list?

      64-Bit Support: If I wrote this list, I would be inclined to just shoot myself in the head, and do the world a favour.

    2. Re:Who's copying whom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      XP already contains a scripting host (so it's not "front end".. wow, big deal), it already contains Windows Messenger (video capable) and MS have released several different 64-bit OSes already. Windows also includes a local machine search engine already.

      I mean.. WTF?

    3. Re:Who's copying whom by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 · · Score: 4, Funny

      In tomorrow's news, Flexible Typhoon swipes at Grey Ninja for shamelessly copying him

    4. Re:Who's copying whom by nkh · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The built-in RSS support is nothing new and already is integrated in a lot of OSS now, this is something I wouldn't be proud of. As for the new Dashboard, it's a copy of Konfabulator which is itself a copy of "Apple's Desk Accessories."

      Everyone is copying from everyone else and it's not a bad thing. All the good ideas from old systems are implemented now with new stuff. The difference is: Apple does it better, cleaner (more intuitive) and before Microsoft.

    5. Re:Who's copying whom by michrech · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The "Info Display Panel" was done with Konfabulator (or whatever it's Linux counterpart is -- SuperKarumba, or something like that).

      Nothing I've seen on this list is new. I've seen all of it in Linux, some of it before Windows/OSX, some of it after.

      I think the companies ought to shut the hell up and make software (and hardware, in Apple's case -- I still believe that MS just gives out hardware designs and has a third party make it for them..)

      --
      bork bork bork!
    6. Re:Who's copying whom by ezavada · · Score: 4, Informative

      Search: Maybe I'm missing something, but name one somewhat modern OS without a built in search function.

      At least with search, I think the main point is how thoroughly it's integrated with the entire OS, and how omnipresent it is. While not revolutionary, I think it's at least a nice evolutionary step.

      Info Display Panel: No idea what this is. But it sounds like a web browser to me. It could be the single thing in this list worth fighting about though.

      At least for OS X, it's like a layer of windows that contain small useful utilities that are usually hidden but can be overlayed on the screen with a touch of a button. You can see a demo here. For OS X, this seems like a nice useability enhancement that fits well with Expose, their window management feature. Unfortunately I've never seen a demo of the similar feature in Longhorn, can anyone provide a link?

    7. Re:Who's copying whom by pecko666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      the magic word here is System wide System wide search through all your data - seach string in all txt/word/PDF documents, in your mail, in your adress book. The same with scripting, the system needs internal support to use system fucntions in scripting.

    8. Re:Who's copying whom by taskforce · · Score: 2, Informative
      Search: WinFS and Longhorn Searching was announced way before Apple announced Spotlight. Microsoft may be slow as hell, but in this case they're not copying Apple.

      Scripting: I didn't know this, but I presume Apple didn't invent scripting?

      Built-in-RSS support: I forgot, Apple invented RSS...

      Info-Display Panel: I suppose Apple invented these either?

      Integrated Instand Messaging/Video Chat: Ok, that's just stupid, MSN has had video chat since before even AIM had it (AOL Time Warner were banned from including it for a while when they merged because of fears of a monopoly)

      64-Bit Support: As we discovered in http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/24/122 1214&tid=201&tid=109&tid=190&tid=218 this article's comment section, Apple was the last mainstream OS to jump on the 64bit bandwagon with Tiger. Microsoft have been offering Itanium based 64bit systems for years and Microsoft also provided 64-bit Windows NT for Sparc based systems even further back.

      --
      My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
    9. Re:Who's copying whom by Valar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You are missing something. The parent poster isn't claiming Apple invented scripting languages, or local search or RSS. Nope. What he is saying is that Tiger includes improvements to search (it is system wide, content wide search which makes use of all the metadata it can find), instant messaging, etc and Longhorn happens to include very similar improvements. There could be any number of reasons, really. Parallel evolution or drawing from the same outside inspiration are possibilities as well.

    10. Re:Who's copying whom by Workshed · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Does no one else think that the features on this list are in fact copied from someone else? Do either of these companies have the right to claim that these are their own ideas?

      Search: Google's desktop search (not to mention the millions of others) is already available beating both MS and Apple to the post.

      Scripting: Linux?

      Built-in RSS support: Mozilla Thunderbird, Firefox, etc.

      Info-Display Panel: Still not entirely seeing the point of this one it sounds like a souped up version of the old Windows Active Desktop to me!

      Integrated Instant Messaging/Video Chat: Both Windows XP and OS X currently include a messenger anyway so is this even worth mentioning?!

      64-Bit Support: Its about time! But Windows XP 64 Bit edition is about to launch and OS X Panther already includes some 64bit extensions...

      I also get the impression they are integrating a lot of apps into both OS's, correct me if i'm wrong but hasnt MS only just had to remove Media Player from windows?? What makes OS X safe with Quicktime? Both companies seem to be repeating MS's anticompetition "mistakes".

      When will we see OS X Reduced Media Edition and Windows Longhorn Reduced RSS/Messenger/Search edition?

    11. Re:Who's copying whom by BioCS.Nerd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, you're missing some things.

      re: Search --> We're not talking about searching for file names with some matching string, or partially matching string. This is metadata search, AND filename search. I'm probably missing something here, but there's a particular /. user getting a lot of press lately whose comments you might want to read.

      re: Scripting --> It's not that the OS will have scripting, it's that there'll be a user interface to make it easy for the masses.

      Some of the things you do have a point about, but you need to consider that a lot of these features are being touted as they're either just being brought to the masses, or being brought in an easier to use way.

    12. Re:Who's copying whom by rokzy · · Score: 5, Informative

      >Search: Maybe I'm missing something, but name one somewhat modern OS without a built in search function.

      yes, like most other people, you are missing something.

      this is built into pretty much everything. for example if you open the system preferences and want to know where a setting is you type it into the search bar and it will highlight where it is no matter how deep linked. this will happen in real-time as you type and will be instant. I have never seen anything like this on Mac, Windows or linux before. usually you have to open a separate help application/window and do a long search on contents or select something from an index.

      have you used iTunes? compare its live-updating search with the Windows/linux type-then-press-enter-then-wait-a-bit. it's not just evolutionary, its like the difference between going through various Yahoo portal screens or just Googling something. searching will always just be a variation on a theme, it's the *user interface* to the search that makes the difference between awkward and genius.

      also, the results of *anything* are included in this instant, live-updating search. I love the prospect of having loads of PDFs of scientific papers and not needing any order to the filenames or directories because I can search for the relevant content and it will be much easier to adapt my filter as I go because I'll see how many results are being returned.

      just imagine not just the invention of Google, but a Google that would change its results in real-time and which would do web page, image, PDF search etc. all at the same time. everyone accepts Google has changed the web but is so blind to how Spotlight changes the desktop even more.

    13. Re:Who's copying whom by MagPulse · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually the big deal about search is that you can type in any phrase and in a fraction of a second you can see documents with that phrase in its filename or anywhere in its text from anywhere on your hard drive, music files with an artist or album matching your phrase, etc. Right now that search takes several minutes. This leap in performance is analagous to what you can do with an abacus vs a computer; you don't even bother doing some things with an abacus.

      Download the MSN Toolbar Suite Beta to try it out. Then watch a demo by the team who wrote it.

    14. Re:Who's copying whom by BlowChunx · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't think your definition of scripting and Apple's quite line up...

      There is a pervasive language of scripting (called oddly enough AppleScript) that can launch applications, as well as control their actions. Sure I can launch sylpheed with a shell script, but I can't make it do anything past that. Ditto for every other Linux app (okay, I'll get flamed for that bit...).

