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Windows Software Ugly, Boring & Uninspired
An anonymous reader writes "CPU magazine has written a very straight-to-the-point editorial on the lack of quality and innovation in software for the mainstream OS. They compare it to the Mac, which is found in a much different light. Where has all the innovation gone?" From the article: "There's too much coal and not enough diamonds within the sphere of downloads. The greatest pieces of software are plagued by unintelligent design, and very few rise to the level of ubiquity. Windows users don't have a strong sense of belonging; there's no user community rallying around the platform. We use the computer, certainly, or is the computer using us?"
As a recent Mac convert (okay, I owned a powerbook for awhile a couple years ago, too), I have to say that two of the three (boring, uninspired) fits for most of the Mac world, too.
Don't get me wrong, I love my powerbook. I am quickly becoming a big Apple fan. However, all of the software looks the same. It all has the same uninspired brushed-metal plastic-shiny interface. And aside from a few big applications and open source stuff, everything else is second-rate after-thoughts (that most certainly goes for games, which seem to be a last minute consideration in most developer's minds, resulting in lame five two or three year old games just-now coming out for Macs).
Yes, the Apple gui is prettier. But really, is there that much more innovation when it comes to applications and software for Apple (video and audio editing aside) than there is for any other platform? I don't really think so.
In fact, I would say that the Apple experience is very Orwellian. "Here is the interface you will use. It is the same as every other interface. Your ability to configure it and later it is very limited, but you will learn to love it and live with it.".
Let's see... in Apple, you can choose from "Aqual blue" and "aqua graphite" color schemes... and.... you can change your desktop wallpaper. Fuck, the CDE window manager has done that for years.
Not to mention, you have to pay for anything decent on the Mac. There are some nice open-source/freeware applications around, but a lot of simple things cost money. I guess Apple developers know that there are enough mac suckers who won't mind paying $10 to be able to collapse their windows into shades, since they spent $3500 on a laptop already. Fuck, even the default browser (Safari) doesn't do most of the simplest Firefox functions -- unless you install some Safari extensions... Oh - by the way - those extensions (tabbed browsing, adblocking, etc) ARE NOT FREE. That's right, you have to PAY for the Safari extensions (unless I've missed something..?) that do what Firefox does for free (except firefox is sloooow on OSX). Amen for innovation, huh?
Granted, Camino can do these things with a few free plugins installed, but they aren't nearly as good. For instance, Adblock is part of one of the plugins, but you can't configure it in any way. You just turn it on or off. So it blocks far fewer advertisements.
Anyway, Mac is great - but it is a very rigid, enforced experience. I hope that will grow as the number of Mac users increases (which I hope happens quicker after the move to Intel chips).
Not sure I can see any examples of what he's talking about?
Yes, a lot of programs are ugly, but that's usually because developers aren't educated in human/computer interaction etc, but just in e.g. C++. This applies to Windows applications as well as Linux applications that I've seen. Can't speak of Apple developers' apps because I have no experience of that platform.
As for his other claims -- boring and uninspired. What is he asking for? Is he asking for more bells & whistles? What makes a software "boring"? More innovation? What is he looking for a Windows software to do but can't find?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
The problem is Microsoft got big with Corporations, where most of their attention was focused since their rise to power. The biggest demand and greatest source of business and income has come from large corporations, and it only makes since Microsoft focus more of their attention on them.
Besides, Macs are luxury machines.
Actually when I think of the hardcore mac user I think of people attending XML conferences, Next hackers, people at the MIT doing OS research, etc.
A friend of my once said that OSX is the 21st century Sun workstation.
Maybe I just think that because I dig having a unix box that can also run microsoft word at the same time.
I sure some of this is due to market-share issues. A developer targeting Windows knows there's 200 million new PC shipped each year (and probably a billion PCs installed). They figure that their software only needs to be good enough to snag only 1% of users to sell 2,000,000 copies a year and gain a 5 million user install base. In contrast, the Mac developer looks at Apple's 3% market-share (say 6 million Macs/year) and thinks that they need to attract 33% of the user base to reach the same target sales figure.
