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Apple's OS X Leopard In Depth
jcatcw writes "Computerworld begins its Week of Leopard with an in-depth review and image gallery covering Apple's newest version of OS X. Is it worth the wait? Well, Yes. It trumps Vista, of course; the Finder, Quick Look and Cover Flow provide better functionality and eye candy; Time Machine is the biggest undelete ever and the restore function is one of the coolest things we've ever seen; it has iChat; and has lots of updates under the hood. The answer might be no if you're lacking in the hardware department - an FAQ on how to get ready for the new version will help."
Of all of the new features of Leopard, I really cannot appreciate the addition of translucency to the menu bar. As a long time Mac user this really seems like one of those "because we can" features rather than it making any sense.
For programming and the command line, give me bash. For anything graphical at all, I'll take vista any day.
Clearly you haven't tried OSX. You get a consistent, fluid and high performance GUI. When you want a shell, you get a Unix one on a certified Unix OS; in a fancy translucent window if you so choose. Beats having to run Cygwin on a Windows box.
Linux just doesn't have a mature desktop environment available, and that's the point of a graphical interface!
Er, who's talking about Linux? This story is about Mac OSX Leopard...
What the guy above me said, plus I have to ask just what comparable features did Windows XP SR1 and SR2 provide? Integrated backup solutions?New collaborative messaging environments? Major file manager and desktop redesigns? Redesigned mail, notes, and calendaring systems? New graphics and developer subsystems (Core Animation)? Improved performance on existing hardware?
How about major security upgrades and multicore enhancements? Oh, wait. SR2 did add a firewall, didn't it? In addition to rolling up a couple of hundred security patches.
My bad.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Funny, I can say the same thing about Vista...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
It's all about the vision. And the people in charge.
Just compare Steve Jobs to Steve Ballmer (or Billy, fwiw).
Which of these personalities do you think is more
likely to design an OS that you would like?
Ofcourse it doesn't boil down to individuals but looking
at the heads of a company gives you a good idea of the
companies mindset.
Apple is "cool and hip" because the people working
there *know* what "cool and hip" is.
Microsoft is not cool and hip because, well, it is
driven by people like Steve Ballmer.
The sheer headcount, on the other hand, means
nothing in the world of software developement.
Small and well focussed (on the right goals)
teams will outperform large teams everytime.
You can read up on that in "the mythical man month"
and just about any other ressource about project
management in the software industry.
In fact, developing "good" software (by any metrics)
becomes much harder the larger your team gets.
Programming is not like selling cars. It's more
comparable to an orchestra. More instrumentalists
don't necessarily improve the result but definately
increase the effort to manage them.
I won't comment on the quality of the programmers -- both companies draw from similar pools -- but the way they manage those programmers is significantly different. Probably the biggest beef I have with Microsoft's management is their devotion to Jack Welch's (of General Electric management fame) idea of doing a company reorganization ("reorg") roughly every 16 months. Not everyone moves around, since certain people don't make sense to move, but there is disruption. This kind of management "theory" makes sense when everyone is viewed as unskilled, interchangeable production units, but it doesn't make sense in software where the value is in slowly acquired knowledge of the source code base, and knowledge of how to interact with everyone on the team to minimize team issues. Reorgs flush some of that away, every time. I realize they teach from Jack Welch's playbook in most MBA programs, but Microsoft needs to abandon this practice. There are other major differences between the two companies attitudes and group dynamics as well. You really have to have worked inside one (or preferably both) to get a good comparison.
Another, more minor beef, is Microsoft's philosophy that others will put up with things that they wouldn't personally put up with. For instance, internal to Office, Clippy is known as TFC_* in function names... based on a comment from Bill Gates that "I don't want to have to deal with That F*cking Clip every time I want to print." Bill hates it, but he nevertheless still shipped it. In contrast, Jobs would never ship a feature he hated; he'd view it as a personal affront. This attitude pervades Microsoft. For instance, everyone at MS realizes the overly tiered pricing scheme is customer hostile -- they know many customers realize they're being either nickle and dimed or had -- but they still ship it because it maximizes revenue in the short term, regardless of damage to long-term company goodwill. Jobs won't dish out something he wouldn't personally put up with. Perhaps it's ego, or perhaps he understands that Apple's success depends almost entirely on goodwill. This all sounds handwavy, but it's another major difference in the the two company philosophies.
I could spend all day comparing the two companies; it's fascinating. And no, not everything about Apple's culture is superior.
Look, windows isn't annoying to use because it has to run on a greater variety of hardware. It's annoying to use because it was designed by assholes.
But that's the point: Normal users aren't really supposed to figure this out. As a software developer and UI designer, it's part of my job to make sure every UI decision doesn't result in a new preference. 90% of the time, preferences are cop-outs: If the design team can't decide on what solution is best, they make it a checkbox. Don't do that. It's your job to figure out the best solution, don't burden the user with it.
What Apple does is the right thing: Make what they think is best default. Don't make preference for it. But if somebody absolutely needs to have his Dock look different, give him a way that does not involve changing the actual application resources.
I've just written about this: Don't make preferences until you absolutely have to. Furthermore, it wouldn't work: Many Mac applications have no windows. Why would, say, an unzip application need a Window? Unless you unzip an actual file, there's no need to show a window; so where would you put the menu bar? What about applications that have small windows, but wide menus?
It just makes no sense.