      I can call shell scripts from AppleScript, and vice-a-versy. It's a lot more extensive (and restrictive, figure that oxymoron out by going to an Apple store and checking it out...) than what is in your scripts Horatio.

    15. Re:Who's copying whom by ggvaidya · · Score: 5, Funny

      Windows Messenger (a sister to MSN Messenger)

      No, it's not. Windows Messenger is MSN Messenger's bastard, mutant son with ugly flecky skin, an abhorrant fear of the sun and a hellish need to eat raw fish.

      Me: "I want to log into MSN, please"
      WM: "No ... nobody gets past, gollum! Nasssty userses, we must be upgraded first! Thisss version won't work, preciouses! Not thiss one!"
      Me: "Err, it's okay, I'll just run MSN messenger .."
      WM: "Ha! The parent is well hidden, gollum! Nasssty users will never find it without getting deep into Program Files! Never!"
      Me: "No, here it is ..." (double-click) Another instance of WM launches, fails to log in and cackles horribly. Much searching finally reveals the MSN messenger hiding somewhere.

      Honestly, I'm just waiting for it to creep out and bite off my finger one of these days ...

    16. Re:Who's copying whom by BasilBrush · · Score: 3, Informative

      Dashboard isn't and Konfabulator wasn't HTML, it's JavaScript. Nor is it located on the desktop, the desktop is the plane underneath all your windows. Dashboard brings in another plane in front of all the other windows with a hotkey.

    17. Re:Who's copying whom by Anne+Honime · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Please ; c'mon. All of this was in Unix / Linux for ages now. Who's copying whom ? Nay. They both shamelessy ride the F/OSS wave,denying their users the rights they awarded to themselves.

      At least Jobs does recognize the parts he owes to the community. Makes him slightly less evil, in my view.

    18. Re:Who's copying whom by daviddennis · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think Apple has a pretty good claim for this, actually.

      It looks like HyperCard was the first scripting language, if that is defined as a programming language designed in such a way that "mere mortals" could use it for serious work.

      Then AppleScript was developed as the first system-wide scripting language. It was developed in 1994. Windows Scripting Host was developed and shipped as part of Windows 98.

      So it looks like in this direction, Apple was a genuine pioneer and deserves the respect that flows therefrom.

      D

    19. Re:Who's copying whom by Tim+Browse · · Score: 3, Funny
      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.

      Woah, I'd better tell my friend to stop showing me pictures of his new baby over MSN Messenger. We didn't realise you couldn't do video chat in MSN Messenger yet.

      Please tell me when Messenger gets the video chat feature, and we can start doing that again.

    20. Re:Who's copying whom by BasilBrush · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not full screen, non-choppy video conferencing it hasn't. You can't do the equivalent of iChatAV on a PC.

    21. Re:Who's copying whom by segfault_0 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      First off, this is in context of desktop operating systems - and in that context many of these things are new. Lets not go overboard with bashing this list.

      • Search - its backed by a database, anyone who has searched for files with 'find' or windows file search knows what an improvment this could be.
      • Scripting - again, in the desktop OS this area was limited, pathetic to say the least - a much welcomed improvement (definately a wait and see)
      • RSS - good point, RSS is nothing new
      • Info display panel, im thinking they mean gkrellm style - again not revolutionary but as far as desktop operating systems on 99.9% of pcs it is
      • instant messaging - id say lets wait on this one and see how they integrate it, IM could certainly be improved and this might be a "good thing"
      • 64 bit support, this is going to be on any list for OSs regardless of being revolutionary

      In short, this list isnt so bad but back to the topic at hand, who is copying who - its perfectly plausible to say that neither party is copying each other; the changes are natural progressions in technology for the desktop and if anyone is being copied its the open source desktop community.
      --

      I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
    22. Re:Who's copying whom by Blackeagle_Falcon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Search: Maybe I'm missing something, but name one somewhat modern OS without a built in search function.

      Name one modern OS with a search function that doesn't suck.

    23. Re:Who's copying whom by Grey+Ninja · · Score: 2, Insightful
      • Search - Backing a search up with a database is hardly what I would call revolutionary. Searches aren't new, and neither is backing them up with a database. It was really just a matter of time until someone extended them on the desktop
      • Scripting - Indeed. Key word is improvement, once more
      • IM - I'm just completely shocked that they would even think that adding features to IM clients is revolutionary. Apple will no doubt include a feature to change your desktop theme to the style of the person you are talking to, and Microsoft will no doubt expand on their ability to let the person you are talking to control your computer.
      • 64 bit support - Yeah, this is just retarded. No getting around that. Apple will be annoyed that Microsoft is supporting monitors next.
      In short, this list isnt so bad but back to the topic at hand, who is copying who - its perfectly plausible to say that neither party is copying each other; the changes are natural progressions in technology for the desktop and if anyone is being copied its the open source desktop community.

      Exactly the point I was making in my original post. Except that I still think the list is one of the stupidest things I've seen in recent history. I personally think it's just a marketting ploy by Apple. They know that most people know that Microsoft has ripped them off in the past, and they know that they have a very loyal fanbase, so they just throw some dirt in Microsoft's general direction and hope it sticks. Myself, I am not a fan of either company, so I just think it's plain retarded.
    24. Re:Who's copying whom by TuringTest · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But there's still a difference between lightning-fast search and incremental update, which is the same difference between a batch process and a command line or between a compiler and an interpreter. It's the feedback loop, man.

      --
      Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
    25. Re:Who's copying whom by Ucklak · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Maybe I'm missing something but Windows 95/98/ME/2K all have search. XP's version sucks bigtime and I don't know why they broke it and bloated the interface by forcing a wizard every single time you want to search for a file or text within a file.

      I did a simple search for text within a file for "?PHP" and XP is the only OS that doesn't give me a result.

      --
      if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
    26. Re:Who's copying whom by wfolta · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Search: Maybe I'm missing something, but name one somewhat modern OS without a built in search function.
      And you can't see any difference between them? Sit down at a UNIX/Linux box and use 'find' to find all files that have a name that ends in ".jpg". How long does it take? Try it in MacOS from the GUI. Try it in Windows from the GUI.

      This is as simple a search as it gets since all OS's already have filename "metadata". And it's SLOW. With Spotlight, you see results as quickly as you can type the letters. And it also works for file content, etc. Try that with a UNIX/Mac/Windows find.

      Scripting: Again, maybe I'm missing something, but WTF!
      Have you even looked at any pictures? This is: a) integrated into the OS and all programs via Applescript, and b) elegantly graphical. A UNIX shell script is NOT even comparable in either category: it has no hooks into other programs or the OS, and it's certainly not visual (much less elegantly so).
      Info Display Panel: No idea what this is. But it sounds like a web browser to me. It could be the single thing in this list worth fighting about though.
      Not sure what is meant here. Perhaps this means Dashboard, which is a very elegant, extensible widget mechanism. Yes, Konfabulator existed first, and it does use Javascript as well, but it uses it's own custom XML for layout instead of building (as Apple does) on existing solutions (HTML, CSS).
      RSS: This (again) has been done in Opera and Mozilla for quite a while.
      I believe the difference is the level of aggregation of Safari's new RSS and Mozilla's bookmarks, including the ability to do searches on RSS feeds. Not sure how capable Mozilla is in this realm, though.
      Instant Messaging: Who on earth wrote this list?
      You only have to think for a moment to realize that it's not the inclusion of Instant Messaging, which has existed for quite some time. (Even looking only at Apple's software, iChat has been around for years now, much less the Big World.) The difference is in the features of iChat, which now includes 4-way videoconferencing and 10-way audio conferencing. Not revolutionary, but one of the slickest packages out there and it's about to become the lowest-common-denominator for every Mac.
    27. Re:Who's copying whom by BasilBrush · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Sounds like a collection of FUD to me.