The result is that only the most dedicated and talented Mac developers survive whereas any idiot with a C-compiler can create a PC software title and be assured of some sales (just convince 1-in-10,000 PC users to spend $29 and you gross $600k per year). Given the huge market-share disparity, Mac software must be 30X as good as PC software to survive in its small marketplace. (OK, its a bit more complicated due to dilution by competing vendors, but I'm sure its much harder on the Mac side to attract an economically viable user-base for software package.)
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Everybody should spend five minutes working to optimize their browser experience. It's easily the most productive five minutes you'll spend on your computer.
As for waiting for it to load... that's my biggest problem with Dashboard. You invoke Dashboard and the widgets come up quick enough, but now you're waiting for all these different pages to load AT ONCE and during this time the GUI is VERY sluggish... I thought I'd enjoy the dictionary/thesaurus widget, but I was wrong. It's unusable. The interface indicates that it's ready for input, but it never is... it's always waiting on other widgets to load!
Like you say, it's easier launching the dedicated app that does the same thing. Or better yet, just keep it open.
Think about it, who do you think of when you think of a mac user? Granted, there are many out there, but when I think of a hardcore mac user I think of somebody who is into designing music, movies, graphics editing, etc. They are designed to cater to a group of people who are more creative and right brained.
Really? I work for a huge company known for its big iron and most popular unix operating system and a silly coffee-related programming language and a CEO that has been ranked at the bottom of several CEO lists in terms of performance the last few years.
And do you know what most of the developers and engineers I know around here have with them? Their PowerBook.
The entire point of a GUI such as Windows or OS X is to allow the user to most easily do what they want through utilization of the proper program. A GUI is an interface--it is designed for utility, not for prettiness or to accrue some kind of user dedication.
Not to argue that Windows is amazing or anything, I just think that it's a device of functionality, and therefore cannot be properly criticized for a shallow interpretation of the way it looks.
Because looking at an experienced Unix shell user, you realize that the functionality and surface level beauty of a computer interface are two entirely different things. Criticizing the latter is just insignificant considering the importance of the former.
-M
Excuse me, but Widgets are easily the most retarded thing out of Apple since the Dock.
Not to mention, they're available for Windows, and if you count things like Samurize and DesktopX, they have been available for ages, much much longer than they have for OS X. Maybe they aren't as tied into the operating system as they can be in Dashboard, but they're pretty close.
Sure it's Sunday but how does this half page article buy some guy represent any kind of real news? I'm getting really tired of editors green-lighting these obviously unresearched, entirely too short analyses. I read Slashdot for the NEWS THAT MATTERS!
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Why don't we take this to extremes?
Want to work on your report? Why wait for your word processor to load when you can just press F12 and it's RIGHT THERE!
What if you want to watch a movie? Just press F12 and there's your movie player! Wow!
Dashboard is only a way to keep applications loaded in memory and display a certain subset of them at a keypress, this is absolutely nothing new. So I want to do a quick calculation, I hit the shortcut key I bound to my calculator and there it is. When I'm done with it I close it and it doesn't suck up memory. I see absolutely no value in keeping these applications running all the time when you're barely ever using them and could just pull them up on demand anyway.
The original author of this article seems bored by his functional applications. That's ok, some people like flash over functionality.
I've used OS X a fair bit and didn't see anything that I was particularly impressed by. It sure looks nice, but I'm not more productive or happy with it than any other platform.
>>Am I the only one who is completely unclear on what was intended by this comparison?
.Net, just for starters.
No, you're exactly right. The functionality of windows has been essentially static since Win95 and ugly, grey, square windows look equally bad no matter what numbers the "About Windows..." box contains.
Now, the problem with looking at the changes between NT->2k->XP is that, well, for the most part you can't look at the changes. Other than a green "start" button, what's the difference in terms of *user experience*? Where's the innovation? I can't find it.
