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Windows Businesses Operating Systems Software Apple

Apple's Windows Apps Not Ready For Vista 278

Posted by kdawson from the day-late dept.
narramissic writes "A new Apple technical support document confirms that none of the company's Windows Applications are compatible with Vista. Affected applications include: 'QuickTime, the iPod shuffle reset utility, Bonjour for Windows, AirPort for Windows, the iDisk utility, AppleWorks for Windows, and Apple Software Update for Windows. The stand-alone iPod updater for iTunes 6 for Windows also isn't ready for Vista.'" The article refers to an Apple tech support document dated "today" (02/08) — without providing a link — but a search turns up only this one from 02/02.
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Apple's Windows Apps Not Ready For Vista More

Apple's Windows Apps Not Ready For Vista

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  • Not exactly accurate (Score:5, Informative)

    by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) * on Thursday February 08, 2007 @03:45PM (#17938708)
    Not "ready" or "supported" on Vista != "doesn't work on Vista" or "never will be supported on Vista"

    Also, what does "compatible with Vista" mean in this context to most users? If a product works just fine on Vista, what does something being not "compatible with Vista" mean to end users?

    That is, all of these pieces of software work fine, except iTunes, for which Apple has released a temporary fix [apple.com] until the next iTunes release, which will officially support Vista. The next QuickTime release will also officially support Vista, though the current release works fine.

    Yes, yes, they're not officially supported on Vista and that's a consideration, but this submission acts as if none of Apple's Windows apps even work on Vista, when actually they all do.

    Also, that isn't a "new" Apple technical support article. It's been around since at least November 2006, and simply enumerates the versions of Windows officially supported by Apple's various software products for Windows. Considering Apple has already stated that at least two products (iTunes and QuickTime) will officially support Vista in their next versions, and Apple has released a temporary fix for their only Windows product that has identified problems with Vista (iTunes), I fail to see how this is news.

    Should all of these applications have been qualified for Vista? Perhaps. But this is Apple we're talking about here, and meanwhile Microsoft has systematically killed off several major products on Mac OS X, even as Mac OS X's marketshare increases (Windows Media Player (Flip4Mac is neat, but is no substitute and also doesn't support Windows Media DRM), Virtual PC, VB in Office, Outlook, and so on).

    Apple's new Apple Software Update for Windows (which does work on Vista) will bring down new versions of itself, and every other applicable Apple product, in a seamless and automated fashion when they become available.

    Next? (Slow news day?)

    • Re:Not exactly accurate (Score:4, Informative)

      by dedazo ( 737510 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @03:54PM (#17938850) Journal
      This sounds a bit apologetic, but the bottom line is that Apple has had two years (at least) to get their shit together with widely available documentation and SDKs from Microsoft that many other software companies have happily used so far.

      Of course, as you say "not ready" doesn't mean "doesn't work", but I would expect Apple to *at least* get Quicktime to function correctly. If they're not interested, that's fine. It's not like Microsoft needs Apple software to work on Windows. It's the other way around at least for the time being.

      I have no idea what "has systematically killed products blah blah" has to do with anything. If Apple wants to systematically kill their apps on the Windows platform, I'd say that's fine. Quicktime has gotten better in the past few years but it's still buggy and brittle. At least it doesn't take over every media association in my computer and try to stick me with a non-removable tray icon anymore.

      • Re:Not exactly accurate (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Nasarius ( 593729 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:16PM (#17939196)

        widely available documentation and SDKs from Microsoft that many other software companies have happily used so far
        These "many other software companies" apparently does not include Microsoft [microsoft.com].
        • Hello, We are talking about the latest versions of Apple software, you are talking about 2 previous version of Visual Studio .Net. Had you read on on your link you might have noticed:

          Microsoft released Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 and the beta of the Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Update for Windows Vista. For more information, see Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1. To submit feedback on the Visual Studio on Windows Vista issue lists, or to report new issues, please visit Microsoft Connect.

