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

ego

[sopssa]

Random person thinks he knows everything, grows an ego and tells "juicy" stuff to press to boost that said ego while actually knowing nothing.

Nothing to see here. But I suspect lots of Linux/Mac OSX fanatics will be coming in 3.. 2.. 1..

Re:ego

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect lots of Linux/Mac OSX fanatics will be coming in 3.. 2.. 1..

I came as fast as I could! Just let me get my breath back and I'll start bashing whoever the bad guy is in the story! Who is it today? MacDonalds? Apple? Microsoft? Jack Thompson?

Re:ego

[zmollusc]

..0
OMGBBQ!!!!! Gnome is bettar than both!!!!! and anyway it all comes from PARC work blah blah GEM blah blah Amiga blah ....

Re:ego

[sitarlo]

Or, totally informed person tells the truth and evil corporation fabricates a "rebuttal" to save face.

Re:ego

[Jarik C-Bol]

Penny Arcade put it well:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/10/30/

Re:ego

[gbjbaanb]

so did xkcd.

Re:ego

[Mitchell314]

I don't get why it'd be funny, but I also don't get why it's modded troll. Some people are just to trigger happy, eh?

Maybe it's a KDE user who did it.

Re:ego

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt a KDE user would do it, they'd have to spend too long looking through the huge array of buttons and options that do similar things in order to just be at the end of desperation, push one of them in the hope it does the right thing.

Re:ego

[L4t3r4lu5]

Jack Thompson is a safe bet in all situations.

For every Off-topic mod you get, you'll be almost guaranteed one Insightful mod. As long as you're against Jack Thompson. Which I am!

Re:ego

[Gilmoure]

Jack Thompson as Ronald McDonald would be scary.

Things not to do if you like your job

[Random5]

Pretty sure on the list of 'Things not to do if you like your job', admitting you're inspired by the competition and complimenting their design TO THE PRESS has got to be in the top 3.

Re:Things not to do if you like your job

[L4t3r4lu5]

I would probably go with defecating on the CEO's desk, being caught copulating with cleaning equipment, and attempting to snort toner out of the photocopier would take up those top slots, but hey, if you think you can get away with one of those...

Re:Things not to do if you like your job

[spruce]

In my defense, that mop was a slut

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

[Procasinator]

One of the problems OS X has is that it lacks the ability to use these menus through the keyboard easily. In Windows I can hit the Alt key, and quickly see all the menus I can open by using an other key (the letter used for the menu item will have an underscore). Such as Alt + F is the file menu.

Each menu item then can be accessed usually through an access key. So Alt - F - S would be save. I know in both Windows and Mac OS X you have direct save short cuts too, and you can configure short cuts to common items, but that's not I want.

What I want is to be able to access a menu list from the keyboard quickly while exploring, not remember various different short cuts.

Re:What Apple does right

[TheRaven64]

One of the problems OS X has is that it lacks the ability to use these menus through the keyboard easily

Remembering the shortcuts on Macs is usually easier because they are consistent (ignoring the three different ways I have of making Apple's video-playing apps run full screen, and the fourth way that VLC uses). On Windows, an entire key on the keyboard is reserved for going to the menu bar. This is something that most users don't do - they either click on the menu with the mouse or hit shortcuts directly - and so on OS X is a chord. By default, it's control-F2, but it's configurable in System Preferences, so if you want it to be something easier to hit then you can change it.

Re:What Apple does right

[gtomorrow]

System Prefs > Mouse & Keyboard > Keyboard shortcuts*.

A quick look tells me that CTRL-F2 puts focus on the menubar, CTRL-F3 places focus on the Dock, etc etc. OSX has had this since (someone correct if i'm wrong) since at least 10.2 .

So, that's about enough of this "can't navigate in OSX without the mouse" propaganda. [/wishful thinking]

* Apologies if the wording isn't exact as i'm translating from the italian.

Re:What Apple does right

[Procasinator]

Which is slower, as I mentioned in a reply to another poster who brought this up.

Might not be important to some people, but to me, it's a feature I miss in Mac OS X land.

Re:What Apple does right

[TheRaven64]

I don't understand your complaint. On windows, you do alt, F, S and get to the save menu item in the file menu. On OS X you do contol-F2, F, S, and get to the save menu. It is just one more keystroke. I'm not sure why this is better than using shortcuts to jump straight to the menu though, nor why you think pressing keys to explore the menu is better than using the mouse.

