Microsoft Bites Apple, Apple Bites Back 1024
hype7 writes "The NYT (free reg reqd etc) is running an interesting article on where MS seems to be getting all the ideas for its next big OS release, Longhorn. It's only a quickie, but they look at MS's big news from WinHEC, and their possible sources for inspiration. They also pull out that fantastic Bill Gates quote: 'The one thing Apple's providing now is leadership in colors'; and that Apple execs are now having a laugh of their own over how Longhorn, 'Microsoft's 2005 version of its Windows operating system, apes features that have been in Apple's OS X operating system since 2001.'"
Flattery and Imitation (Score:5, Insightful)
I recall, years back, an avi making the rounds with Bill Gates speaking (at a MacWorld?) and sheepishly admitting that the Mac was the best or had the best desktop or something along those lines. As if Win95 didn't cement clearly the view that Microsoft indeed was impressed with, at least the look and feel, we get more of this, "Gee, Apple is visionary, so we'll just copy what they do", from the big innovator. Well, no surprise, but I do wonder whether there's an agreement where Microsoft pays Apple for some of this, or is it just payment 'in-kind' (meaning Microsoft products which run on Macs)?
"As a matter of fact we do have a Research and Development department, we call it, 'Apple Computer, Inc.'"
The both copy each other... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple coppied the WinXP feature that lets users switch who's logged in without losing state. And Microsoft copies features from Apple. Its the Kettle calling the Pot black...
Apple leadership? (Score:3, Insightful)
this is what free market is about (Score:4, Insightful)
Feed on each other to make a stronger whole
Re:The both copy each other... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sign Needed: (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, this 'article' is the journalistic equivalent of the Sci-Fi channel bumpers [slashdot.org] and the only reason I can see for Slashdot to post it is to start another anti-MS feeding frenzy.
Do different companies in the same industry steal ideas from each other? Yes. Is it news? Not unless they get caught doing it before the other fella, i.e. industrial spying.
Re:Apple leadership? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Apple leadership? (Score:2, Insightful)
Bring a product to market and make it usable 4 years later. Great job MS!!!
Ugly (Score:5, Insightful)
I know it's a prototype, but isn't this the stage where you make it beautiful - because it doesn't have to work well yet?
This is why MS gets accused of copying more often than anyone else. It's a second class rip off. When you steal from something, you should be able to look at the original and improve upon it. This is just playing catch up.
Re:The both copy each other... (Score:2, Insightful)
CU
H9000
Re:Flattery and Imitation (Score:3, Insightful)
"That's mine, you can't have it" (Score:3, Insightful)
What, do you think iTunes is visionary? How about the idea of a 'digital media hub'? These are ancient news in the computing world and the fact that one company got to market a year before the other says more about scheduling than it does about innovation.
The absolute worst is people who think Microsoft making their UI more 'soft' was a direct response to OS X. These UI changes don't get dreamed up at the last minute -- they're part of an evolution that takes years.
I will admit there are some times when it's pretty blatant that a company's idea is stolen.
Computer manufacturers noticed apple's sales take off when they went for a more stylish look. Yes, they're copying. It's called capitalism and it's what raises the bar for everyone. What, do you think apple came up the idea of making something they're selling look good?
It's no different from JC Penny selling some fashion that the GAP came up with. Thanks for the idea, say hello to the free market. We as consumers win, the innovator gets first-to-market advantage. But that's ALL they get.
Re:The both copy each other... (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that Steve copies Bill as much as Bill copies Steve is ludicrous on it's face. Microsoft copies Apple tons more, always has. Listen, I'm not saying that makes them evil. They're not breaking the law here. Let them copy away! It's good for everyone. I'm merely pointing out that they're not the "innovation powerhouse" that they make themselves out to be. Calling a spade a spade.
And Apple has been the most consistently anti-DRM company you can name besides the P2P companies themselves. Their current nod to DRM in the iTunes Music Store is an amazing achievement in that they somehow convinced the RIAA that we all might actually buy the music if it wasn't DRM'd to death (see PressPlay, for example). Apple has been as pro-consumer as a company can get in the whole digital music thing. Tossing them in the same bin as Microsoft isn't accurate or fair.