          • Re:Not exactly accurate (Score:5, Informative)

            by Nasarius ( 593729 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:44PM (#17939676)
            No, I'm talking about Visual Studio 2005, which gives you an enormous warning message when installing on Vista. There was no update when Vista was released to businesses, and now after it's available to everyone, the update is still in beta. It sort of invalidates GP's snide attitude about having "two years (at least) to get their shit together", when Microsoft still doesn't have its shit together.

          • Re:Not exactly accurate (Score:4, Informative)

            by Jim_Maryland ( 718224 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @05:13PM (#17940128)
            Check out ESRI's desktop products for support on Microsoft Vista [esri.com]. Apple is by no means the only company to not immediately support Microsoft's latest OS. Yes, releases have been available but that doesn't require the company to have an update immediately available. How long have some of the Apple products been out?

            Oh, I looked at some of the IBM Tivoli documents as well and when selecting the OS in the support section, they haven't updated to include MS Windows Vista yet. I also saw the following question in one of the Tivoli support questions:

            Problem
            Several customers have asked if TBSM has plans to support the soon to be released Vista Operating System.

            Solution
            Due to the upcoming TBSM 4.1 release, there are currently no plans for TBSM 3.1 to support/run on the Microsoft Vista O/S.



            From the BEA WebLogic site, neither their current release (9.2) or their preview release (10) are listed as supporting Vista. They only cover XP.

            From a quick check of the Oracle website, they didn't have support at Vista release as well. 32 bit support 1st quarter 2007, 64 bit sometime in the second half.

            Why bash Apple when they are not the only company that hasn't jumped at Microsoft's latest creation.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dedazo ( 737510 )
          LOL and all that, but no one uses VS2002 anyway, and those who have not moved to 2005 and are still running 2003 can do so in Vista, with caveats. I run VS2003 on an HP laptop with Vista Business and aside from a few minor annoyances it works well enough.

          Applications written with previous versions of the .NET runtime work perfectly well in Vista.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Saint Stephen ( 19450 )
          This one is pretty funny:

          Title: Opening IIS WAP project non-elevated silently fails to create misc files project

          * Description: A developer has already run Visual Studio with elevated permissions and created a new WAP project on IIS. The user then runs VS without elevation, and opens that project using MRU list. When opening this project without running VS elevated, the project opens fine, but all the ASP.NET functionality is broken and project will work more like a class library

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by nbritton ( 823086 )
        "This sounds a bit apologetic, but the bottom line is that Apple has had two years (at least) to get their shit together with widely available documentation and SDKs from Microsoft that many other software companies have happily used so far.

        What makes you think Apple wants to get their shit together for Vista? IMHO the less things that work with Vista the better...

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Grail ( 18233 )
        You seem to be operating on the assumption that Apple didn't get it's act together, when it's equally likely that the reason Apple's products aren't fully compatible with Vista is that Microsoft changed some API calls at the last minute in a way that was not fully compatible with the previous two years of that API's existence.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dedazo ( 737510 )
          If you can find a reference for that, I'll concede your point. I'll take a statement by Apple that says as much, and you'll have to ignore the hundreds of software titles out there that were updated in time for the Vista RTM using Microsoft's API reference.

          Thanks.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) *
          It's also equally likely that Apple's products were never fully compatible with XP in the first place. Apple's track record for Windows software isn't exactly what I would call stellar. Of course, neither is Microsoft's, and while Apple shines on their own platform, the Windows versions of software like QuickTime have often left much to be desired.

        • Why, because QTW and iTW are stellar examples of following Windows API calls? I'm not sure, plenty of other companies seem to have done just fine with media applications and compatibility with Vista - not that I use them, but Sony (ew, yes) just released a slew of DVD authoring software updates, and other media application updates for Vista for their Vaio bundles - they seem to do just fine.