      Who says scaling is a requirement? It's a classic case where there are logical bounds - the screen size. Why would mixing interactive and non-interactive widgets be a problem? Web-browsers also do both. You don't clutter your desktop with ANY shit, that's the point. As soon as you are done with them, you dismiss them with the same key you brought them up with. Your method for running a calculator reqires seven keypresses rather than one. It also fails if any on the recent applications listed on the start button begins with R.

    28. Re:Who's copying whom by RapmasterT · · Score: 2, Interesting
      So basically, yet AGAIN we have Jobs claiming everyone copies Apples "innovations", when in fact they are really just incremental evolutionary growth off of other peoples ideas.

      The amusing part is the volume of people who give Apple a pass on every idea they copy or outright steal from others in the industry, and then do a 180 and say anyone building on Apple ideas is copying.

      Is there really no room at all to accept and admit that the entire computing industry moves forward by building on the successful ideas of the industry as a whole? Copyrights and patents are one thing, but this kind of childish "hey, stop copying..." whining is what keeps Jobs from being taken seriiously as an adult.

    29. Re:Who's copying whom by BlowChunx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Thanks for making my prediction come true.

      The word I should have used is "pervasive". It's a common syntax across the system and applications.

      I admire the Open Source movement, but a holistic design is not something that can be accomplished by 1000's of separate hackers (heck, look at the *wide* acceptance of LSB). You kinda cheated and used KDE apps, commandline, and OpenOffice as exeamples; which require 4 different scripting languages. Apple has the money and the drive to make the scripting language uniform and ubiquitous.

      Which unless you have written for it, you won't get its power.

    30. Re:Who's copying whom by Aphrika · · Score: 4, Informative

      Credit for system-wide scripting languages goes to Xerox PARC and SmallTalk on the Alto. Smalltalk formed the inspiration for HyperCard and later AppleScript.

      You also have AREXX on the Amiga (1985), RiscOS on the Archimedes was also fully scripted (1987), and you could argue that the MS-DOS command shell (1979) and batch filing methods are akin to an OS-wide scripting language, particularly as a major goal of AppleScript was to make up for the Mac's lack of a CLI. Interesting to note that the opposite happened for NT 3.51 - the MS-DOS shell was slated for removal, but left in to fulfil the role of system scripting.

    31. Re:Who's copying whom by CSMastermind · · Score: 4, Funny

      And in other news Jobs also called gates, "a big meanie" and asked him to stop being a "copy cat", while the linux people chimed in that he needed to "learn how to share". Mr. Gates couldn't be reached for comment he was busy coloring.

    32. Re:Who's copying whom by 51mon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think there are two aspects here.

      One is purely performance/hardware, it has long been possible to do a free text search of all the contents of your computer (security issues aside - this is very hard to do securely in a multiuser environment if anyone cares about security/privacy), just no one could be bothered to sacrifice the amount of disk space, and CPU to do this historically. Thus this is purely a technology whose time has come, previously Microsoft and others were mostly indexing metadata (optionally, like you'd bother to switch it off these days, but 5 years ago you may well have chosen to), or select portions of the system.

      When Google announced they were doing this I downloaded a free software product that already did this for GNU/Linux for comparison, and yes it worked, it also took about a day to index my system as root, doubled my disk space usage, and needed to refresh its indexes (which it chose to do overnight), and made everyones content visible (if only indirectly) to anyone who could query the database.

      As such indexing is a natural progression of computing, but as any database person will tell you indexing has a big resource cost. These days no one cares if their 150GB hard disk is 20% used instead of 10%, and if writing a file takes 10000 operations instead of 100.

      The other is integration, Apple as always have a truely innovative integration between search and desktop. I don't always buy their "usability" features (I like menus in the Window they relate to, saves a LOT of mouse mileage). But I think they probably have the edge here, and will retain it if only because of the relatively small application base installed on most Apple desktops.

    33. Re:Who's copying whom by rishistar · · Score: 2, Funny

      This just in .... Bill Gates in a new press release calls Steve Jobs a copy cat.

      --
      Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
    34. Re:Who's copying whom by toddestan · · Score: 2, Informative

      And then there are .BAT files, which have been around.... forever. Scripting is nothing new.

    35. Re:Who's copying whom by Golias · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not really a truce, so much as a "cease fire."

      Look at some of the Apps which Apple has recently been pushing out: A web browser which saves them from reliance on IE, and two of the three programs they need to allow Mac users to abandon MS-Office for good. (They still probably need a spreadsheet program, and rumor has it that one is in development.)

      This all comes down to a phone call between Jobs and Gates back when Jobs took over Apple. We are not likely to see a transcript, but a lot of folk suspect the conversation went along these lines:

      "Hey Bill. It's Steve. Look, we've still got a shitload of lawsuits pending against Microsoft for all the stuff you've been brazenly stealing while I was off making digital cartoons, and now you've got the DoJ breathing down your necks and calling you a monopoly. How would you like to make both problems go away at once?"

      "I'd be an idiot to say no, and I may be evil, but I'm no idiot. What are you proposing?"

      "It's simple. This company has been run into the ground by morons for the past 10 years, and we need your 800-pound gorilla to prop us up for a while. We are prepared to put all these lawsuits behind us for good if you do the following:

      1. Buy a bunch of non-voting stock in Apple. Say about $150 Million?

      2. Make a public announcement that you intend to support the Mac with Office and Internet Exporer products for at least the next 5 years.

      3. Pay us a small settlement to make our lawyers happy. Nobody has to know how much money it is.

      In exchange, Apple will:

      1. Not go out of business, which would have made it completely obvious that you really are a monopoly.

      2. Pimp your web browser on our desktop... not that you haven't already pretty much already squished the competition.

      3. Allow you to legitimately buy any of Apple's OS design ideas and technologies which you want to roll into your own (crappy) operating systems.

      4. Mostly sell expensive machines to yuppie assholes, thereby not stepping on your toes in the general consumer market."

      "Let's do it Steve."

      "Oh one more thing... How would you like to appear as a guest on the Jumbo-tron at the next Mac trade show when I announce our deal?"

      "Sound great... but... er... you're not going to make me look like that big evil face from the 1984 ad, are you?"

      "Aw, come on Bill. Would I do something like that to you!?" (evil grin...)

      Anyway, that's about it. The 5-year deal is over. Microsoft no longer needs to pretend they give a crap about OS X users, Apple is shipping affordable computers and developing home-grown replacement for most of the MS stuff which they customers used to use, the government heat is off Microsoft (at least in the US) and Apple is well in the black with and once again slowly growing marketshare.

      It was a win for both sides to make the deal, and it's a win for both sides not to extend it. Jobs and Gates are cheerfully going right back to hating each other.

      --

      Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

  2. Just to paraphrase... by the31337z3r0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "More shameless... ...pointing fingers..."

  3. Dear computer industry. by Seumas · · Score: 4, Funny

    Welcome to 1982-1984.

    1. Re:Dear computer industry. by ggvaidya · · Score: 4, Funny

      Crap. Here I was just about to buy a PowerBook ...

      Maybe by the time I buy it, the instructions will ask me to drop it from 3 inches in the air. :|

      Oh, and does this mean Apple will have to fire Jobs again? Bummer.

  4. Re:More customers by argent · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  5. Imitation by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think that this is a lot of hot air. Apple is so far ahead of anything anyone else in the techn sector that someone copying them is only natural.

    Even with the amount of development power available to Microsoft, they have never been able to catch up to Apple, the industry leader. This is not to say that Microsoft is somehow bound by their develpment skill, but rather their creativity.