Spotlight, Automator, Rendevous, (and yes, even Widgets) IMO all work to make the user more productive. Apple changes their OS every year. Sometimes for the better, occasionally for the worse ("two steps forward, one step back") but at least they're making progress and trying new ideas.
Microsoft is simply hung up on locking people into their technology and making it too expensive/difficult to transition away. Proof? How 'bout
Anyone still doubt? Well, then, did you hear about that beautiful, innovative new technology in Microsoft's latest OS release that makes users much more productive? Yeah, neither did I. The big stories out of Redmond mostly concern what *isn't* going to be in Longhorn.
Sorry, fanboys, but Windows innovation isn't.
Disagree? Feel free to list MSFT's post Win95 innovations that improve the user experience right here ___________________________________.
I'll tell you something about Mac software: today I had to actually download a program to eject CDs because the mother fuckers at apple decided it would be too 'inside the box' to include a 'force eject' option even somewhere hidden on an advanced menu! That is until i discovered you had to reboot and hold the mouse button down, seriously WTF is wrong with that picture? Oh and while we're on the topic, what sort of software that comes with a computer forces you to upgrade in order to view videos in full screen mode? Quick-time is what. Oh and apparently deleting songs from iPods is a bit of an issue for some people.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
You've got something wrong. Maybe you need RAM, maybe you've done something really bad to your system, but the dashboard is useable on the machine I'm typing on right now - slot loading iMac G3 500, 384MB RAM.
There's this architect I know of who maintains a 10 year old SGI workstation running some ancient CAD program. I asked him why he goes through the trouble, and he became LIVID. It'll be a cold day in HELL before he installs Windows and that Autocad garbage, apparantly.
Then there's also this interactive media artist I met once. He hand compiled his entire system from scratch, modified the video4linux driver to get better performance, and claims that he hasn't touched an Adobe product in years. I asked him why he wasn't using a Mac, and he went into some tirade about how some program was discontinued once and he couldn't find anything that would read his old saved work, and he swears he'll never put himself in that position again, open source all the way (I didn't ask for the details).
Both of these people appeared very serious about their craft.
So when someone tells me the eccentric outside of the box thinking individuals install MacOS X, I don't take it too seriously.
http://www.delicious-monster.com/
Delicious Library.
Nah. I haven't read the article. But, I have worked for a software company that made both mac and windows software. I have also used productivity tools on both platforms for (groan) years.
One thing that struck me is that there are just some software companies that "get it." They make programs that are intuitive to use, pretty to look at and properly take advantage of the OS. The programs also play nicely in the playground.
And most importantly, once you get used to using these programs you don't know what you would do without them.
In the Mac world of software programs like TechTool Pro and Diskwarrior are two excellent examples of getting it right.They are both disk/system repair utilities. Simple to use and effective and in some cases have benefits which are not readily apparent but easy to figure out later on. In that sense they are like a lot of programs that fill the gaps in the Mac experience.
You see, most of these great programs for the Mac exists because A) Apple refused to include certain functionality to the end user; B) The best houses build good software that really seems like it just belongs on a Mac and should be included with every box sold. (Omni Software is an example of an OS X company that fits this bill; Alsoft's Diskwarrior is one that fits the bill for OS 7-X)
Often that Windows Choice for innumerous software titles is like going to an office supply store and digging through discount bins for cheap and perhaps practical items that you don't realy need after using once or twice. There's nothing wrong with that but most Windows software (3rd party) doesn't add to the Windows experience it just adds software to your computer.
With rapid development environments like Visual Basic around for the Windows OS, it's not surprising that there is a lot more crap out there for Windows, verses other OS that don't have these easy to pick up IDEs. It simply takes a more developed skill set to write apps for MAC and *nix.
While this contributes to the problem, there are a ton of of ugly apps for *nix (can't speak for Mac since I don't own one). There are a lot of apps that don't even have GUIs, and are also very hard to use on the command line (cdrecord, for example). These apps are still very useful and work very well, they're just ugly in the sense that you can't "just use" them. You need to specify tons of switches, spending time reading the man page, or they require a front-end application that builds the switches for you.
