Posted on 06/02/2006 9:17:14 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Where does Windows Vista fit among many of the PC-based operating systems of today and the last couple of decades? With Beta 2 running on multiple test units, I feel comfortable predicting that Windows Vista will not outpace Mac OS X Tiger for overall quality and usability. It's hard to beat Apple's top-notch GUI design grafted onto an implementation of Unix variant BSD. Mac OS X has excellent reliability, security and usability. That isn't to say that the user interface wouldn't gain if Apple adopted some other best ideas of the day, but Apple has the best operating system this year, last year and next year. It'll be interesting to see what the company delivers in its 10.5 Leopard version of Mac OS X.
Meanwhile, I'm placing Windows Vista as a distant second-best to OS X. I see Linux and Windows 2000 as being roughly tied another notch or two below Vista, with XP being only a half step better than Win 2000.
So, why is the year-old Mac OS X Tiger so much better than Windows Vista, which Microsoft won't even ship before January 2007? It isn't that Apple has put more effort into its operating system; Microsoft has mounted a gargantuan effort on Windows Vista. It's that the two companies have very different goals. I've come to believe that Microsoft has lost touch with its user base.
1. Little originality, sometimes with a loss of elegance.Everywhere you look, Microsoft has copied things that Apple has offered for quite some time in OS X. The User Account Control features, especially with the Vista Standard log-in, look a lot like Apple's user interface design. Too bad Microsoft doesn't let you lock and unlock things (leaving those settings permanent) the way Apple does. More than 15 years later, Microsoft is still following Apple in operating system design and bundled materials. With some notable exceptions (including IE7+, where it copied Mozilla, and the Windows Sidebar, where it bests Apple, Google and everyone in user-interface design), Microsoft is belaboring the point by reinventing the wheel, often with an overall reduction in productivity and usability.
I have no problem with Microsoft copying Apple's or any other company's best interface designs. We all win when that happens, and I wish Apple would steal the best things Microsoft does right back. What's really strange is when a company lifts good ideas and makes them worse, not better.
The bitter end
After more than 15 years reviewing Windows operating systems, I didn't just suddenly begin hating Microsoft or Windows. (Although I have to admit, OS X is looking better and better of late.) Windows Vista has plenty of good aspects to recommend it. In a future article, Computerworld will make plain the many good things about Windows Vista. When the product ships, we'll also make some final recommendations on the new operating system.
In all fairness, if nothing else, Vista fixes what's been wrong with Windows for years; IE system integration, for example.
The issue is that Vista only fixes those problems. It's the ultimate Windows service pack in that regard; it just fixes everything that's been wrong with Windows. Now it needs to start doing things right... good luck, Microsoft.
In the meantime, I hope to get a MacBook Pro by or just after Leopard debuts.
The 20 things:
20. Minimum video system requirements are more like maximum.
19. Aero stratification will cause businesses woe.
18. User Account Controls $#^%!~\!!!.
17. Two words: Secure Desktop.
16. No way to access the Administrator account in Vista Beta 2.
15. Some first-blush networking peeves.
14. Windows peer networking is still balky.
13. Network settings user experience went backwards.
12. Too many Network Control Panel applets, wizards and dialogs.
11. Display settings have changed for no apparently good reason.
10. Where are the file menus?
9. Windows Defender Beta 2 is buggy.
8. Problems without solutions.
7. Lack of Windows Sidebar Gadgets.
6. Media Center isn't all there and falls flat.
5. Faulty assumption on the Start Menu.
4. Installation takes forever.
3. Version control.
2. Price.
1. Little originality, sometimes with a loss of elegance.
Hey, CP/M is listed. I remember CP/M.
Nah, not difficult.
Impossible.
Service Pack 3 . . . three years late.
Ho hum.
Is this what you call FUD?
Now show the other graph... Marketshare.
BTW I guarantee with in 6 months Vista will have a higher marketshare than OS X does.
The one distorted by monopolistic behavior?
Oh you mean how Apple does not allow for its OS to be ported to the PC? that kind of behavior?
Of course not. Don't expose your ignorance of economics by channeling Golden Eagle.
I'm talking about Microsoft's monopolistic behavior.
Oh boo hooo if you can afford a $50 video card you dont need Aero, BTW most of the latest integrated video is Aero compliant.
OH, your talking about the itunes format.
The "itunes format" (whatever that is...) affects OS marketshare how?
You really are completely ignorant of economics.
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