Big Deal, get over it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Come on Kids.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why aren't we seeing UI innovation in Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely there are adacemic researchers out there probing the frontier of human-computer interaction that could use Linux as the basis for their work? Could it be that X is slowing us down somehow? I mean, think of how much fuss there was over minor and superficial enhancements antialiased fonts and transparent windows. Where are the big ideas?
The Open Source community has demonstrated that it can play catch-up and play it well, but when are we going to see Windows and Apple stealing important UI features from Linux?
Re:Apple leadership? (Score:4, Insightful)
However, you are right in criticizing the lack of protected memory - a source of great irritation and many unnecessary crashes and reboots. The market demanded it, and Apple provided. Where is the criticism here?
ps: I still use Linux, even on my Macs, but I believe in fair criticism.
osx (Score:5, Insightful)
I can compile GNU fileutils
Apple has done in a few years what many in the Linux community have been trying to do for ages
Re:BSD (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you know who they both steal from? BSD.
Curious. How do you "steal" from BSD when the very license permits you to use the code in any way you see fit?
I guess if maybe they're not including the copyright notices you might call it stealing, but otherwise, BSD code is there for anyone to use.
Don't Laugh (Score:5, Insightful)
I sincerely hope that Apple Execs aren't 'laughing' at msft longhorn, for having features in '05 that they've had since '01. If I recall, they did the same thing regarding Win95, and look at the resulting market share for Apple when that came out.
Unfortunately, in the consumer space, technical merrit isn't everything.
Last time this happened... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Apple leadership? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you invested in Apple 15 years ago, they still honor your investment. I can't say that the same is true of MS where different versions of Office don't even like to talk to each other and they are constantly pushing for their customers to spend more money.
Re:Sign Needed: (Score:5, Insightful)
When a company has made a living off of copying other ideas and then proclaiming their "innovation" they are going to draw the ire of those who know better.
Microsoft, more than any company since at least the halycon days of IBM, does more to make informed people dislike them than anyone else. And they do a better job of that than they do creating computer programs.
Even died-in-the-wool Microsoft bigots have a lot less than love for the new licensing plans that Microsoft has "offered"
Re:Flattery and Imitation (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, Leadship (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a meaningless comparision. How many copies of NT 3.5.1 were sold to retail customers?
Apple was selling a "preemptive, protected multitasking OS" (OS X Server) several years before OS X was released the masses. Likewise, Microsoft did NOT deliver a "preemptive, protected multitasking" appropriate for unsupported users until Windows XP. (Win2K was aimed at business users who had IT support).
Moving deeper, Apple has never been a leader in OSes -- OS X came straight out of the UNIX world. Even the Apple ][ borrowed heavily from others, including HP.
Apple's ongoing genius is User Experience, like the fabuously-well integrated iTunes music store. And here, Microsoft is, has always been, and remains a laggard and a copycat.
Re:The both copy each other... (Score:1, Insightful)
If Apple had been convicted of running an illegal monopoly, etc, as Microsoft has, then such criticism of a new Apple venture would be valid.
Re:Why aren't we seeing UI innovation in Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's nothing to stop someone from inventing FancyUI with all sorts of bells and whistles and installing it in place of X11, but who would use it? All of my current GUI-based apps live in X11-land and giving them up isn't going to help me get my work done no matter how much neato graphical stuff FancyGUI offers.
The better approach, I think, is to merge improvements into X11 through extensions (perhaps moving to X11R7, if enough of them become commonplace) so that people have a smooth upgrade path and without all the wheel reinvention required by Yet Another X11 Re-attempt.
Re:The both copy each other... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see how this has anything to do with DRM. If they did let you re-download it people would be screaming about Apple keeping tabs on what their users buy.
Make backups. Then if your computer dies a fiery death you can restore from your backup and keep listening to your music. Apple even made it easy to make backups to writeable DVDs. It's a single mouse click!
I don't see anybody bitching that record stores don't replace your CDs if you scratch them...
Re:The both copy each other... (Score:4, Insightful)
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
C:\Documents and Settings\Dave>su
'su' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
C:\Documents and Settings\Dave>
Arrogance is Dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
Then Apple got it's head kicked in.
In our world, quality does NOT sell computers. This new Microsoft machine doesn't have to be nearly as good as a Macintosh to be good enough for people who don't know any better. That principal, already, has been proven.