          I actually expect that that "last minute undocumented API changes" is rather unlikely as the reason, considering buil

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Mr 44 ( 180750 )
          How is the parent comment in any way insightful? Vista RC1 was released 5 months ago, and there were very very few major changes from RC1 to RTM. And it would be one thing if thir software worked perfectly on Beta2 or RC1, but thats clearly not the case...

      • Re:Not exactly accurate (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Trillan ( 597339 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:33PM (#17939498) Homepage Journal

        I don't understand why Apple is being held to this standard. I can't remember the last time Microsoft Office didn't require an update to move from "sorta works" to "supported" following a major Mac OS X update.

        Likewise, I'm not blaming Microsoft here. The product I worked on until a few months ago isn't supported on Vista yet (something that's entirely unrelated to me being on something else).

        The point of pre-release software is to test that software. We use pre-releases to prepare for major changes, to report unintentional changes back to the vendor, and to build a list of issues to re-check and possibly fix in the final. Sometimes if we're doing something wrong that's being exposed, it'll get fixed right away, but we don't try to work around ever pre-release OS issue.

        If you live on the razor's edge, expect a bit of blood from time to time.

      • Re:Not exactly accurate (Score:4, Insightful)

        by p0tat03 ( 985078 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:38PM (#17939580)

        You're right, a lot of documentation has been available for a long time now, but you're forgetting two things:

        1 - The last release of iTunes was a quite a while ago, it is quite likely that the Vista API has changed since then. If Apple released iTunes now and it wasn't compatible, there would be no excuse, but during iTunes' development, many aspects of the OS were still up in the air.

        2 - Many companies that are using the "widely available" documentation is having trouble getting their apps to play nice with Vista, and those that have released things in the last year or so find themselves having to patch their app to work right under Vista. This includes my company.

        Apple is far from alone in the "help! my legacy app doesn't work in Vista!" camp.

      • It sounds like they do have versions of their software that works "perfectly" under Vista instead of being "unsupported". They just don't want to release the version yet, for whatever reason is part of the speculation.

        The cynic in me thinks that there is something fishy going on from both Microsoft and Apple. And I know for a fact many older games which ran fine on XP won't exactly be "Vista Supported" either so why the hate? This is just the usual bumps and hiccups for any upgrade rollout.

      • Re:Not exactly accurate (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Garse Janacek ( 554329 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @05:15PM (#17940158)

        Of course, as you say "not ready" doesn't mean "doesn't work", but I would expect Apple to *at least* get Quicktime to function correctly.

        Uhm, isn't that the point the GP was making? It does function correctly. At least, that's what people seem to be saying (I don't have Vista myself). So it isn't officially supported yet, so what? It would be kind of silly to declare "official support" before having the real, final, public version(s) of Vista so they can work out all the details (as opposed to the beta versions they can use to recognize major issues and minor things that may become issues if they last into the final version).

        With minor exceptions, these applications work. They function correctly. They just don't have official support from Apple yet, but they will soon. Why is this even a slashdot story?

      • "the bottom line is that Apple has had two years (at least) to get their [stuff] together with widely available documentation and SDKs from Microsoft that many other software companies have happily used so far."

        Yes, you could say that, or you could also take note that several other companies are in a similar position. For instance, Cisco barely has a beta VPN client for 32 bit Vista http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929490# [microsoft.com] and they aren't alone. Perhaps part of the issue is that Vista is "so secure" that e

      • Re:Not exactly accurate (Score:4, Insightful)

        by w3woody ( 44457 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @05:24PM (#17940312) Homepage
        In a large corporate environment such as Apple or where I work, you cannot officially claim that your product works on a consumer install of a particular operating system until someone from QA goes to the store, picks up the consumer install disk (or you get the consumer install disk in the mail--the pre-release "Release Candidate" install doesn't count) and actually tests the entire product on the final release operating system--even if you have been using Vista internally for development for more than a couple of years.

        There have been several times when the final release of the operating system in the consumer channel was "slip streamed" to fix last minute bugs--and while the potential of one of those last minute fixes affecting your code is low, it's not unprecedented.