Re:What Apple does right

[caseih]

Definitely sounds like person who has only used a Mac on occasion. I used to think like you about it until I actually used a Mac for a while. Actually I find OS X and most OS X applications to be more keyboard-friendly than Windows. Every single command you use frequently has or can be assigned a command-something combination (or control-something). So things like open, close, print, save are always assigned the same command key sequence across all apps. That's a time saver right there. Why alt-f-s when command-s will do? While most Windows users will actually click on file->save to save their document, very few Mac users I've seen bother with clicking on the menus for most common tasks; it's all done with the keyboard.

As was said earlier in the discussion, OS X and Windows come from very different philosophies. You speak of how you want to explore the menu. On OS X that's absolutely wrong. If you have to explore the menu to find something, then someone screwed up. Deep, nested menus are considered bad on OS X. Besides, alt-something-something-something reminds me of emacs!

There are many inconsistencies in OS X that are legitimate grievances. But not being able to alt-something-something-something the menu doesn't appear to me to be that important. I'm far more frustrated on a daily basis by how OS X eats the click that focuses a window (now I use command-tab and command-` to focus windows anyway without the mouse), that you have enable keyboard navigation in dialog boxes as it's off by default, and that carbon and cocoa apps behave so differently.

Both systems have their inconsistencies, and both are getting better in this regard. And from what I can tell from using Windows 7, Windows is getting more usable and mac-like all the time.

Re:What Apple does right

[johneee]

users. Let the users tell you what is good and bad. Build the interface to match the user.

The interesting thing here is that your evidence doesn't match the examples.

Microsoft puts every single thing they do in front of users, and tests it to death. Apple puts some really smart, good designers in a room and they do what they think is best. (overly simplified, but you get the idea)

One of the first things Jobs did when he came to Apple was to kill the UI research group. They have a unified, attractive and logical interface because they keep it tightly controled and don't let groups of just anyone come in and tell them to change things. They're also secretive to the point of paranoia, which means they'd never be able to do user testing groups before launch of anything.

Microsoft is bland because every single thing they do is tested over and over and over again with user groups, which gives them a lot of data, but means they end up with the lowest common denominator on everything.

You can make your own decision on which is better.

I actually read something that made the case that Microsoft was too consumer focussed. This is around the time when MS had just got the security religion and the person said that until then, nobody was asking for security in their focus groups and market research, just features and compatibility with older software. Geeks were asking for security, but they made up a relatively small number of people in the market. When worms,viri and root-kits and all that started being more and more prevelent, people started asking for security, and so MS started doing security.

Short version: Ask your users what they need all you want, but you're always going to be a reactive organization, and you're never going to surprise anyone, because they'll always just get what they ask for. If you make educated guesses what they need, you'll sometimes blow them away with something awesome.

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:What Apple does right

[gtomorrow]

Okay, try this...

1) CTRL-F2 (yes, yes, bear with me)
2) Type the first letter of the menu item you want*
3) Down arrow
4) Repeat step 2
5) Repeat 2-3 until you drill down to the desired command and hit "enter"

* If by chance there are two menu items with the same first letter, it's sufficient to type the first and second letter.

How is this slower if not more efficient than ALT-whatever?

Only happy to help.

So?

[war4peace]

So a Microsoft employee says something out the top of his head. In a normal discussion between me and you, this would be just an opinion, something along the lines of "I think that...". But change the speaker and all of a sudden it's along the lines of "BIG SECRET REVEALED!!!1111" kind of thing. Even worse, for most people it becomes one with the company's official PoV and this simple statement grows so much that the company must spit out a rebuttal via an official channel/spokesman.
We are living in a twisted, perverted world, where one can't express an opinion without being beheaded by both the press and the company he's working for. God help us all! :)

Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a Mac and Windows 7 was MY idea

employee who 'inaccurate and uninformed'

[hibernia]

and no longer has a job

Hello Streisand

[je ne sais quoi]

Well, considering that I had no idea what that guy said until I read it here, I'd say MS is putting more fuel on the fire by saying that. Would it have ended up on slashdot even if MS hadn't issued the denial? Maybe, but by denying it, it ensured it ended up on slashdot. In any case, this guy has the title, "partner group manager" which sounds like not only is he a manager but, suspiciously, in marketing too. It is funny though that MS periodically has these guys go off the reservation and start spouting not tactful, but perhaps true comments.

