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Windows 7 Taskbar Not So Similar To OS X Dock After All

Posted by timothy on from the this-comparison-is-not-like-the-others dept.

cremou brulee writes "Redmond's photocopiers have been unusually busy for the last couple of years, with the result that Windows 7 copies a lots of Mac OS X features. First and foremost among these is the Dock, which has been unceremoniously ripped off in Windows 7's new Taskbar. Or has it? Ars Technica has taken an in-depth look at the history and evolution of the Taskbar, and shows just how MS arrived at the Windows 7 'Superbar.' The differences between the Superbar and the Dock are analyzed in detail. The surprising conclusion? 'Ultimately, the new Taskbar is not Mac-like in any important way, and only the most facile of analyses would claim that it is.'"

15 of 545 comments (clear)

  1. The real difference is that by gravos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    every Mac application is an MDI application, only the outer "application" window is always maximized and always transparent, with its menu always at the top of the screen.

    The crux of the issue is that the Mac UI (and the NEXTSTEP UI) has always been application-centric from day 1. All multi-document Mac applications work in the same way: Alt+Tab to switch applications, Alt+` to switch documents.

    Document-centric UIs, on the other hand, don't scale well, and that has led both the Windows OS and its applications to try to fake it one way or another, by grouping task bar icons, staying alive in the sys-tray, etc.

    --
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    1. Re:The real difference is that by BrokenHalo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      every Mac application is an MDI application, only the outer "application" window is always maximized and always transparent

      I don't know how clear that is to some of us, but regardless of how one switches windows or applications using hotkeys, the Mac windowing system (as the article makes clear) is essentially document-centric - each window corresponds (with some exceptions) to a document, which is sort of why closing the last document window doesn't terminate the application - i.e. it doesn't make this assumption, since your next action might be to open a new document.

      This can be a bit counter-intuitive to those of us more familiar with X11 or Windows, but I can see where Apple is coming from. It does at least make for a more compact menu than that huge thing we see in recent MSOffice versions, which has obvious advantages if you are using a laptop.

  2. so, to summarize... by Cyko_01 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ..the article in one sentence:
    Mac OSX displays a button for each application open, and Win7 displays a button for each document that is open and then groups them by application.

    nah! that's not the same at all!

    1. Re:so, to summarize... by spoco2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And Windows never had a TASKBAR with BUTTONS for APPLICATIONS before Mac even had a dock.

      Noooo.

      For god's sake, grow up, OSX is not some holy friggen grail of OSes that everyone copies you know.

    2. Re:so, to summarize... by calmofthestorm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But when Apple copies something it's innovation. When Microsoft does it, it's child porn.

      --
      93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
    3. Re:so, to summarize... by wish+bot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      God, I don't know what I'd do without Expose nowdays. On my windows machine I compensate by having a few huge screens that I leave everything scattered around. But Expose + Spaces works much quicker for me, especially with limited screen real estate.

      --
      lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
    4. Re:so, to summarize... by Xest · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's funny because it's true.

      I find the iPod's wheel is often described as a revolutionary peice of design and used as an example of the amazing things Apple does.

      Unfortunately, the Creative Zen had a side scroll wheel years earlier that you'd scroll up and down to scroll through songs and click in to select etc. etc. The wheel on the iPod is different only in that you move your finger round the wheel straight on rather than having a physical wheel you scroll up and down- the concept is identical, only the implementation is different.

      If anyone truly believes Apple is some great innovator and that there ideas didn't stem from existing ideas then they're pretty oblivious to how just about all businesses work. Apple did what Apple do well, they made the idea popular, making it popular doesn't necessarily mean they innovated and invented in the first place though.

      The usual hypocritical response by what I can only call the extremist element of the set of all Mac fans would probably be "the wheel is different because it's used front on therefore it's innovation" but to take that stance the hypocrisy is that one could equally argue that the Windows 7 sidebar is different enough to be classed as innovation rather than immitation then also, which you can be sure the most extreme of Mac fans simply would not accept. When they're forced into a corner of applying the same principles to Microsoft as to Apple or choosing hypocrisy, they choose hypocrisy.

      I don't hate Apple, I don't hate people who love Apple, I hate people who can't be objective and realise things for what they are.

    5. Re:so, to summarize... by mdarksbane · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Obviously it's an evolution, but it's a big one.

      Scrolling on the front wheel is a single continuous motion. On a side scroll wheel you have to stop, come back, and scroll again.

      Innovation doesn't meant that no one thought of pieces leading up to something, it means you made some jump in how those pieces were used that makes a significant difference in final quality/usefulness.

  3. Re:Astroturfing by Macthorpe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    By 'astroturfing', do you mean 'having a differing opinion to the groupthink'?

    I'm still yet to see a single mote of evidence that Microsoft bothers to astroturf Slashdot. Can you honestly think of a community of individuals (save, say, BoycottNovell) that are less likely to either:

    a) Switch to Windows, or
    b) Do anything at all on the whim of a commenter?

    --
    "It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
  4. Re:Astroturfing by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    less likely

    Yeah, we're all Linux zealots here. *rolls eyes* Seriously, might have been true 10 years ago, but today? Not so much.

    --
    Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
  5. Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We arrived at the pretty much same place after starting somewhere else, so that makes it very, very, very, very different. Very.

  6. Who cares? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Did they copy it? Did they not? Do I care?

    Is it useful? Does it do what it should? Does it make my work easier? That's what I care about. There are things that are clever. And, bluntly, I'd rather have them copy a good concept than come up with a completely moronic one (Office 2007, I'm looking your way!) just to be "different", just to have nobody claim they "Xeroxed something else".

    Honestly, why should I care whether Windows, Mac, KDE, Gnome or whoever else copies anything from whoever? Ain't the damn patent lawyers not busy enough already, do we have to start with the same crap? What I care about is whether the system is reliable, fast and easy to use. Where they got the idea for it, I do not care.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  7. Re:Wendy's was first by gbarules2999 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You would care if those three movies that were all similar if those were the only three movies that year.

  8. Oh come on, now by spitzak · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The obvious change in the new Windows Taskbar is that there are icons for non-running-applications. I don't care how you try to word it, that is the major difference between the OSX Dock and the Windows Taskbar. So Damn right it is copying it.

    But is that really bad? Yes they copied good ideas, and perhaps made their own improvements to it. But that is how we get better software! Is this somehow wrong when Microsoft does it? You mean you really want Look & Feel Patents and Lawsuits? Don't be idiotic!

    And the Microsoft astroturfers should not be showing such knee-jerk stupid reactions. Why not say *proudly* "we copied good ideas and improved on them even more!" instead of convoluted arguments that somehow they did not copy it.

  9. Re:Look carefully at "Application"... by JoshHeitzman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe that's the way you think, but its not the way I think. I usually think "It's time for some tunes" (not even caring which one just start playing randomly from all of my music), "What's new on ", "I need to find ", "It's time write some code for project ". The applications are just the means to those ends. Personally I don't want document centric, application centric, or window centric. I want task and result centric. By result centric I mean I get the result of music being played, as that doesn't fall into a the category of at task for me, since I'm not the one playing the music. It is just something I want the computer to start doing (and stop again later when I don't want it any more). To bad for me though, as that's now any of the OSes do it at present.

    --
    Software Inventor