        So for Apple to claim that they do not officially support Vista right now just goes more to conservative QA testing than it does to sloppy programming, not having access to pre-release builds of Vista or not caring about the product.
    • Supporting this, I've had absolutely zero problems using iTunes and Quicktime on Vista, though I only sync my iPod using my MBP, so I don't know what the issues are there.

      I have to say that iTunes is butt ugly on Vista, much like it was on XP. Hopefully they'll at least make some use of the compositing engine in the next one to make it fit in somewhat better.

    • Re:Not exactly accurate (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @03:57PM (#17938902)
      Thank you.

      I don't seem to remember it being such a big deal when Microsoft was fashionably late to the porting-apps-to-OSX party. Their stuff (mostly) worked under Classic from day one. It was no big deal; folks barely even noticed.

      Comparatively speaking, this is making a mountain out of an almost imperceptible molehill.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bitserf ( 756357 )

      I'm sorry that I'm using iTunes on Vista with no problems.

      I didn't know I had to wait until it was "ready" or "compatible", since "working" seems to imply former.

  • Not Ready (Score:5, Funny)

    by drooling-dog ( 189103 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @03:47PM (#17938734)
    With so few 3rd-party applications available, it would appear that Windows Vista is simply not ready for the desktop.

    • Re:Not Ready (Score:5, Informative)

      by archen ( 447353 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:03PM (#17938970)
      Not just applications, but hardware for that matter. I just found out that my HP5400 scanner won't work with Vista. HP says too bad, "consider buying a new product (from us)". It's sort of interesting that people criticize Linux for it's driver support as they're mostly written by someone other than the vendor, but windows depends on those vendors for drivers which means you're often SOL after a certain period of time.

      • Re:Not Ready (Score:5, Informative)

        by Nasarius ( 593729 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:52PM (#17939794)
        Ha! I saw a few days ago that Logitech [logitech.com] is doing the same thing:

        This Camera will not work with Windows Vista. Please see our list of newer Vista compatible cameras.
        Nice.

        • Re:Not Ready (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Tony Hoyle ( 11698 ) <tmh@nodomain.org> on Thursday February 08, 2007 @05:06PM (#17940028) Homepage
          I'll see your camera and raise you a Laptop.

          I have Asus A6T bought new in October, covered in 'Vista capable' stickers.

          Asus do *not* intend to produce vista drivers for this model, Apparently a 64bit dual core laptop is 'obsolete' according to their techs.

          Asus suck.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by JoeRandomHacker ( 983775 )

            I have Asus A6T bought new in October, covered in 'Vista capable' stickers.

            Asus do *not* intend to produce vista drivers for this model, Apparently a 64bit dual core laptop is 'obsolete' according to their techs.
            Sounds like that model is class action lawsuit-ready.

          • Isn't it funny (Score:3, Interesting)

            by tkrotchko ( 124118 ) *
            Isn't it funny that as people who love technology, we're faced with Vista that has really awful drivers support, obnoxious licensing, exists as a way to force a unified DRM model on all users, and yet we all sit around and say "Well, I guess I'll eventually repurchase everything, seeing as how Windows has to win out".

            I'll paraphrase a joke.

            A old Unix hacker was sitting around and he prayed to god... he said "Dear God, I don't like Windows Vista. It's everything I don't like, the vendor has a bad attitude,

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ucklak ( 755284 )
        It situations like yours that makes me feel good about buying hardware that is equally supported between the Lin/Mac/Win world.

        I have an Epson 3490 Scanner
        Samsung ML-1710 printer
        MadDog external dual layer DVD burner (haven't burned it in linux yet but it works so far as a drive)

        Yeah, that limits it to a few vendors but I got burned on a scanner back in the Win9x days and I'll never do that again.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by rifter ( 147452 )

        Not just applications, but hardware for that matter. I just found out that my HP5400 scanner won't work with Vista. HP says too bad, "consider buying a new product (from us)".