Thankfully, there is one important difference between those days and today: Apple is working its arse off and not just talking shit.
Apple is definitely pushing the industry -- that has always been its charter. Let us all hope that they don't forget all the obligations that role entails.
--Richard
hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
And this is the *best* thing MS can copy? Whatever happened to increasing security? Opening standards? Interoperability? Customer support? Fixing bugs?
Nope...gotta get them colours right...
Re:The both copy each other... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except after you've burned them to CD.
The files have your name embedded in them and won't play if you want to let a friend listen to a copy.
Except after you've burned them to CD.
If your hard drive dies, you can't re-download it.
Except after you've burned them to CD.
How much more DRM-friendly can you get?
Well, you could prevent burning to CD, for starters. But iTunes has a giant "BURN DISC" button right there in the upper-right-hand corner. Creates fully unrestricted CD's in Red Book format that can play on any audio CD player.
If MS had come up with the Microsoft Music Store with the same restrictions, the press would be tearing them apart.
If that's true--which I dispute, but that's an opinion thing--then it says way more about the press than it does about the Music Store.
Re:Apple leadership? (Score:2, Insightful)
Huh. And if you invested in PCs then MS didn't? You realize that people can still run most MS-DOS programs that were developed (and compiled) 20 years ago under WinXP, right? No, not all - most. And not all 68000 apps run on PPC, nor do all Mac Classic apps run under OS-X.
different versions of Office don't even like to talk to each other
Yeah, there have been problems here, but that's hardly limited to MS. Apple has released apps with the same problems, and they've fixed them just like MS did. No, in general you can't get Word'95 to read a WordXP document. So what? You can't possibly expect forward compatibility to hold true - if it did we'd all be stuck using EBCDIC still.
BTW, I can read a Word'95 doc into Office 97, Office 2000, and Office XP. It's really a non-issue.
constantly pushing for their customers to spend more money
Uh... what world are you living in? Apple charges for point releases to OS-X. And their hardware is still 1.5-2x the price of PC hardware, for less performance. Don't even try to indicate that Apple isn't raping their customers as bad, if not worse, than Microsoft.
Hint, they're both corporations. They're both out to make money. Apple's been a bit more benevolent than MS, in general, but they're starting to adopt DRM and other "evil" concepts as well. They're just not as absolutely brain dead as MS is about marketing them.
Its in keeping with Windows XP and the rest of M$ (Score:5, Insightful)
GM, Ford and AMC don't churn out great cars. No Lamborghini's, no Roll's Royces, not even a Beamer. But they churn out a lot of crappy ones and make some money on each one.
Its all about the Benjamins. M$ would churn out Goethes, Bachs, Rembrants and Piranene's if anybody figured out a way to make a buck doing that.
But that's not likely is it? So you get "wanna-be" "rip-off" crap that doesn't work well, look good or last long because there's more money in churning crap.
Re:Flattery and Imitation (Score:2, Insightful)
laughing? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Arrogance is Dangerous (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple has a new marketing and advertising team.
The Imac is a perfect example. Joe six pack sees the cool imac vs an ugly biege pc, he is going to pick the imac.
MS use to have great marketing. However Jobs has fired and replaced the whole team when he took over. Its quite good but consumers like gui's.
If its as good as macosx it will hurt apple. If its ugly like XP it might benefit them. I do not know of anyone who likes XP. However longhorn supports brilliant colors in high end monitors that only macs had for years so who knows.
Re:Flattery and Imitation (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The both copy each other... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, you can burn Apple Music Store songs to CD. But you conveniently left that out, didn't you? And once they're on CD, you can give them to whoever you want. Because iTunes will burn to a standards-compliant CD, with no DRM, or any crap, and no identifying information except for what you choose to write on the label.
The files have your name embedded in them and won't play if you want to let a friend listen to a copy. Forgot about that feature where you can share music with up to 3 friends (provided they also have iTunes), didn't you?
If your hard drive dies, you can't re-download it.
And if my dog eats my CD, Tower Records or Sam Goody won't replace it for me for free. And if my hard drive dies, my prof won't re-write that term paper for me. And if I lose my Office CD, and my hard drive dies, MS won't buy me a new copy. What's your point?
Re:Where's the beef (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Flattery and Imitation (Score:5, Insightful)
Hired. As in "Apple hired Jef Raskin and Bruce Horn over from Xerox."
