Microsoft Responds To "Like OS X" Comment

Z80xxc! writes "After a comment by a Microsoft employee claiming in an interview that 'what we [Microsoft] have tried to do with Windows 7... is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics,' the Windows 7 team has issued an official rebuttal, saying that the comment came from an employee who was 'not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7,' and that it was 'inaccurate and uninformed.'"

Comments

What Apple does right

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Apple and Microsoft attack the problem of user interface from two completely different points of view. Microsoft wants things to be orthogonal, logical, menu driven, hierarchical, and otherwise fully featured. Apple takes the approach that the user doesn't want to fuss with all sorts of menus and submenus (no two button mouse for years!) and just wants to do what they need as simply as possible. So you end up with two completely different interfaces.

Apple's interface is elegant but inflexible. Everything fits into the existing scheme and runs perfectly within that scheme.

Windows' interface is flexible but clumsy. While this has gotten much better in later versions, we're still looking at deeply nested menus, and applications which do not necessarily have any UI themes in common with each other.

However the key point is that Microsoft is gradually becoming more user-centric. As far as that goes in their own perspective. They are making changes to the OS that were implemented in Mac years ago, and now that they are here, they make Windows a better product.

Aesthetics is a major theme with Apple, and it is one that Microsoft hadn't fully embraced until Vista. Listen to the users. Let the users tell you what is good and bad. Build the interface to match the user.

In a sense, the MS employee was right. Microsoft is doing a lot to emulate Apple. And frankly, it's about time.

Re:What Apple does right

[webdog314]

So, what you're basically saying is that Apple designs their interfaces to be intuitive, and Microsoft... doesn't.

Yup, that pretty much covers it.

But to be fair, you have to remember that Microsoft wasn't originally targeting yuppy thirty-somthethings and college students, they were going for business programmers and well, nerds. This is a completely different audience than Apple, and frankly, they hit the mark. Nerds don't want intuitive. Nerds want it the way they want it. This kind of interface is great for a logical thinker who can remember where they buried that TPS report, but not so hot for a non-programer who still confuses RAM with drive storage.

Re:they've been copying Mac all along...

[Halo1]

If you ever saw the Triumph of the Nerds documentary by Bob Cringely, you'd have seen Steve Jobs saying "Picasso had a saying Good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless in stealing great ideas."

Of course, in the same documentary he also says "The only problem with Microsoft is that they just have no taste" :)

Re:Save face?

[RedK]

Except Apple's look and feel lawsuit against Microsoft has already been thrown out. About 20 years ago. So Microsoft can copy "look and feel" all they want, they have the legal precedents to do so.