    Apple, in contrast to Microsoft, has taken the bold step of basing their operating system on Unix, which allows them to tap into the vast stores of development resources latent in the IBM/Solaris camps. Microsoft, unyielding, relies on their own developers who are slowly (but rapidly gaining speed) migrating to the more stable Unix-based systems.

    I love Steve Jobs, but I think he's a little paranoid here. Losers always copy the winners. It'd be better to take comfort in the comfortable lead that Apple's got, rather than complain about parrots.

    I believe it was Voltaire who said that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery.

    1. Re:Imitation by Bravoc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "Microsoft, unyielding, relies on their own developers who are slowly (but rapidly gaining speed) migrating to the more stable Unix-based systems." So, Novell was kicked over and over for clinging on to their NetWare kernel - a closed source, proprietary mess that was a nightmare to code to. They finally saw the light and (a bit late) have adopted a Linux alternitave in buying SuSE. This, like the Apple stratagy opens them up quite a bit to say the least. When will folks realize "Hey, this Microsoft stuff is all closed up! Every other OS in the world is built on standards!" I predict that in a couple years, people will be making the same statments about Microsoft that they did about Novell 10 years ago - it is an antiquated, closed, and dead OS.

    2. Re:Imitation by westlake · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Apple, in contrast to Microsoft, has taken the bold step of basing their operating system on Unix, which allows them to tap into the vast stores of development resources latent in the IBM/Solaris camps

      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.

    3. Re:Imitation by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because the world is full of idiots who think popularity is an indicator of quality, and buy accordingly.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    4. Re:Imitation by Pete · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because in the desktop PC market they're fighting against a little thing called the network effect.

    5. Re:Imitation by macmurph · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      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/2005/03/18/0318autom arketscan10.html

    6. Re:Imitation by mrchaotica · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, actually. If you tried using a Mac you'd realize it really is better than Windows for everything.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    7. Re:Imitation by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

    8. Re:Imitation by bhpaddock · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You aren't seriously suggesting that Microsoft should drop the far more robust NT platform for a dated Unix foundation, are you? Dear god... if we Windows developers had to deal with the nonsense that is threading on Linux/BSD - I'd cry myself to sleep at night. I know this is Unix fanboy central, but come on... Any problems with Windows are certainly not the result of its NT core. If anything, that's one of the best things Windows has going for it.

  6. Re:More customers by Seumas · · Score: 2, Insightful

    By that logic, the more users there are of a product, the better designed and more reliable it should be, due to the greater meantime between releases. I guess that makes a lot of sense, what with how much more reliable Windows is than OSX and how much better polished and usable it is. *cough*

  7. This has popped up before by clu76 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I just finished reading Revolution in the Valley. One of my favorite quotes from the book is when Jobs confronts Bill about copying the Mac, and Bill says, "No, Steve, I think its more like we both have a rich neighbor named Xerox, and you broke in to steal the TV set, and you found out I'd been there first, and you said. "Hey that's no fair! I wanted to steal the TV set!"

    --
    the cosmos in 20 words or less: thumbuki.com
    1. Re:This has popped up before by CrackedButter · · Score: 5, Informative

      Going with the flawed metaphor, Steve actually licensed the TV.

    2. Re:This has popped up before by gumbi+west · · Score: 4, Informative
      Uh, Xerox didn't do much of anything. It was all Apple and its employees.

      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.

  8. OSX - Windows - Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's how the flowdown goes. Let's not throw stones in glass houses here, folks.

    Linux and most OSS software is not exactly an innovator in any sense, it's mostly just a reimplementation of proprietary software already in existence.

    But anyways, isn't all progress built on the success of others? Why should we deride Microsoft for implementing things that are good?

    1. Re:OSX - Windows - Linux by IANAAC · · Score: 2, Informative
      That's how the flowdown goes.

      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).

    2. Re:OSX - Windows - Linux by Stevyn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not for everything though. Maybe it follows that path for the parts people see on their desktop. Then again, that's more GNOME/KDE than Linux. However, for areas like security I think it's OSX/Linux --> Windows.

      Since the heart of OSX is BSD, they don't have to keep ripping their system apart to search for major security issues because it's probably been done many times previously by others. And KDE is catching up to windows with respect to "plug it in and it works" with kioslaves. When I plugged in a firewire drive and saw the little icon on my desktop, my reaction was "finally!"

    3. Re:OSX - Windows - Linux by SirTalon42 · · Score: 2, Informative

      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?)

    4. Re:OSX - Windows - Linux by FidelCatsro · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Why should we deride Microsoft for implementing things that are good?
      We are not really , we are deriding them for claiming they are doing it first and inovating .
      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    5. Re:OSX - Windows - Linux by Chops · · Score: 5, Funny
      Precisely. The Windows -> Linux flowdown is quite well established, as you'll see by the following examples:

      IIS -> apache, ftpd
      COMMAND.COM -> Unix shell
      Exchange -> sendmail
      poorly-implemented third-party "virtual desktops" -> multiple X11 desktops
      Visual SourceSafe -> rcs, CVS, now subversion
      Internet Explorer -> Mosiac and Netscape
      Remote Desktop -> X11

      Expect to see more shameless copying in the future:

      • The Linux community will probably create imitations of popular Microsoft languages such as Visual Basic and Cobol.NET to replace outdated perl and python.
      • The confusing package management systems (particularly in Debian-based distributions) will be replaced with Microsoft's obviously superior "every app's installer does whatever it feels like" approach to shared libraries.
      • The next version of Firefox will look just about exactly like IE, with popup blocking and tabs, for example.
      • Vendor-provided security support for third party applications (e.g. Redhat's updated Mozilla, postfix, and mysql packages to replace vulnerable versions) will give way to the familiar, consistent "Fuck off" Microsoft users are accustomed to receiving when using third party products.
      • The Linux shell will be reinvented after its increasing deprecation in recent years, with scripting features copied (poorly) from Microsoft's offerings.


      I could go on, but I think Microsoft's role as an innovator is quite well-established.
    6. Re:OSX - Windows - Linux by Chops · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Actually, none of those applications are Linux-specific,

      I never said they were. I said they tended to originate in Linux (actually, "in FOSS" would be more accurate, yes).
      and several probably existed (certainly sendmail, the various shells, X11, Mosaic but maybe not Netscape, probably Apache and definitely various ftpd's) for other Unix variants before Linux existed, let alone was widely popular.

      In many case that's true. GNU/Linux has the real deals now, though, sendmail and ftpd and apache (which is, of course, descended from NCSA httpd) and X11, which were innovative when they were developed. Microsoft has cheap imitations like Exchange, IIS, and the various pseudo-X-isms. I wasn't saying so much that GNU/Linux deserves a medal for making so much stuff first as that I like GNU/Linux better because it has stuff now that's still research (or vaporware, or poorly-implemented, or a Windows port of something Unix-native) on Windows. The fact that that includes stuff that's decades old like decent shells or sensible MTAs just makes it even sillier.
      Linux really just copies from everywhere. There's no shame in that, either, but face it, few people in the Linux community are being paid (in money or pleasure) to transform the world. The approach here is much more incremental (as embodied in the pipeline approach to solving problems), "hey wouldn't it be cool if we changed it so did " or "what if we made work with so we can " than "let's screw everything up to make marketing happy and force an upgrade on our users!"