        That's nothing new. Typically HP direct-attach printers and scanners only work with one version of Windows. They expect you to buy a new one every time a new version comes out. The only exception seems to be their network printers which are usually bought by corporate customers, have a more or less generic interface, are more expen

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by QuantumG ( 50515 ) *
      Not to mention the terrible driver support, and where's all the games? Macs have more games than Vista, and compared to consoles, no PC platform has any signficant number of games.

  • They're in good company.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by edwardpickman ( 965122 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @03:47PM (#17938736)
    I'm not ready for Vista.
  • Dont know if Apple is deliberately creating FUD by claiming that Vista breaks all these applications or if some deep skunkworks inside Microsoft nostalgic for the good old days of "DOS is not done, till DR-DOS wont run".

    • Re:Repeat of DOS is not done? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Why2K ( 29813 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @03:53PM (#17938830)
      "DOS is not done, till DR-DOS wont run"

      That doesn't make any sense. The quote was "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run."

      • Maybe someone said it the other way after microsoft specifically coded windows 3.11 to check for drdos and fail.

        The lotus way was the original version I used to hear and use.

    • Re:Repeat of DOS is not done? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:05PM (#17939002) Homepage

      Dont know if Apple is deliberately creating FUD by claiming that Vista breaks all these applications or if some deep skunkworks inside Microsoft nostalgic for the good old days of "DOS is not done, till DR-DOS wont run".

      Or, maybe, the apps are actually broken on Windows, and Microsoft didn't set out to break Apple's stuff.

      Microsoft changed a lot of stuff, maybe it just broke in a predictable but not malicious way. I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but even I don't need to see a conspiracy here.

      Cheers

  • Misleading (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Adam Zweimiller ( 710977 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @03:49PM (#17938762) Homepage
    From my experience, Quicktime works fine under Vista, and I've used it extensively. The apple software update works as well. Perhaps they mean it works, but just isn't supported?

    • Re:Misleading (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @03:52PM (#17938802) Journal
      No I think it has more to do with paying MS for the little bit of QA that lets them put the "certified for Vista" sticker on the box.

      I have a handful of old NES carts that never bore the "Nintendo Seal of Quality", and they worked fine too.

      This is just slashdot at it's lamest level of its-not-news-but-we-can-bash-msft-if-we-spin-it-is hness

  • Didn't work six months ago (Score:4, Insightful)

    by David Horn ( 772985 ) <davidNO@SPAMpocketgamer.org> on Thursday February 08, 2007 @03:49PM (#17938774) Homepage
    I remember the iPod updater didn't work back in June with RC1. I don't know why Apple's waited this long to even announce that their software doesn't work - although I have a sneaky suspicion it might solely be for PR purposes. "Look at this awful operating system. It breaks EVERYTHING! Buy a Mac instead."

    Or perhaps there's a completely innocent explanation and I'm just being a touch paranoid.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by 0racle ( 667029 )
      Everyone, including Microsoft, has waited for Vista to be released retail before handling Vista incompatibilities. Of the big ones I know of, Visual Studio also does not officially have Vista Support, and Vista RTM warns you of this when you install it.
    • Why would Apple announce their products don't work with a beta OS? The issues could have been their own or Vista's. But there's little point looking into the issues while the OS is still changing. Once the OS went live they confirmed issues they'd have to fix. Makes sense to me.

    • Re:Didn't work six months ago (Score:4, Insightful)

      by venicebeach ( 702856 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:11PM (#17939114) Homepage Journal

      I don't know why Apple's waited this long to even announce that their software doesn't work
      They have made no such announcement. As the editor notes, the only relevant tech support article is one that simply lists which versions of Windows each piece of Apple software is supported for. The article is updated when this information changes. It has not been updated to claim Vista support, since they don't promise that yet. This is different from Apple announcing that Vista breaks their software.
    • Before the final version is released, nothing is final. Why waste your time working on something only to have an API change with RC2?