Stole. As in "Microsoft stole big chinks of Apple's codebase and methods."
it ain't X (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's not X. I've done some HCI work, including some very early contributions to Gnome. It is almost never the technology that slows you down in this area, it's almost always people's mindset.
One thing that's been really damaging Linux in this regard is the load of people who believe that Linux absolutely has to copy windows. Very obviously, innovation and copycat behaviour don't work well together.
I'm amused that (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm also amused that no one seems to have noticed that while none of the individual ideas MS is pushing are wildly new, the level integration of basic work tasks will be very impressive if it works as hyped...
Senseless debate . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Would anyone be surprised if Longhorn turns out to be BETTER than OS X?
Would anyone be shocked if, alternatively, by 2005, OS X had progressed to a further point than Longhorn then?
And which of you would switch just because of that? As for me, I'm sticking to the Mac anyway.
Re:Flattery and Imitation (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really.
Mac OS X is derived from OpenStep, not NeXTSTEP. Most of OS X is derived from OpenStep, not just the development tools.
NeXTSTEP != OpenStep. OpenStep was a rewrite of NeXT's OS done a while back. The idea was to standardize, clean up, and open up the Objective-C API, making it something that other vendors could port/run on other platforms, removing some OS-specific stuff out of the NeXTSTEP API. GNUstep and OpenStep for Solaris and OpenStep for Windows are the fruits of this.
Wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Apple leadership? (Score:3, Insightful)
Dare I mention the virtual lack of Apple clones? It's like having only Dell and Gateway to buy computers from.
and the problem is... what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple didn't invent color management or color science either. They simply happened to have a large graphics arts user community, so they were the first to incorporate this stuff into their systems.
Microsoft, Apple, and Linux are each years behind the state of the art in many areas. Windows XP is some VMS work-alike on steroids, and OS X is a warmed-over version of NeXTStep. And Linux still gives you that warm-and-fuzzy UNIX feeling from, oh, 15 years ago. That's the way it is with commercial or real-world systems. Just because Apple happens to incorporate some feature into their system first doesn't give them claim to it in perpetuity.
Re:Flattery and Imitation (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really.
Oh, come on.
Mac OS X is derived from OpenStep, not NeXTSTEP. Most of OS X is derived from OpenStep, not just the development tools.
Actually, it would probably be more correct to say that Cocoa is derived from OpenStep, and OSX is derived from NeXTSTEP + OpenStep + FreeBSD.
NeXTSTEP != OpenStep.
True.
OpenStep was a rewrite of NeXT's OS done a while back.
Mostly false. The OS rewrite failed. OpenStep was a rewrite of the appkit APIs. NeXT wanted to rev the OS, but the demand didn't justify it.
The idea was to standardize, clean up, and open up the Objective-C API, making it something that other vendors could port/run on other platforms, removing some OS-specific stuff out of the NeXTSTEP API.
The idea was to license it and make more money
GNUstep and OpenStep for Solaris and OpenStep for Windows are the fruits of this.
Not to mention PDO (foundation) on a few more OSs.
I think of it this way:
NeXTSTEP 0.x-3.3
OpenStep was NS v. 4.0
Rhapsody DR1 was NS v. 5ish
OSX 10.x is NS v. 6.x ish
I mean, really. What do you think NSWindow stands for, anyway? How can you say that Cocoa isn't derived from NeXTSTEP?
Re:Apple and Oranges (Score:1, Insightful)
Apples' ongoing genius is (Score:5, Insightful)
Wanna know why?
It's because they give a rip about their users.
Thats why they lead and Microsoft doesn't.
Re:Why aren't we seeing UI innovation in Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux began as almost pure innovation, an OS written from the ground up by GNU and Linus Torvalds.
Linux began as nothing but a straightforward implementation of POSIX. It was x86 only, and Linus initially had no plans for portability to other architectures. GNU was just reimplementation of UNIX userspace. Pure innovation? Linus just wanted to have the same environment at home on his x86 box as he had at the university.
I would say it's self-evident that the direction that companies like RedHat are going represents what most people want. They're making money, and I assume they're doing market research to find out what people want. Maybe you're just frustrated that it's not the same as what you want. There's always Debian for you, which given enough time can be whatever you want it to be. Or you could pay Progeny to make this kind of customization easier with their Linux Platform Manager [progeny.com].