You imply that a skilled developer == someone who is good at developing interfaces, while really, it's a totally different skill set. You can tell when programmers design web pages, and think that because they know HTML, CSS, javascript and photoshop very well, that they're incredibly talented graphic designers.
I think that when (not if) a high quality and easy to learn development platform for Linux comes along, we'll start to see mountains of shit for it, too.
I think you're right here too. Making it easier to develop apps will mean that more developers will come in, and they probably will also lack basic design skills, which means you get more ugly AND poorly-written code. Just don't confuse the issue and think that it's only unskilled developers that write ugly interfaces.
Speak before you think
Windows software is made to be professional looking, and easy to use. Even with the inovation of the luna themes, many still go back to classic at the work place. You would rarely see a law office using a mac simply because it doesn't look professional that when you delete an icon off the dock it poofs away like a cloud. Overall, the PC is professional, and because buttons don't blink, glow, and fly around the screen does not mean we PC users are lacking innovation...
The point of the registry is to hide (through obscurity) portions of the operations of the computer from the computer owner.
What the fuck? why would Microsoft want to make things harder
The windows registry is a sort of one-size-for-all configuration database. You can configure basically everything, even some obscure kernel options like "enable swapping parts of the kernel" are configured through the registry, which is kinda weird because the system needs the kernel to read the registry in first place.
The main failure of the windows registry is forcing people to use a separated API to modify it, and reimplement it as a sort of in-kernel filesystem. They could have implemented it as directories and files, they could use ntfs acls to give permissions, they could change values by simply echo'ing to them in the shell. That is the main failure of the registry IMO, but the idea is till great.
You're quite the spin doctor, but you tend to gloss over the distinction between personal preference and actual technical advantage.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
Best possible case if your company innovates on the Windows platform is that they get bought by Microsoft, who will then sit on your product and let it stagnate until someone else invents the same thing, at which point they'll release your old version of it skinned to have a consistent MS look to it, and then they'll rapidly go through about 3 development cycles to get it to the point where it's actually useable again, only it'll be integrated with the OS and Office.
This pretty much explains the lack of innovation in the MSverse.
Also, instead of innovation, they're working on making software stable and secure. They're pretty good on stability now, and in a few more years they may even have security done. At that point, they'll be free to innovate on features and functionality again.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I've done that. It sucks. Browsers and the web are too slow. It doesn't matter if it's the late IE on Windows XP Pro or the late Firebird/Mozilla on any OS. It has nothing to do with the browser though. It is influenced by several factors:
1. Internet bandwidth still sucks for the most part. Until we all have at least 100 MB/s to the desktop, broadband is a joke.
2. HTTP is a pretty shitty protocol overall. Apache makes things better than IIS in terms of performance, but beyond that it's connectionless state requires all sorts of stupid hacks (like cookies) to preserve a session. HTTP has been overextended beyond it's own usefulness.
3. Most web pages are poorly designed because of ease of use crap in the WYSIWYG web site design apps. That and the use of crap like Flash to design entire web sites makes for complete shit on the web.
I've done things to "optimize" my browsing experience ranging from designing my own personal portal to just using the bookmarks and built in RSS features in Firefox. I've also tried the extensions for Firefox to add functionality and I've worked with some of the crap IE plugins (like the Google toolbar). It's all shit. Complete and utter shit. Nothing anywhere near as stylish or beautiful as dedicated widgets. Sorry, but you're all wet.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
If inspiration and brilliance of design were not in some way important to people, we would all wear Mao suits or prison garb. Much more practical, you know. Easily interchangeable. No reason to have different designs just because there are two sexes.
When I flew to Cuba, I rode on a Soviet jet, something called a Yakolev YAK-42D. It felt like something from the 1950s. I later learned it was a 1950s design that they only got around to making circa 1981.