      If I was writing software for Vista, I'd wait until release, too. I don't owe Microsoft any free beta testing, and it's not like a company that doesn't support Vista right now is going to go out of business for lack of users...most people will still be on XP for quite a while...

  • Not all that surprising... (Score:4, Informative)

    by ivan256 ( 17499 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @03:53PM (#17938832)
    Since installing Vista ultimate, my experience has been that less than half of software I used on XP which hasn't been updated specifically for Vista doesn't work. Many won't even install. It's going to take some time for the support to be reasonable.

    • Really? (Score:3, Informative)

      by iceperson ( 582205 )
      Can you name a few apps? I'm running Vista here and everything I've thrown at it works (short of iTunes which still won't work using any of the suggestions from Apple.) A few things I'm using just fine here are Dreamweaver/Fireworks/Flash, Photoshop, Acrobat Pro, OOo, and quite a few legacy in house apps.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by NSIM ( 953498 )
        I agree, so far I've found very little that doesn't work. Paintshop Pro X ran with degraded aero graphics, but PSP-XI is now out and solves that problem. The only other thing I've had problems with is Audio Cleaning Labs 11 from MAGIX, but they have a patch out now so that should be fixed. Apart from those two programs I've not had any problems with software compatibility.

  • Standard Operating Procedure (Score:5, Informative)

    by mpapet ( 761907 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @03:53PM (#17938836) Homepage
    In my experience, the devs didn't port anything to a brand-new OS release that wasn't their _core_ business until it was, for all practical purposes, released for sale.

    From a business perspective, there is little reason to rush to an OS that few people are using. Even if it's microsoft.

    Many consumer hardware/software vendors will have some kind of support for Vista by Q4. Apple included.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by |Cozmo| ( 20603 )
      I strongly disagree with that. If microsoft releases an OS you can be guaranteed that it will be shipping on almost every new PC sold after its release. I'd go as far as to say that the cost of getting your applications ready during pre-release stages of the OS is a lot less than the support hassle of pissed off customers calling you when the floodgates open.

      There's no reason 1 person in your company can't install a public beta of a new OS or service pack and try out your programs. You get months or even

  • Marketing decision? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bakeman ( 564040 )
    If all these applications are not officially supported on Vista and it is just hitting the press now, I'm guessing this is a marketing decision more than a technical one. Just a hunch.

  • hmm... (Score:2, Funny)

    by slashes ( 930844 )
    Do I smell sabotage? It's quite ironic that all these Apple programs are "broken" in Windows Vista. Why not other programs? Maybe I'm thinking a bit to farfetched, but I wouldn't be surprised if somebody from the Microsoft side deliberately told its software engineers to somehow break compatablity with Apple programs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MoneyT ( 548795 )
      Sabotage? Unlikely. I recently had the misfortune of installing vista. After finally coercing the installer to install (it won't unless all the installed hardware in the machine is supported, and apparently vista doesn't like the IDE controllers that XP likes) I finally managed to get vista running, only to discover that despite supporting my sound card (a CL Soundblaster something or other) I still have no sound, and various tiny applications seem buggy at best (VLC for example runs about half the time, an

  • There are two possibilities ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by boxlight ( 928484 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @03:56PM (#17938880)
    I don't for a moment believe this is an accident. Since Apple surely had access to the beta versions of Windows Vista all along to make sure their apps were compatible with Vista, there are two distinct possibilities:

    a) Apple intentionally did not release Vista compatible versions of their software so that their iPod/iTunes masses would have a compelling reason to not buy Vista and consider buying a Mac instead.

    b) Microsoft intentionally submarined Apple's software, specifically iPod/iTunes, because they want they Vista upgraders to consider dumping their iPod in favor of a Zune.