      Thank you for rehashing what I don't agree with. I'll take another stab at disagreeing with it. Ahem:
      • The package management systems make complex systems administration tasks much more manageable, and I'm not aware of them existing in any OSes before GNU/Linux (no, Solaris's doesn't count).
      • New languages like perl and python have introduced genuinely new concepts, and have become fairly popular (among those for whom they're an option) apparently because those concepts are powerful. I credit these languages as "belonging" to GNU/Linux simply because that's the most popular Unix where they're being used and developed.
      • The software engineering knowledge in the free software world is currently the state of the art; pretty much everyone who's doing development knows about freezes, how to handle dependencies and ports, and release management. That's not even close to true in the proprietary world. The stuff Linus and co. are doing with BK and git is pure research, and the kind of system-of-systems problems that the Debian developers solve just to keep "testing" working would (to judge by the SEI article about SoS I read recently) make most academic software engineers wet themselves and cry.
      • People who are building single-system-image clusters of computers today are using Linux, full stop. Microsoft has a program to try to get Windows to do that.
      • wiki was new and innovative. Most wiki software has an easy port to Windows (using perl, php, or another Linux-native language), but it's developed on GNU/Linux (actually, I see an exception -- when I searched for "asp wiki" on google, I got a wiki running on ASP called "Asp Wiki". I rest my case.)
      • bittorrent, coda, emacs, OS-based NAT utilities, etc, etc. Yes, there are Windows ports (or imitations).

      Of course, GNU/Linux copies from Windows in a lot of cases too. It often makes clones of a particular, self-contained application. Interestingly enough, those (except for evolution) are programs I almost never find myself using. A lot of it may come down to the type of work people do; a standard office person might find themselves using Firefox, OO.org, and evolution, and conclude that GNU/Linux is just a cheap Windows knockoff. I can't see how any programmer or sysadmin could think that, though; in those areas GNU/Linux is where almost all of the action is, and Windows is still way behind.
  9. Excuses by winkydink · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He claimed 'They are shamelessly copying us',

    And killing you in the market. Still. More focus on winning on less on being beaten please.

    --

    "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

  10. Re:More customers by St.+Arbirix · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Exactly. The big guys always have to take cues from the smaller ones because they simply can't afford to do anything that might be risky.

    Political parties do the same thing.

    --
    Direct away from face when opening.
  11. Re:didn't apple steal... by ltbarcly · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  12. Re:didn't apple steal... by aftk2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes. Because steal is definitely the same as license and pay for, and in 2005, everything is exactly the same as it was in 1982.

    Oh wait. It isn't? It's not? Well then I guess it's not hypocritical.

    --
    concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
  13. Funny, truth hurts don't it? by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Longhorn does copy some features of Tiger. Even their "It Just Works" mantra is ripped from OS X Switch campaign that Apple launched years ago. One of the main criticisms I had with Gates and Co is that for years they tout all these "innovations" that Windows brings but in reality many of the innovations were either copied or bought from others.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  14. Re:didn't apple steal... by Rosyna · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If by steal you mean legally came to an agreement with xerox. Then yes.

  15. is anyone truly copying? by Internet_Communist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All progress is made from bits and pieces of previous experience which lead up to current progress. That's why there's never any giant leaps, that's why we didn't have some guy 10 years ago miraculously come up with a 3ghz processor. It's why we didn't have rock and roll in the 1600s. All past innovation leads up to current achievements.

    Pointing fingers and complaining about who's copying who is not only non-productive but it is the same mindset which leads to all this IP mess that we're currently in.

    So to you Mr.Jobs, get off your high horse. They didn't copy the wheel just because your latest car has one. It took that wheel to get you there, do not disrespect that wheel.

    I'm not trying to defend microsoft or apple. I hate everything equally.

    --

    If you don't want someone to copy something, don't give it to anyone.
    1. Re:is anyone truly copying? by IANAAC · · Score: 2, Interesting
      But from Steve Jobs' perspective, if all of Microsoft's "innovations" seem to be coming from the same place, namely Apple...

      But Jobs' perspective is biased. I can think of a desktop search engine that's out now - Google Desktop Search.

      If anything, I'd say MS is copying/trying to catch up to Google.

  16. Shameless Flamebaiting Story by goombah99 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The Slashdot editors are flamebaiting us. Not to mention it's a Dupe.

    This calls for a completely off topic but intelligent thread to be started. How about this one:

    Casemodded mac mini doubles it's disk performance

    This guy case modded his mac mini putting into an old centris pizza-box. The faster disks and CD boosted performance 20% to 70% on AV things like DVD-copy and CD-to-AIFF and file copying. Overall Xbench-disk gives the set up a 2x performance enhancement.

    so the new Official discussion topics are:

    1) wow cool retro case mod for $10

    2) Did apple cripple the mini just to make it cool?

    And is that bad really. After all it is quiet and welcome in the living room something many people would pay a LOT for. Performance is not all.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:Shameless Flamebaiting Story by nxtw · · Score: 2, Informative
      2) Did apple cripple the mini just to make it cool?

      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.

    2. Re:Shameless Flamebaiting Story by BandwidthHog · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The ones referred to as pizza boxes were the LC and its descendants, the one he used is about twice as large.

      When I saw that link, I figured he'd removed the center front panel and basically created a port replicator in the 610/660, so that one could slide an unmodified Mini into it kinda like the Duo. Now *that* would be cool.

      And after reading that, I couldn't help but wonder why you wouldn't just cut a single hole in the back of the Mini (yeah, blasphemer, whatever) and hang a rounded IDE cable out of it encased in white acrylic, sort of like a ponytail. Then you put a nice, fast hard drive and optical drive into an external case and sit the Mini on top of that.

      --

      Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
  17. you ASKED FOR IT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
  18. The only solution by Alzheimers · · Score: 5, Funny

    The only solution to such rampant disregard for originality is obvious: we need stronger intellectual property laws and more protection for software patents. Obviously, the current laws provide no incentive for Microsoft to innovate at all, and therefore we must protect Apple's ideas and creations by giving them a guaranteed mononpoly for a limited time - perhaps as long as 70 years - to force competitors to develop new and alterantive solutions.

    Oh, I almost forgot to close my /sarcasm tag.

    1. Re:The only solution by Sentry21 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh, I almost forgot to close my /sarcasm tag.

      Oh! A sarcasm tag! That's really useful.

  19. But of course. by Colin+Smith · · Score: 4, Funny

    Isn't Apple Microsoft's market research department?

    --
    Deleted
  20. It's spelled "licensed"... by argent · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  21. Re:didn't apple steal... by Leffe · · Score: 2, Funny

    Indeed, like how Microsoft stole the two-button mouse from Apple!

  22. Re:Copy... by CrackedButter · · Score: 5, Informative


    (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?

  23. Re:Konfabulator by MidnightBrewer · · Score: 2, Informative

    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
  24. obligatory old Gates quote by bersl2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today...The solution is patenting as much as we can. A future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high. Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors.

  25. Re:Konfabulator by squiggleslash · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Konfabulator is an evolutionary enhancement of the desktop applets concept Apple built into Mac OS back in 1984. Given this, and given Apple is using different technologies to achieve a similar but not identical result, I think it's a little unfair to imply Apple is copying anyone here.

    Incidentally though, the list of "technologies" Microsoft is supposedly copying from Apple is remarkable for its lack of anything Apple did.

    The Search features are something Microsoft has been touting for a long time, and in any case, Google got there first. Microsoft would almost certainly have implemented it regardless of what Apple did.

    Easy (ie GUI based) Scripting is something Microsoft and Apple and others have been working on for decades. Hell, I remember one such tool being put on an Amiga magazine coverdisk. Unless Microsoft's solution is practically identical to Apples, which I doubt, it's a little unfair for anyone to accuse Microsoft of "copying" such a vague concept. Let's see what they've come up with.

    RSS support in web browsers have been obvious since RSS was invented. What's surprising is that it hasn't been done yet by Apple or Microsoft. The credit for RSS support should go to RSS's inventors. Apple and Microsoft deserve criticism for waiting this long.