A Soviet product is just what you want. If a Soviet plane takes off, flies for a time and lands successfully, it has done its job. There's no need to make the flying experience pleasant. Flying is for those evil bourgeois chaps who can afford to fly anyway, and there's no reason in the world to coddle them.
On-seat power outlets for your laptop? Forget it.
Seatback TV screens? Not even close.
Comfy leather seats? Those are decadant luxuries of the West, don't you know.
Well, I'm sorry.
I'm a decadant, luxury-loving product of the West. I like my Mercedes-Benz automobile, because it was carefully and thoughtfully designed. And I love my PowerMac G5 and PoweBook for the same reason. Carefully and thoughtfully and elegantly designed products are a good in and of themselves; millions of iPod users sense this even if they don't quite realize why.
Maybe a factory punch press isn't something you can design this way, although perhaps that's because nobody's even tried. In any event, we are not working in a factory, and when we work on computers all day, our comfort is essential. If the more creative software vendors realize this is most true on the Mac, and cater to it, it simply means I've chosen the right platform.
The one designed for people like me.
You can have your gloomy gus Windows 2000 interface, as long as you don't make me use it.
D
Don't underestimate the artistic aspect of the experience.
...
The careful thought put into every pixel on your screen, the whole designer feel of the experience is something impossible to quantify, but it definitely makes late nights with my computer a lot more pleasant than they are under Windows.
I recently set up a new Dell for someone, and despite a pretty nice flat panel monitor it was a pretty drab experience. Of course it didn't help that every piece of software on the machine was trying to sell me something
D
The reason why it is the choice for big business is because big business already controls MS. Remember that home users are a small portion of MS's target market. The real money is in the big business. That's why it takes so long for them to come out with an update.
Could you imagine a business that spans all of North America with lets say 25 thousand desktops updating all of them every time Mac or their Linux distro did an update? No, because they also have to support about 10 to 30 proprietary applications which Mac and Linux don't even take into consideration. This company would then have to make sure that all of their hardware works. That includes printer, scanners, faxes, and all the other peripherals. So between all that hardware and software you're looking at a huge undertaking every time there is an update or upgrade.
The situation above is what a lot of big business's deal with. Most just don't use an office suite, email, and some graphics-editing tool. They have a huge number of other business programs some of which are 30 to 20 years old. Trust me, cause every company that I have worked for has had several programs and at least one of which was ancient. There are programs like rep pack, AS400, and countless other programs that have to work or the company looses money. You can't be changing the OS every other week and expect all these programs to work on all the desktops. Hell that doesn't even include the ancient Hardware that these companies use. I've worked with companies that use printers from 1981 and another printer from 1978.
Windows doesn't update that much cause they need to ensure that once the update goes out these big businesses aren't going to loose money due to incompatible programs or hardware. Look at what happened with Service pack 2. It was a disaster and most of the companies were not impressed. Hell most haven't even updated to XP and probably won't. It goes to show you that businesses can't even keep up with MS on the desktop. How do you expect them to keep up with Mac or Linux?
For small business or server/admin applications, Unix and Mac are better but big business is still and will be for a long time dependant on MS.
Most users I've noticed are perplexed with explorer and its interface. They know specific hierarchies like My Documents and Program Files, but as soon as you drop them into an unfamiliar shell hierarchy, they aren't sure "what to click on" or what in general is possible.
A new interface based in windows shell may be organized the same as others but is functionally different, and people end up looking for things that they are "allowed" to click, like they might an exe in Program Files, or a doc in My Documents. It is far from intuitive, as these custom hierarchies don't necessarily order things intuitively and even when they do, functionality varies from object to object whether you click, double click, or drag and drop.
Functionality of different actions should be implicit in the design, so they can be inferred by those unfamiliar with what actions are possible in a particular application context. Now if windows made it standard that right clicking on an object should not only bring up object-specific options, but also describe simply what drag and click operations are available with respect to that object, then these interfaces might not be such a mystery.