    Either way, it's interesting that the music player industry would have such a compelling affect on choice of operating systems. I guess MP3 is this generation's killer app.

    boxlight

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:07PM (#17939042)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • a) Apple intentionally did not release Vista compatible versions of their software so that their iPod/iTunes masses would have a compelling reason to not buy Vista and consider buying a Mac instead.
      If that was really their intention, why would they release a temporary fix [apple.com]?

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

        If that was really their intention, why would they release a temporary fix?

        Misdirection.

        The question isn't whether you're paranoid, it's whether you're paranoid enough.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Grail ( 18233 )
      Don't forget option (c):

      c) With four months to go till release, Microsoft modified some part(s) of the Windows Vista API as part of their continuing efforts to shoehorn the X-Box DirectX into the Windows codebase. This left the people writing software for Vista playing catch-up, with many of them not quite ready when Vista was actually launched.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by dreamlax ( 981973 )

      b) Microsoft intentionally submarined Apple's software, specifically iPod/iTunes, because they want they Vista upgraders to consider dumping their iPod in favor of a Zune.
      But the Zune doesn't work with Vista either!

  • Backwards Compatible? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Applekid ( 993327 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @03:56PM (#17938888)
    It's often been suggested that Microsoft give up a lot of legacy and backwards support in the Windows line and start anew. The official line to that is that Microsoft wants to assure customers of their commitment to existing technology blah blah blah.

    Seems like if your Windows 2000/XP applications aren't working on Vista then the backwards compatibility they treasure so much really isn't that important anyway.

    As I recall, Microsoft publically made available an RC version of Vista, and Apple makes iTunes and Quicktime (non-Pro, at least) available to everyone to download. Both parties should have known, but it would probably be in the best interests of Microsoft to make sure it would work since they are the ones putting themselves on a limb with Vista.

  • So much for backwards compatibility (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nysus ( 162232 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @03:58PM (#17938928)
    I'm always reading about poor Microsoft and how hard it is for them to have to make their OS backwards compatible with older software. I guess that's just a bunch of BS?
    • I challenge you to find a SINGLE Windows "Logo" certified application that does not run on Vista. Just one. (Not counting things like anti-virus, which use file system filters that were dramatically overhauled in Vista.)

      The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of backwards compatibility issues with Vista are due to the fact those applications are poorly written.

      Microsoft publishes [microsoft.com] some fairly simple rules that developers should follow to make sure their software is compatible with future (and curren

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Grail ( 18233 )
      I've only ever heard about the efforts that Microsoft goes to in order to make their Office products bug-for-bug compatible with previous versions.

      It's news to me that Microsoft has made any effort to make a new version of Windows particularly compatible with software from previous versions.
  • Is anyone but MS ready for Vista?

    It seems that MS is overextending themselves with Vista. Not that I care, but for their sake, I hope they haven't pinned all of their hopes on Vista taking the world by storm...I don't see it happening for a while. Too many businesses can't afford all of the hassles of switching to Vista at this point.

    And....LOL!...already planning (and announcing it for this year) the first service pack ready before the official release! No thanks, I'll pass.

    I am not going to downgrade from

  • It is about time to ditch QuickTime (Score:3, Insightful)

    by G3ckoG33k ( 647276 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:08PM (#17939066)
    QuickTime hasn't run on Linux in a long time.

    Apple, please port your apps to Linux first, and _then_ complain about Vista not waiting for you.

    - - -
  • Can't say I've heard of it, but I do like the sound of it.
  • ... 3 people care.

    Maybe apple should use their monopoly on portable media players to leverage OS/X, and not bother to write any vista iTunes software at all :D

  • Apple Probably Surprised (Score:3, Insightful)

    by catdevnull ( 531283 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:23PM (#17939308)
    Apple probably back-burnered development because:

    1) Ship dates for Vista were always slipping
    2) They were working on MacWorld O7 products under slave master Steve

    Besides, it's not like MS has the cleanest Karma in this regard anyways.