    Dashboard is a widget, not information-display, tool as you point out. Sideshow is likely to be Microsoft's latest attempt at creating a usable "Active Desktop", first released in the mid-nineties. The two are not similar technologies and Microsoft isn't likely to have released their's in response to Apple.

    Apple was not first with integrated IM/video. I used Yahoo! Messenger to do the same a while back. In any case, it's another "obvious enhancement", like RSS support. Microsoft likely would have implemented it anyway.

    Putting 64 bit support in a category of things copied is as dumb as putting the support of more than 16Mb of RAM or SATA disks, and it's been done a zillion times before.

    Jobs needs a kick in the nuts if he's complaining Microsoft is copying Apple when it comes to any of these technologies.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  26. Re:More customers by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2, Insightful
    But microsoft has a larger customer base to consider when releasing product. 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.

    I wouldn't say that was the real problem. Microsoft's real problem is that they are making a major architectural change to the OS in the midst of changing requirements. Since Longhorn was first started, MS has had to revise it significantly to be more secure as spyware and viruses have become huge problems for their customers. Also Linux and OS X have been taking away their customers citing both security and other features as reasons. So MS has had to add more features to compete with them. Any time you are developing new software, scope creep can kill or significantly delay release.

    Apple has had a different strategy that has worked for them. They made a fundamental architectural change when they launched OS X. They add significant new features with every release but the architecture is still the same.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  27. Thoughts? by spidereyes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While I understand Jobs' compliants and squabbling he has to keep on pushing. What he has been able to accomplish with Apple is remarkable. Steve Jobs has the foresight to move ahead and come out with new innovative products. In just about every market you're going to have somebody nipping at your heals to try to beat you to the punch. It just so happens the market leader is stealing from the secondary leader this time.

    Microsoft has their own set of problems to worry about and I think both operating systems have their own segments in the world today. Really though as of lately I think a lot of people are switching to a Mac. I have friends who have been Windows fans who are fed up with the licensing, security etc etc and have decided to move to the MacOS.

    Moreover, I see the problem being were each OS fits into the world. The MacOS always seems to stay with the education systems, graphic arts people, designers, editing and hardcore Mac addicts; while Windows hits up everybody else.

    Apple needs to rev up it's marketing and start hitting other users. Eg. Corporate users

    --

    I say we just grow up, be adults and die.
  28. Re:More copied features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We all know Apple invented the TabletPC, Media Center PC, PocketPC, XBox, ...

    Okay, how about these? eMate (1997), MacTV (1993), Newton (1993), Pippin (1995)

  29. Spotlight & Automator by Carthag · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  30. Re:Free software anyone? by BenjyD · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not an Mac owner, but Tiger's search doesn't sound anything like locate. Locate has no knowledge of file type, file contents or metadata. It couldn't show you "all Openoffice files written by John Smith last tuesday", for example. It wouldn't index you emails etc.

    It also requires a complete database scan to update AFAIK, whereas spotlight updates its database in the background as it is integrated into the OS, so Spotlight will generally be up to date.

    Free software that will be quite similar to Spotlight is Beagle, which looks pretty impressive.

  31. Re:More copied features by thbbpt · · Score: 4, Informative

    We all know Apple invented the ... Media Center PC, PocketPC, XBox, ...

    Yeah, they're called Mac TV, Newton, and Pippin.

    --
    -Bb
  32. Windows took 9 years to copy Mac OS by peter303 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Windows took 9 years to copy Mac OS by argent · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Those of us not born yesterday remember Bill Gates vaporware announcement of "Windows" soon after the original Mac came out.

      Windows was announced in 1983, the Mac came out in 1984. How did that happen? Easy... Microsoft was already developing software for the Mac before it was released, and Bill knew Microsoft had to do at least as well if they were going to stay in business.
      "To create a new standard, it takes something that's not just a little bit different, it takes something that's really new and really captures people's imagination and the Macintosh, of all the machines I've ever seen, is the only one that meets that standard." -- Bill Gates, 1984

      "the Mac is the only microcomputer beside the IBM PC worth writing software for." -- Bill Gates, 1984
  33. different markets by dj245 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    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.

    Which is why the apple market has very little to do with the Windows market. You can't run Windows on the apple hardware (in general) and you can't run OSX on generic PC hardware. So the operating systems have eerilly similar features. Microsoft isn't threatening Apple's marketshare. If you've got apple, you know if you like it, and chances are slim you'll switch back based soley on the reason Microsoft comes out with new features. And vice vera. I know I won't switch to Apple just because their instant messanging software is new and improved. Completely different markets. Its almost the difference between Nissan the Carmaker and Nissan.com

    --
    Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
  34. Re:More copied features by SteveM · · Score: 4, Informative

    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

  35. Re:Free software anyone? by Crisses · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The search they are talking about will be able to find content as well as titles of files -- so consider it more like a recursive grep on the system...

    As for scripting -- Applescript has been around a very long time, and will still be there. Essentially what I believe they have done is to create a front-end gui for scripting the system -- Apple Events & Applescript with a UI that my mother probably can use. That is the essence of Apple's latest software development -- create something easy and quick to learn, computer-savvy independent, intuitive. That is their streak of late, to make the complex more accessible and user-friendly.

    iPhoto does not beat Photoshop, but my mom can use iPhoto to rotate pictures, sharpen them, remove red-eye, and not even have to figure out where the photo is on the hard-drive.

    That concept --the one where the user does not have to be a geek at all to accomplish a task that would normally be tedious and complicated otherwise-- is purely Macintosh.

    I don't see my mother learning bash perl or python anytime soon. But I bet she would be able to create something useful with the Automator, within a half hour of toying with it.

    Garageband is another excellent example of making something relatively complex -- digitized music -- so simple it is almost unethical. Walk in to the nearest Apple Store, put on the headphones, play with Garageband loops and before your feet hurt from standing there you will have music you can use as the backdrop for a talk show, a video, driving your car around town, a meditation tape, etc. Just a little more work and the ability to hold key and you can have a song.

    Utter simplicity, and accessibility -- with hardware that does not challenge your aesthetic sensibilities...

    Yeah -- and it comes with a price tag. Someone has to pay for the medical benefits of the people who obviously slaved away to produce such a polished piece of software. I work for myself and have no medical benefits, but gladly pay Apple the premium to take care of their own.

    --
    ---- I'm out of your mind!
  36. Re:didn't apple steal... by ClosedSource · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  37. Re:From the article... by pauljlucas · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Apple haven't "won" since 1986
    Personally, I'd prefer that Apple not cater to the unwashed masses of dumb computer users out there who don't know any better.

    Using your reasoning, BMW hasn't "won" (ever!) either. They're quite happy to let others sell cheap, commodity cars.

    Apple doesn't have to dominate the desktop market. Aside from the fact that they've been going out of business for 30 years, they're doing very well financially lately. (Oh, if I only bought Apple stock 5 years ago.)

    --
    If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
  38. Nope, analogy still works. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Licensing is irrelevant, Apple didn't come up with the idea, which is the the essence of what Steve is arguing; that Apple creates and Microsoft copies. Uh-uh, Xerox created, Apple & Microsoft copied.

    1. Re:Nope, analogy still works. by Queer+Boy · · Score: 5, Informative
      At Xerox Parc, the GUI they developed only contained icons for verbs. Cut, copy, paste. There were no icons for nouns, which is where Apple innovated. Apple also invented the pulldown menu. Meaning a stable menu where menus dropped down. That's just a few of the things they came up with. Xerox got Apple stock based on the ability of letting them SEE what they were doing, not actually get any code or know HOW it was done.