People aren't that dumb, they'll learn given context sensitive documentation like this. Finding their way to documentation is otherwise too frustrating, as it is often mired in a web of unfamiliar material. The frustration the average joe faces at a PC is enough to make him learn, if given a more accessible way to find the immediately relevant sources. He doesn't need to understand why the whole damn system works to find one particular solution, he'll generalize that with enough access to particular solutions.
1) There was no benefit to making the registry a non-text file, except that MS wanted to make it more difficult for end-users to poke around and understand more clearly what's going on
2) Applications do have to use the OS to read/write/update (so far so good), but the OS *never tracks what the application puts there*. As a result, every developer puts their copy protection in obscure keys in the registry. Even worse, and unforgiveable, are applications that leave crap behind.
3) Keeping it all in one place (i.e. registry) sounds like a great idea... until you realize you can't readily *do* anything with it from a user's perspective because guess what... the OS won't let you do a simple "c:>copy registry to registry.backup".
This could be solved easily:
1) Make it impossible for an application to write to c:\windows or c:\windows\system32 or... you get the idea
2) Registry files should be stored locally in the directory the application was stored in, or better yet in "My Directory". The system would have its own registry stored in the system directory.
3) They should be text files that can be copied by the user easily using standard tools.
4) When a program is uninstalled, the OS would ensure all traces of the registry entry are deleted (this is easy because of #2)
5) The only thing allowed to alter a program's registry entry is that program. And every time its altered, a new version is kept. This would allow users to go back to old version if required.
6) A user could tell the OS to lock a registry so that nothing can alter it
7) The system registry could never be altered by any application. Requests to modify would require the root password entered by the user. Every time.
This is easy. But MS makes it hard and in the process makes registry damage fatal to the system. With no way to properly back it up. So they have goofy "restore points" that you can't explain readily what it does. So then they'll add more utilities instead of following the KISS principle.
I sometimes feel over at MS they have a bunch of brilliant programmers who have never set foot outside of Microsoft and don't understand the issues with their own product.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
nokilli said:
.pdf imaging / display, memory management (there was a guy asking after loading apps from a RAM disk on an InDesign mailing list 'cause in Windows XP he couldn't keep large numbers of apps open for extended periods of time and wanted to be able to launch them more quickly than his RAID 0 array would allow), pervasive drag-drop &c.
>The Steve Capps' Finder delivered with the original 128K
>Mac *still* blows away today's Finder in terms of
>elegance, responsiveness and overall usability. Moreover,
>I see no difference between today's Finder and WIndows
>Explorer, except for this odd example you give us which
>really has nothing to do with anything. BTW, I've never
>had the need for force-quit Windows Explorer. You really
>want to call that a feature?
Are you not aware that on the Mac System as shipped on a 128KB Mac Folders were purely a visual organizational cue only expressed / made use of in the Finder, aren't you? When you used a File Open dialog one saw _everything_ that was on a give floppy (except the folders) in a flat listing. Given that, I think your claims are suspect; to iterate:
1st - by hiding the toolbar as a default one can get Finder windows in Mac OS X to behave pretty much like System 6 (which was pretty much like the much older System I see on my wife's SE when I haul out my _Through the Looking Glass_ game floppy, modulo things added since like list view, folders which are actually directories as opposed to visual aids &c.).
2nd - my wife's SE (same CPU speed as my 128KB Mac I bought in 1984) is quite a bit more sluggish than the G5 at work when working from a floppy --- perceived response is about the same from the HD).
3rd - Mac OS X affords a lot of really nice features I'm not finding equivalents for on the XP box at work:
- Miller column file browser (I suppose you could use http://www.winbrowser.com/ 'cept that last time i tried it it crashed, a lot)
- no convenient place for temporarily storing a folder one needs temporary access to --- currently at work I'm updating links to some art w/ munged filenames in an InDesign document --- I drag the current destination folder into the sidebar to drag files into, then I can click on the same folder in the sidebar in the file open dialog in ID to get there w/ a single click, when I'm done w/ that folder I drag it out of the Sidebar and it goes ``poof'' --- how does one do something like that in Windows w/ anywhere near the efficiency?