  • All a Bunch of Crap (Score:3, Informative)

    by jerquiaga ( 859470 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:23PM (#17939314)
    I'm using Vista Business and Vista Ultimate, and all of those products are working just fine for me. All of this hype over Vista breaking everything hasn't seemed to really pan out for me. The one program I haven't gotten to work is NetStumbler, and I have a feeling it's because MS changed the way drivers interact with the system, and NetStumbler doesn't like that. So, I don't see what all the fuss is about. I have three machines with three different sets of hardware and various apps, everything seems fine. Definitely not a large sample, but who knows. Everyone just calm down a bit.

  • Well bust my knuckles. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by underwhelm ( 53409 ) <underwhelmNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:24PM (#17939324) Homepage Journal
    I don't see Adobe or Intuit or anyone else in a great big hurry to release a new version of their software just because Microsoft has started selling Vista. Why should Apple be held to a different standard (i.e. that software released to work with one OS is expected work with the new OS the moment it hits the street)?

    The system requirements pages for Adobe Premiere [adobe.com] and Intuit's Quicken Deluxe [intuit.com] don't mention Vista. If either application doesn't work quite right under Vista, dag gummit, it must be a plot to RUIN MICROSOFT!... and not just the ordinary course of development for supporting new OS releases.

  • lots of stuff doesn't work with vista, antivirus and firewall stuff being the best known examples. every time somebody patches a hole, somebody else's favorite app breaks.

  • WHO CARES ABOUT iTunes? HOW ABOUT - CISCO (Score:5, Interesting)

    by n1_111 ( 597775 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:33PM (#17939502)
    CISCO does not have a production VPN Client compatible with Vista. There is a beta floating out there, but it does not work on several Vista boxes (fresh installs, and modified ones) that I tried it on. Here are statements from CISCO: "Cisco is planning to release the Vista 32-bit IPsec VPN Client at the end of March." "Vista 64-bit is planned for approximately CY3Q/CY4Q07 as part of our next-generation client "

  • Of course! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Reality Master 101 ( 179095 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .101retsaMytilaeR.> on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:34PM (#17939520) Homepage Journal

    I'm pretty sympathetic to Apple on this score... after all, Microsoft has rushed Vista to the market so quickly, NO ONE could possibly have kept up with Microsoft's torrid pace!

    Cut the poor Apple engineers some slack!

  • Oh noez! Omgz! Oh noes! (Score:3, Informative)

    by alisson ( 1040324 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @04:44PM (#17939672)
    If you upgrade to vista before SP1, it's your own fault :)
  • Several other commenters have claimed that all or most of those apps work under Vista (with the apparent exception of iTunes, about which a notice was posted a while back), so we're really just talking about support issues, which I'm sure is a matter of time.

    In which case, could the MacZealots and 101st M. S. Brigade (Slashbot division) please shut up?

    Thanks for the PSA, I guess. Slow news day?

  • FWIW (Score:4, Funny)

    by Yaztromo ( 655250 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @05:01PM (#17939974) Homepage Journal

    For what it's worth, I'd like to note that none of Microsoft's Vista applications are Mac OS X compatible, and it's API has been stable for far longer than Vista's has been.

    Yaz.

  • iTunes isn't even supported on WinXP 64-bit (Score:3)

    by joe_n_bloe ( 244407 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @05:51PM (#17940724) Homepage
    I don't think people who haven't used 64-bit WinXP can even begin to appreciate the scope and enduring nature of the compatibility problems with Vista.

    The last time I checked, the current version of iTunes wouldn't install on XP 64-bit edition. (The installer didn't allow it.) I do have iTunes installed on my 64-bit XP box, but that's because I got lucky and downloaded a version that would. The following version wouldn't install. No version of it has ever been supported on 64-bit XP as far as I know.

    Maybe all is well in the 32-bit Vista world, but I kind of doubt it.

  • I'll start feeling sorry for Vista users (Score:3, Funny)

    by skingers6894 ( 816110 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @06:41PM (#17941454)
    when I get my Universal binary version of MS Office.

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