But anyway, considering that Apple has put a huge amount of effort into streamlining their OS and making it more responsive to the user, just in general I think that's a good thing to emulate in your OS. For example, I can remember waiting on 10.0 and 10.1 for what seemed like eternities for the spinning beach ball to quit but that's gotten a lot better with recent releases. (Don't get me started on if you were trying to log onto an ftp server that wasn't responding.)

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

[JerryLove]

So Mac copied Xerox Star, and Windows Copied Mac? Do you know who copied whom for OS/2, Amegia Workbench, NeXT, Linux, BeOS, and GeoWorks; all of which have similar WIMP interfaces?

It would be silly to say that any (other than STAR) evolved in a vacuum; but "borrowing ideas" has happened in every direction.

This is not like OS X!

[zebslash]

Microsoft has issued an official rebuttal: "We never used OS X as a source of inspiration in the design of Windows 7. This is completely uninformed. We used KDE 4 instead".

Ideas don't occur in a vacuum

[Interoperable]

Apple has a lot of good ideas that Windows and Linux copy. Likewise, Windows and Linux generate a lot of good ideas that the other two copy. It's not surprising that Windows is mimicking some OSX features (and it obviously is). It would just be nice if Microsoft and Apple stopped getting patents on every damned thing (sudo) and acknowledged that other can have good ideas. Personally, I think Windows would do better to take pages from the KDE book, but maybe that's just personal taste.

Re:If this is true...

[recoiledsnake]

Windows 7 is still clunky, slow, and unstable.

Citation needed. I use Windows 7 and it's certainly not one of those.

Re:For everything Apple does one way

[Mitchell314]

There'd be a lot more tech support calls to Apple if you could easily get rid of the top menu bar.

Save face?

[professorguy]

The employee specifically said they copied the Mac's "look and feel" which is a determining factor for infringement lawsuits. So as far as lawyers are concerned, he basically said "We stole some of Apple's work."

They ain't trying to save face. They are trying to save a lawsuit loss (i.e., money).

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.

Re:Save face?

[Quarters]

Double Jeopardy protects a person from being tried twice for the same crime. It doesn't mean that you can't be held accountable for committing the same type of crime multiple times. If you don't believe me try this; go speeding through a school zone at 80-90mph on a weekday morning. Keep doing this until you are pulled over by the police. Get the ticket, go to trial, pay the money, go to jail, etc.... When all of that is behind you start speeding through school zones again. The next time the cops pull you over look them in the eye and calmly say, "I can do this all I want now, I've already been tried and convicted for this." The Apple/MS look and feel lawsuit you are referring to was about a specific Microsoft product possibly borrowing the look and feel from a specific Apple product. Since both of those products predate Win 7 and Apple OS X the ruling (or dismissal, I can't really remember what happened) in that suit has no bearing whatsoever on whether there has been copying/borrowing going on with both companies current products.

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" :)

As reported on by zdnet australia

[jonaskoelker]

"We never used OS X as a source of inspiration in the design of Windows 7. This is completely uninformed. We used KDE 4 instead".

That's not far from the truth.

Or at least, if you tell people KDE4 is Windows 7, they believe it.

Re:If this is true...

[d34dluk3]

Windows 7 is still clunky, slow, and unstable.

Citation needed. I use Windows 7 and it's certainly not one of those.

Which one of them is it not?

Re:If only....

[Procasinator]

Ummm... Windows Vista and onwards is more secure out of the box. I mean, Mac OS X hasn't even really implemented ASLR yet. That Mac OS X is more secure is a common misconception.

Read this: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/hack-windows-security-snow-leopard,8704.html

Charlier Miller covers why he thinks Windows is more secure than Mac OS X.

Re:Put aside the ego...

[jedidiah]

Don't try to bullshit the rest of us. Windows gets shoved down our collective throats so we can't help but have experience with it. This isn't like MacOS where you're only ever going to have experience with it if you explicitly seek it out.

Need encryption? Try using a tool that explicitly ensures it. There is even a "checkbox" for it.