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What's Different About Vista's GUI?
jcatcw writes "Paul McFedries, author of Windows Vista Unveiled, thinks that an operating system should be thought of as more than just its user interface, but then again that interface should work well for the user. He thinks the Vista interface rates 'pretty darned good.' The Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) results in positive changes for both developers and users. Developers can do 2-D, 3-D, animation, imaging, video, audio, special effects and text rendering using a single API. The use of vector graphics and offloading work to the GPU result in better animations, improved scaling, transparency, and smooth motion."
I tried using mac for a while in high school (OS X) and I found the interface to be surprisingly lacking in capabilities. I mean, I couldn't modify it at all (aside from moving icons around). Was it just me being dumb or can you just not change it? I don't use explorer as the windows shell for the same reason (instead preferring Litestep, if you use windows and like linux 'ease' of modding then you should check it out). But, if you can change and modify what the Vista GUI looks like, apart from changing to classic (yey....), then it beats the OS X GUI hands down. And please, try not to bash all windows users with your mac 'holier than thou' attitude, as it's just a bit too cliche.
:P
And yeah, Vista does take up too much resources
Har?
Uh.....actually the majority of Windows users are not "goofs"....we use Windows as a platform to run software for real work. When we can run Autodesk Inventor, Vault and the 20 or so other programs that all expose a standards based API ....like VBA and soon all .Net/C# et all.....then we might look at using it. Face it guys Microsoft did not get here by building crap....they always get better....as Lotus found out when they looked at Excel 2.0 and said "What crap, they will never be better than us". They lost...because they sucked and could not keep up. Bash MS all you like ...but they never give up.....not in the last 20 years. I have products, both hardware and software,to design for the real world and the software that gives me the power to do the work of 10 only runs on Windows....not some backwards Unix/Linux old crap with no vendor support. Apple got it right....go to Intel and make hardware that some will buy and run "work software" in Windows on the box, and let the family members that don't know jack about computers boot into OSX. Those of us that use our computers as a tool in everything we do will use Windows....those who surf and email can use what they wish. Flame on.
You forgot that OS X does it on a third of the hardware.(except ram then only half)
You need a G5 with a gig or more of RAM to get anything approaching decent performance out of OS X, except under trivial load. This is quite comparable with the level of hardware you need to get a similar Vista 'experience'. OS X is an absolute pig compared to any other mainstream platform (although it's been getting faster - but from that slow there isn't anywhere to go but up).
The reason OS X "runs" (and I use the term loosely) on relatively low-end hardware is because when it came out such hardware was common (since Macs typically lag and are expensive in terms of raw power, and are upgraded less frequently). Vista's minimum spec is, similarly, for machines that are common at its release.
(Not to mention, Vista is doing more than OS X.)
If you have a PC with a Ghz+ CPU and a gigabyte or more of RAM, you can run Vista fine (and better than a Ghz-ish G4 will run OS X). If you had a particularly low end PC at the time it was bought, you might need to splash out on a US$30ish video card to get the fancy Aero GUI. If you've got a machine that's even remotely good at playing games, Vista will be more than fast enough and far faster than OS X on a similar Mac. Most Vista machines are going to come from new PC sales, anyway, not upgrades to existing machines.