      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.
    2. Re:Nope, analogy still works. by CrackedButter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The GUI is Xerox's idea, they had the basics, with drag and drop and clicking on icons, the desktop metaphor is Apples idea where you have a trashcan and folders and the finder.

  39. Analogy still works. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Apple didn't come up with the idea, which is the spirit of what Steve is arguing; that Apple creates and Microsoft just copies. Xerox did the creating. I'm sure that pisses off you apple zealots to no end but tough noodles:)

  40. So they are copying Linux? by cfalcon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Seriously, someone wrote "64 bit support"? Is that legit? So, innovation is supporting the new hardware? That's absurd. So, is Apple copying Dell by offering compatibility with the latest video card or whatever?

    Stoooooopid.

    Most of these other things are built into an average Linux distro. Additionally, if you buy a Dell, many of them are just as present, as OEM addons.

    Look, I'm sure Microsoft *is* copying Apple where they can. They always have, for my entire life. But the list of crap they are moaning about is ridiculous.

  41. Time Machine by kuzb · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Present day: "We want better security in Windows! Why can't it have something like UNIX's security model?"

    10 years later: "Those bastards! They copied/snarfed/stole the UNIX security model!"

    This is probably what will happen too. People will scream for something to be added to/changed in windows, and then Microsoft will get bad mouthed for implementing it.

    I have no sympathy for Steve Jobs, or people who agree with his baseless argument. Lest we forget, the *base* of the *entire* OS X operating system is a BSD core, something Apple didn't invent or innovate in to existance.

    --
    BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
    1. Re:Time Machine by Sique · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Present day: "We want better security in Windows! Why can't it have something like UNIX's security model?"

      10 years later: "Those bastards! They copied/snarfed/stole the UNIX security model!"


      You forgot 10 years ago: "Why has Microsoft never used the security features built into the WinNT Kernel by the DEC people?"

      So maybe it's 10 years later: "Those bastards! They finally copied/snarfed/stole the UNIX security model! And they got it screwed up again!"

      So Microsoft Windows has a builtin security model, which would allow to emulate the UNIX security model, because it is a superset of the UNIX model. But the way different layers of shells and applications are built not only above the kernel, but are intertwined with each other and different kernel functions, this model is often superseded by other mechanisms, and the interactions are not fully understood, not even by the developers.
      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    2. Re:Time Machine by merdaccia · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Lest we forget, the *base* of the *entire* OS X operating system is a BSD core, something Apple didn't invent or innovate in to existance.
      The base of the *entire* operating system? Are you trying to say Cocoa, Carbon, Core*, Aqua, etc, are based on BSD? Funny, I've been running OpenBSD for years, and still can't find the Dock...

      Apple innovated and implemented a lot of technology on top of that BSD core. Saying otherwise would be like saying there's no change between Windows 98 and DOS. The only difference is that Apple actually layer stable and novel code on top of a stable kernel, instead of the patchwork Windows tries to pass of as innovation.

      --

      *blinking cursor*

    3. Re:Time Machine by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Informative
      Windows (NT and later) already had a much better security model. That of VMS. The problem was it was horribly horribly implemented.

      No, the problem is hordes of incompetent/lazy/ignorant software developers who can't grasp the concept of a multiuser OS.

    4. Re:Time Machine by Sique · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The NT security model itself is quite sophisticated, it derives directly from the old VMS model. Butler Lampson et.al., who designed it, are some of the computer security gurus.

      The main problem with NT's security is not the model itself, it's the various ways how it gets circumvented to either have some nifty feature which looks nice at a demonstration without a real use (ActiveX) or because the ways how NT is used by application designers and users is contradictionary to the model. Applications that need administrator priviledges to run are inherently flawed. They are applications, something that is applied on top of the inner workings and shouldn't know about any priviledges necessary for system administration.

      NT is a good example how OS design itself doesn't create computer security. It is the way how an OS is used, procedures, usage patterns, deployment, applications, which create an environment for computers which is more or less secure. OS security is a single aspect of overall computer security.

      Your first example is not really a Linux/Unix vulnerability (in fact the vulnerability is the same on WinNT), it is an application vulnerability. If it propagates through to the operating system (as it does if the user has far reaching OS priviledges), then it may point out an OS problem. Under Unix/Linux it should normally not affect OS integrity.

      The second is indeed an OS problem, because it is a driver problem, and most drivers need OS priviledges to run. It would be possible to have drivers run in a sandbox like environment with a protection layer against the kernel and other drivers which helps to keep driver vulnerabilities local to the driver and the hardware the driver is operating. Sadly neither the Linux kernel nor the WinNT kernel are well prepared for such security layers. There are experiments with minimalistic kernels (microkernels) which provide such layering, but they didn't have much impact into mainstream computing yet. You might be interested in the L3/L4 series which allow userland drivers.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    5. Re:Time Machine by aristotle-dude · · Score: 4, Informative
      Of course it does. Apple "bought" NeXT and Steve Jobs came along with the deal as did many of their engineers. OS X "is" NeXT Step 5.x+.

      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.
  42. Wrath of Linux Users by Lefty+McGrep · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not sure why Apple often gets the wrath on SlashDot from the Linux community. My only explanation is that Linux users are more often than not also Windows users. They dual boot. They have other PCs laying around running Windows. Why not use MacOS X and be able to run mainstream apps and have a unix core without dual booting? Why not run Yellow Dog Linux and truly thumb your nose at the MS/Intel duopoly? Apple is is the same boat as Linux. Trying to tell the world that they have a viable OS platform other than Windows. Apple is succeeding and putting a unix machine on millions of desktops. Be Happy!

    1. Re:Wrath of Linux Users by natrius · · Score: 2, Insightful

      My only explanation is that Linux users are more often than not also Windows users. They dual boot.

      True, I am one of those people.

      Why not use MacOS X and be able to run mainstream apps and have a unix core without dual booting?

      Because I like using software that's already mine, and always will be. Sure, I could run open source software on OS X, but the vast majority of it still requires X11 for it to work, and as a consequence there is absolutely no integration, and it looks like ass.

      Why not run Yellow Dog Linux and truly thumb your nose at the MS/Intel duopoly?

      Because Linux/PPC blows. For instance, if I wanted a laptop, the bundled wireless card would be worthless in Linux. Also, there's quite a bit of software out there that is closed source that I want to use on Linux, but is only compiled for x86. I wouldn't be able to use Flash or the various video codecs from my Windows partition, and that would make things suck.

      Personally, I have nothing against Apple. My brother is going to college next year and is buying a computer to take with him. My suggestions to him are to either buy a Windows laptop and dual boot, but stay in Linux unless something he needs isn't working, or buy a Mac. The former option is probably too much work since he's never used Linux, so he's probably going to end up with a Mac. Good for him. It's better than the alternative.

  43. Deja vu... by Eyeball97 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Didn't this argument do the rounds in the early 80's already?

    And didn't they establish then, that the whole damn lot of them "stole" the idea from Xerox.

    The Apple GUI was derived from Xerox's original idea and by some of the Xerox team who defected. Meanwhile, we got GSX/GEM when yet another team member broke away from Xerox, and if memory serves Apple did battle with Gem over IP issues.

    It could be argued (I stand to be corrected), that Windows was the only GUI not led by, or written by someone from Xerox...

    Incidentally, Jobs started his "IT" career selling Wozniak's blue boxes designed to allow free lobg distance phone calls...

    Here endeth the history lesson...

    1. Re:Deja vu... by the_2nd_coming · · Score: 4, Informative

      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
  44. Taken out of context by rezon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This comment was directed to a shareholder. This is nothing more than statements to fuel those backing Apple. Jobs wasn't complaining at all in his comments, in fact, he was boasting about Apples progress in direct comparison to M$... Good for him, I seem to recall Bill doing the same in the past. On another note. The creation and evolution (or copying if you feel this way) of different company innovations does nothing more than benefit consumers.

