Snow Leopard and Windows 7: Two flavors of the same GUI?

ZDNet ^ | June 4th, 2009 | Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Has Microsoft, after more than 20 years of work, finally come up with an operating system that rivals the Mac OS? Are the two just different flavors of the same GUI?

Hadley Stern, writing for Apple Matters, thinks this might be the case.

It may have taken Microsoft 20 odd years to figure this one out but there is some pretty big news on the horizon. Of course the market-share battle is lost for Apple, although it continues to chip away here and there. But the innovation-share battle continues. And the big big big news:

Windows 7 Doesn’t Really Suck

…

Unless Apple is hiding something very very very big with Snow Leopard Apple is about to lose the high-ground (and bullying rights) when it comes to its operating system. The blunders of Vista were easy to pick at, picking on Windows 7 will be nitpicking at best, stupidity at worst. For all intents and purposes Snow Leopard and Windows 7 are two flavors of the same GUI.

I’m not so sure. Why?

[antiRepublicrat]

Mklinux was way back in 96.

I'm sure somebody was playing with it, but I've never seen a source that said Apple did. PinkOS was about 96 for Apple.

[antiRepublicrat]

then they need a new interface.

That is true. The Windows interface is pretty wastefull with all of those application menus.

[Terpfen]

Not just the application menus, but all the system submenus. Just changing your desktop wallpaper in Windows requires going through some of the least intuitive menu options ever conceived.

I was excited about Windows 7 finally fixing all this... but then I loaded up the RC and found the Start menu still exists. I facepalmed.

[ketsu]

I'm sure somebody was playing with it, but I've never seen a source that said Apple did. PinkOS was about 96 for Apple.

Don't be stupid. Google is your friend.

[antiRepublicrat]

I see why I didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t part of the serious path to OS X, just a side project Apple allowed a couple developers to pursue and maybe let Apple learn something from it.

[Sudetenland]

Get a sense of humor...as I said just like a Liberal cult.

[dalight]

Sense of humor about you just yapping and saying stuff that just not right and smearing everyone who isn't masochistic enough to bear the horror of what has been foist upon them as an operating system?

Honestly if Windows 7 is great, then wonderful. For now, I like my Mac and this has been going on for the past 20 years.

And I am no Liberal. Your joke isn't funny, just lame.

[Sudetenland]

WAAAHHH!!!

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

Okay. For some technical work I must do, I’ve needed a new Windows installation, so I set up Boot Camp on my Mac and downloaded/installed the Release Candidate for Win 7.

It’s not bad. Unfortunately, it’s not particularly good either. It’s different enough from XP to annoy users whose first prerogative is to endure as little change as possible. There’s enough new about the way it works that some might wonder if they might as well look at entirely different OSes. And my impression of the interface is one of clunkiness in a fancy wrapper, like a Big Mac on fine Wedgwood china. At least in this release-candidate configuration, it lacks the silkiness and intuitiveness of OS X and doesn’t quite have the responsiveness that I was really hoping it would have. Stability has been good, though. I’ll have more to say about compatibility after a few more days of work with it. But my sense is that Apple doesn’t have much to worry about.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the info...right now I am running Linux Mint 32 (new Release Gloria...32 bit version ) waiting for the 64 bit version.

Most of what I do is web browsing and trying version Linux versions....so I am pretty happy.

I do have a recent HP laptop running Vista...doesn't get much use however.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Mac OS X 10.6 is BSD Unix at its core

That was always my understanding....

Been looking at OpenSolaris as a way to get to a more bulletproof foundation...but I don't have anything close to real developer skills....just doing downloads and playing a JQ Public Joe doing a simple minded install and very slight tweaking.

I keep taking a crack at PC BSD but have trouble with various X11 windows ....wide screen resolution,..KVM switch...

Mostly just entertaining myself.

[rlmorel]

"...I sneer at your indecent Win 7. Furthermore, I arrogantly denounce you and all your sordid ways, which I shall shortly expose if you continue with this unjustified attack on a superior product..."

Hehehe...

Folks, we could all use some humor here. I just watched part of the keynote, and being a medical/IT professional, just got completely caught up in the potential use of a platform like the iPhone in medicine. It was great, a technowoody so to speak!

As I felt the rank optimism of the promise of technology (which is one of the main reasons why many of us love technology, right?) I suddenly had this incredibly sad feeling: This is all going to go away.

The point is, folks: Enjoy it. No matter whether it is Windows, Mac or Linux that floats your boat, it's all good stuff. We really like using it, and in the end, that's what counts.

(Steps down off of soapbox...:)