Oh, COME ON (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh yeah, a flat-pannel screen. No one ever would have thought of that if it haddn't been for apple. Certanly not Sony who has been selling PCs like that before the new iMac had been anounced...
The constant ability of Mac Zelots to belive anything done by apple has never been done before is just amazing.
Re:Flattery and Imitation (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey wow, it does! So does this mean we need a new metaphor? How about...
obvious plagiarism? [google.com]
Or even...
borrows liberally? [google.com]
Re:Fact or Fiction (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously was a mistake for the Times to keep Blair on the staff. But it is more difficult to argue hat he should not have been hired in the first place, as the first AC implied.
Re:keep laughing apple (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, why do people seem to be eager for Apple's death, like it would somehow transform the computing world into a utopia? I don't think that most Mac users are about to switch to Linux! We need at least one alternative with an easy GUI around in order to prevent an absolute dependency on Microsoft in the general market.
Re:The both copy each other... (Score:4, Insightful)
Forgot about that feature where you can share music with up to 3 friends (provided they also have iTunes), didn't you?
No -- are you always this pleasant when someone disagrees with you? You can't share your iTunes Store music with your friends unless you're willing to give them your Apple ID password -- something that most people probably wouldn't be too kosher with doing, especially since if you ever wanted to authorize another person, you'd have to deauthorize someone else. It's a real headache.
And if my dog eats my CD, Tower Records or Sam Goody won't replace it for me for free.
Again with this snarky attitude. My point is that a music download is NOT a CD. If I buy a piece of downloaded software, most places will let you re-download it as long as you have your login. It's one of the nice things about paying for something that doesn't have a physical medium attached to it. Why is the iTunes Music Store so different?
Really, dude, it's possible to have a civil conversation about this.
Re:Flattery and Imitation (Score:2, Insightful)
Lies: as in, apple zelots lie about apples agreement with xerox. Over and over again.
Re:Oh, COME ON (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why aren't we seeing UI innovation in Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because the majority of Linux users are ex-Windows users. They don't want a UNIX system; they want a free version of Windows.
Re:Arrogance is Dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
There's some truth to that. Not as much as you probably believe, but some, at least. I used to say they same thing about Microsoft. I've come to realize that it's really more about politics than marketing.
Also, I disagree with your supporting example. The iMacs have done very well, but it's hardly the case you describe wherein Joe Six-Pack sees a colorful iMac and buys it over a beige PC.
People decide to purchase Macintosh systems because they make the conscious decision to do so. Same case exists for people who make the decision to run Linux or Unix or OS/2 or Be or any of the many other non-Microsoft operating systems.
By definition, no Windows user has ever made the decision to run Windows--instead, they are born into the situation. Almost to the last person, Windows users lack any meaningful understanding of the alternatives available to them. What motive do they have? What opportunity for knowledge of the alternatives are available to them?
I'm not blaming anybody for this situation. It's just how things are.
By virtue of proportions, Linux users and Macintosh users are well exposed to Windows and Microsoft's World(TM). How familiar are Windows users with Mac OS X or Linux? Which type of user has had the opportunity and resources to make the most informed decision?
Joe Six-Pack doesn't buy iMacs. He bought Packard-Bells by the truckload, then Gateways, and now Dells. In the future, Joe Six-Pack will buy whatever commodity PC is being produced for the masses by the most successful commodity PC maker, and he won't burn any brain cells doing it.
And somewhere inside this mess is marketing.
Re:what are you talking about? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Loose lips sink ships! (Score:4, Insightful)
In 2 years time I can't even think what unix desktops will have archieved...
Re:Sometimes this works (Score:2, Insightful)
It's one thing to not support your browser, it's another to support it, but make an assumption that it won't work, or push IE for any other reason.
The same type of thing happened with my bank: I emailed them, and quite quickly the problem was fixed.
Why did I do this? Because I want to make sure that they realise that people do care about what they use, and I want to make sure that my browser name shows up in their logs: we're not going to get any support if they keep seeing IE strings there, and we're just going to have to continue faking it.
Re:The both copy each other... (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdotters defending DRM... am I crazy or am I the last sane one? I'm not sure sure anymore.