  45. oops by Heisenbug · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh, I almost forgot to close my /sarcasm tag.

    That would suck. Then the whole rest of this page would be sarcastic too ...

    Yeah, close call.

  46. Re:Multitasking! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    And I hear with Tiger, you'll be able to format a floppy disc, and browse the web, at the same time!

    I'm sure the three Tiger users who still use floppy disks will be very appreciative.

  47. stock meeting by batchthemighty · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think it should be emphasized that this statement was made a a stock holders meeting, as the representative Jobs needs to sound proactive and "on the ball" while I think MS does have the Apple photocopiers out, remember Steve was saying this in response and to reassure share holders that Apple is ahead of the curve.

  48. Re:But its OK for open source to copy everything. by BackInIraq · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Agreed. It apparently okay to copy if you are going to release the product for free.

    It's like saying it is okay to cheat as long as you also share your answers with everyone else.


    No, I think a better analogy would be that it's okay to cheat as long as the test isn't for credit. In this case "credit" would represent "money."

  49. Re:Even MORE telling by LurkerXXX · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  50. Re:My favorite OSX to Windows feature... by Queer+Boy · · Score: 5, Informative
    Apple's Dock was a similar nod to the popularity of the taskbar in Windows

    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.
  51. Re:Multitasking! by Rixel · · Score: 2, Informative

    That was the Amiga :)

    --
    Never play chicken with a passive aggressive.
  52. Debut Date vs Development Date by Luthair · · Score: 2, Informative

    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?

  53. Re:Copy... by CrackedButter · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  54. Re:My favorite OSX to Windows feature... by learn+fast · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Mac OS X dock is a clone of the NeXTSTEP dock, which predates Windows 95.

    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 ./ a few months back.

  55. Apple innovates. Microsoft is mediocre. by rice_burners_suck · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Just to qualify myself here, I have 82 computers. Many are various versions of Macs; many are PCs running various BSDs and Linux OSes; a few SGIs and various RISC-based HP boxes; there are even two computers that run several versions of Windows.

    I was recently helping a friend of mine shop for a new system. He had been using PCs with Windows for the longest time, and I never heard the end of the complaints about how Windows screwed this up and how Windows screwed that up. So finally, after trying to convince him for years, I helped him buy a new Mac. He had some money to spend (he's rollin' in dough) so he bought a Mac Mini with the faster processor and all the options, and got the wireless Apple keyboard. He already had a really nice Samsung display and a Logitech wireless trackball, along with a Firewire/USB hub with plenty of ports.

    When he realized that he could plug in his digital camera and his digital video camera, the hard disk almost instantly filled up with stuff. So the next day, we went back to the store and picked up a Maxtor Firewire hard drive with a 250 gig capacity. He copied tons of digital photos and videos from his other computers. I introduced him to iTunes, so he just had to import all of his MP3s from two PCs, which were bursting at the seams with MP3s. The 250 gig drive filled up quite fast, so the day after that, he bought a second one; luckily there is an "available" firewire port on the Maxtor drive, so you can "daisy chain" them.

    But that's not all! With the Mac Mini, the two external drives, the USB/Firewire hub, the display, keyboard, and mouse, his desk actually looked quite clean. (He's good at organizing cables.) It's amazing how much stuff fits into small boxes nowadays. So he had to go "shopping"... Picked up a new iPod, Final Cut Studio or whatever it's called, and Adobe Creative Suite for the Mac... I swear he dropped almost four grand on stuff for this Mac in a few days. This from a guy who thought Macs suck.

    He was quite amazed when he found out that Final Cut is made by Apple. He knew it was a serious program, but he never thought about who made it. When I explained that Apple makes the computers, the operating system, and software that does just about every function you can dream of, he was amazed that one company can do all of these things, and do each one of them much better than any other company out there. Specifically, he was shocked and amazed that Microsoft, with thousands of times the resources that Apple has, can't even get their operating system working properly.

    We came to the conclusion that the problem facing Microsoft and many other companies is simply that Microsoft is mediocre. It's an easy problem to fall into. Microsoft is simply mediocre because the quality of their work is not important to them. They are simply greedy for money. Now they'll tell you that they care, and they're working to fix the security flaws, etc., but only because they realized that those security flaws are impacting their bottom line. As long as those flaws did not affect Microsoft in any significant way, they would have continued to ignore them.

    Personally, I believe that if security flaws did not impact the sales of Microsoft software at all, Microsoft would simply ignore them and not care that your data, your identity, your finances, etc., are at risk. Because they're mediocre.

    Apple, on the other hand, is a first-class company. Say what you will about their stuff being more expensive, but believe me, you get what you pay for. Someone has to get paid for making true innovations. Even though some things in their OS existed in other OSes before them (Spotlight - Query in BeOS). I think they're constantly improving.

    1. Re:Apple innovates. Microsoft is mediocre. by rice_burners_suck · · Score: 2, Funny
      Just give him one of yours..

      Ever heard of a compile farm, you insensitive clod?!?!?!!

  56. "Good artists copy, great artists steal" by KingofSpades · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  57. Here's the read point by BWhaler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The whole who's copying who debate is silly. It doesn't really matter, and if competitors are incorporating the best ideas from the industry, we all win, regardless of platform. There is nothing worse than the "not invented here" syndrome. But there is something worth noting with Longhorn: there doesn't seem to be any fresh thinking. The fact that we are having this debate and not one person has defended Microsoft by pointing out a feature that is totally unique and ground breaking is telling. Very telling. Not one single feature that someone can point out as unique and innovative to Microsoft for others to copy. Not a single one. And that, I think is the problem with Microsoft and their role in the industry.

  58. Here's how it works: by phillymjs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft announces, then develops.
    Apple develops, then announces.

    Just because Microsoft issues a press release or throws a press conference and says that the next version of Windows is going to have [feature], that doesn't mean that Apple hasn't already had [feature] under development/running in a lab somewhere for a year.

    For example, the search capability in Tiger known as "Spotlight." Apple applied for a patent on the technology behind Spotlight (a patent that was granted in January of this year, BTW) when OS X 10.0* was still a year and two months away from public release. Which means they started working on it in 1999 if not sooner. Years before the name "Longhorn" was ever uttered by anyone at Microsoft.

    ~Philly

    *OS X 10.0 release date: 3/24/2001

  59. apple-history.com by tofucubes · · Score: 2, Interesting
    not completely sure why everyone's so fasinated by apple @ /., but this is a pretty good site for those interested http://www.apple-history.com/ anyway I feel this is like history repeating itself sort of...maybe jobs is hoping for even more money ;-)

    "Microsoft agreed to pay an unreleased sum of additional funds to quiet the allegations that it had stolen Apple's intellectual property in designing its Windows OS." - http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page= history&section=h7

    --
    Some people believe 1-1=3 and for the sake of being politically correct, we should respect their differences
  60. Re:My favorite OSX to Windows feature... by ignavus · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Let's see a raise of hands for everyone who knows where the Dock comes from. [link to jpg]"

    GNUstep!

    Well, it looks just like GNUstep.

    'cept they changed the GNustep logo to that odd-looking thingy with the "N" in it.

    --
    I am anarch of all I survey.
  61. Re:My favorite OSX to Windows feature... by pNutz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually Apple bought NeXT several years ago. I guess they must have put some of the NeXT stuff to use somehow. The guy running NeXT got some senior management job or something, too. I think he even got his start at Apple back in the early 80's.

    --
    Death and danger are my various breads and various butters.