- the Dock affords one a single place to launch and switch applications --- why is it that in XP I click in one place to launch (the Start Menu) but use another area (the Task Bar) to switch --- in Mac OS X I click on the same icon either way.
Lots of other niceties in Mac OS X such as Services, pervasive
William
(who really wishes Windows XP was well-suited enough to his working style to allow him to justify purchasing a Tablet PC)
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
it's called active desktop
Muzik.4.Machines
I've learned that there really is something powerful about combining several generalized apps (like in bash with pipes and such). Apple seems to be catching on to this idea more with their "Automator" in the newest OSX. Windows still doesn't let you combine things in this way, so the solution to most problems is to download (or write) another specialized program.
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
Anyone with some sort of degree in psychology/human interfaces want to tell me why? I'd like to know.
There's some insight in your post: Here are some reasons I don't like windows: Windows is just too dull and corporate. WinXP annoys you all the time with stupid patronizing little yellow bubbles in the system tray. The default theme is god awful.
Sounds aesthetic.
By way of comparison: to me, patronizing is when I mistype a login and the screen shudders. Or the sad mac / happy mac business. "Unfathomable" best describes my opinion of this marriage between productivity tool and Furby. Windows apps use their own widgets all the time and never seem to comform to any kind of standard user experience, which tends to slow me down because I have to make sense of what I'm looking at, rather than just looking at something familiar I can just use.
I have precisely the opposite experience with what's intuitive about the UI. On the hardware side, the monitor LED doubling as the system's power switch, or the CD tray opening from (and only from) the keyboard feels like spiteful iconoclasm.
Many people used to taking things apart share this reaction. What things do is laid bare by how they fit together; form is function. Apple's MO has been to obscure that relationship, which requires engineering types to accept a set of rules that is apparently arbitrary. Mac has historically been the car you don't [can't] tinker with. Somewhere between pride and thrift, needing a "professional" to change your oil stirs feelings of revolt and revulsion.
There have always been great, free Windows apps: I'm running Samurize, DTools, EAC, AdAware, ABC, and emacs as I type this, and most of those are just frontends for other great homebrewed apps. The internet is much too big a place for "crappy / horrible / suck"-ware to be popular. (You do get recommendations, right?)
The culture is moving towards the middle in both camps. MS is helping lock people out of their purchases; more developers are writing for OSX. Your platform, like your car, should suit your needs and tastes. Either way, most people don't care to be told what they're missing.
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
Why not maximize?
Well, for one thing, I don't focus on the window at the top for very long except when I'm surfing the net, and not even then, really. Like I say, the pile of open windows helps me keep track of what I've done, what I'm doing now, and what I need (or want) to do next. When I'm coding, I may even have two or three windows on the same file open, so I can track what I'm working on and the thing it's going to effect with my eyeballs and let my imagination keep track of the larger issues in the background.
Another is that a maximized window, even at 1280x1024, is still significantly less real estate than my physical desktop, so giving up a small amount of screen real estate to be able to grab different windows on my work is, for me, a good trade-off.
It's just different work styles.
How long have those tabbed windows been available? I don't remember them in VS 6.
Are they basically the same thing as tabbed windows in browsers? What happens when you have, oh, say 15 different source files open? If you get multiple rows, or if you have multiple groups, do the rows/groups jump when you bring something from back to front?
Can you mix graphics edit windows and shell windows and external debugger windows and db GUI windows with the VS windows?
Codewarrior on MSWxx, somewhere around v. 5 or 6, developed the ability to break out of the old MDI interface. But trying to use that gives me a feel of how hard it must be to get it to work right in MSWxx. And it doesn't really work the same, although it is an improvement.
BTW, you actually can get the min/max effect in Mac OS X, it just takes a little extra work to set it up. Drag the top-left corner into the top-left corner, drag the resize tab to the bottom-right, and the next time you hit the resize button in does more or less what you want from then until you forget and resized by hand.