Apple and MS Battle For Desktop Search Supremacy 707
markmcb writes "As Microsoft and Apple go back and forth about who came up with what idea first, it's been hard to tell who the real innovaters are. Michael Gartenberg and Jim Allchin of Microsoft give some fair opinions on the current desktop search battle. While they do give credit to Apple's iTunes for search inspiration and to Apple being first out of the box in the OS race, they both imply that Microsoft will provide more robust features with the release of Longhorn."
What about google's desktop search? (Score:4, Insightful)
empty promises... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's pretty easy to make empty promises with a product that won't even be released until next year. The point is, OSX has this feature NOW...
Re:They both suck (Score:5, Insightful)
No it doesn't. The point of searching is to bypass organization or to impose organization on data according to current needs.
Dunno... (Score:3, Insightful)
I just keep my hard drive carefully arranged and orderly. Folders are your friend. Nest them with wild abandon. I also print out any interesting info tidbits (stuff I know I'll reference multiple times) I find online, and put them in a couple large notebooks that I maintain.
And... (Score:5, Insightful)
Like, oh, working on Mac OS X 10.5.
Which will, quite literally, probably be shipping around the time Longhorn ships.
impromptu poll (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure there are those that do care and think everyone else should too, and good for them, but I want to hear from those that don't care for whatever reason.
Search Technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They both suck (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if a desktop searching tool lets you search by text contained within a document, or the name of a file, or what have you, you still have to name it, or put text within it in a way that's organized. The user is required to give it structure to begin with.
Basically, organization is up to the user, whether it be by creating organized directories, or by creating logical names.
-Jesse
Why Mr. Allchin, what a big RDF you have! (Score:5, Insightful)
Referring to an OS that is at least 15 months from release in the present tense is plain crazy, especially when comparing its features to those of an OS that will be on store shelves in 10 days. He might as well just say Longhorn will cure cancer and make your breath minty fresh while you use it. No matter what features it has, they're not doing anybody any good at 6PM on April 29th, 2005-- Tiger's will.
Re:Uhh, GOOGLE? (Score:5, Insightful)
While they do give credit to Apple's iTunes for search inspiration and to Apple being first out of the box in the OS race, they both imply that Microsoft will provide more robust features with the release of Longhorn.
The same thing was being said before the release of Panther. The strengths of longhorn were touted and Panther was conceded as being "admittedly out first, but longhorn will be better". Now 18 months later we have Tiger that is 'admittedly out first, but longhorn will be better".
I bet when Apple announce their next OS (let's call it Ocelot) the commentary in the media will again be...
"Ocelot is admittedly out first, but longhorn will be better".
Of course, the world will suck it up and nod their heads, agreeing that this fabled new version of Windows will be better, sometime in the future, while ignoring the last half decade of "admittedly good" OS X versions which ACTUALLY EXIST AND CAN BE USED!
grep anyone? (Score:1, Insightful)
Hold on a second. (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow. Stop the presses.
Re:impromptu poll (Score:4, Insightful)
[cue "but what about symlinks?" responses]
Re:impromptu poll (Score:2, Insightful)
Inovation == Bloat (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:empty vaporware promises... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it is time to change that old IBM joke into a Microsoft joke. You know,the one where Ballmer/Gates/et.all just sit on the edge of the bed telling her how good it is going to be, but they never do anything. Wish I could remember that joke.
Re:impromptu poll (Score:5, Insightful)
I care, because knowing what utilities can and can't do, and how to take advantage of the former and cover up for the latter, is what makes me a "power user".
Re:Lol. Mod me redundant. (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe more (nontechnical) user-freindly. But can these search engines use RegEx syntax? Hell No.
In my book, that's LESS advanced.
This article drove me nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, OS X and Mac OS had a superb search FOR ages which works VERY good. Windows search compare to that is a JOKE. Spotlight is just more branded and search more metadata and gives it in more user friendly form. But as search on my OS X stations I just click on input where i start to type file name which I look for and...whola! there it is.
And second - Longhorn is 3 YEARS still to go! It is like middle ages for history! For christ sakes, Microsoft must be desperate to push such PR stunt like this.
And yeah, as open source advocat, I have to say that Beagle will certanly rock the world too - because it is actively developed and pushed by Novel/Ximian guys. And of coarse, let's not forget king of the hill in search now - Google.
And if it is not paid article - however it looks like - then it is such "we just love Microsoft" style press which I simply can't stand anymore.
Re:grep anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
For instance, if you have some text in an OpenDocument format (i.e. the file format of OpenOffice.org, and soon KOffice and maybe AbiWord) then you will never find that text using grep. (Because an OpenOffice.org file is actually a ZIP file.)
Search tools need to have custom plug ins that know how to search specific filetypes. Searching an HTML file, then use a plugin that won't find the tags, for example. Searching a GIF or JPEG, then search the image comment, but this requires knowing something about the layout of the GIF or JPEG file. Trying to search within a PDF, etc.
Re:Uhh, GOOGLE? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uhh, GOOGLE? (Score:3, Insightful)
The PS built a reputation on having good games to play on the platform. I think this was a large part of why people waited for the PS2 - banking on good games for the platform.
Re:Uhh, GOOGLE? (Score:2, Insightful)
With the current climate, Google and Apple are gaining public favour. Whereas Microsoft is plagued by favourability problems such as adware/spyware/viruses.
3 words - locate | grep (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is desktop search such a big deal again? Are people just writing files to random locations on their hard drives? Even when I have to use Windows at work, I put things in logical places so I don't have to search for them.
Re:Uhh, GOOGLE? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Search Technology (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Search Technology (Score:3, Insightful)
The point of Spotlight and desktop search, in general, is that the computer handles the proper organization.
Who would be more anal, perfect, and organized than a computer? Someone with OCD?
Battle... (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely nobody can realistically believe that there's going to be a real battle of numbers in the same way there is for games consoles/competing digital disk formats etc?
I don't know the exact figures, but I do know that Windows gets about the same number of new users each year as Mac OS has in there entire installed base... No matter how good Mac OS is (and I'm sure it's very good) it's not like we don't know with infinity+1:1 odds which OS is going to be the most widely adopted?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Uhh, GOOGLE? (Score:5, Insightful)
But in this case the point isn't the user interface to the search capabilities. It is important, but not the technical issue.
The technical issue is the filesystem / operating system has the necessary hooks to reduce the subjective overhead to zero.
By having the hooks integrated such that indexing occurs when files are updated, moved, or otherwise changed the search capabilities are dynamic. It isn't necessary to scan the file system to detect changes, the changes are already known and the search query itself simply has to refresh. It doesn't scan the filesystem for the relevant files, it simply looks them up in it's index.
I've used BeOS and I am hopeful Apple's Spotlight will match, or exceed BeOS' implementation. In my mind it is imposible for Microsoft to do it better, So I don't understand that part of the issue.
I believe Apple is supplying the necessary tools and information so that a new file, created by an application can have it's filesystem details index, as well as call a custom routine to pull any application specific data from the file and have that indexed.
Lets say you have a new word processor that stores it's data in a compressed format; a routine for the application could process the file and update the index with all the keywords, perhaps all the text, etc automatically.
A third party company would have difficulty putting forth a standard for such a function, and would have to support the major applications themselves.
Re:Search Technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed true. Some people are forever looking for certain physical things, such as their car keys, cell phone and other small items. The computer is like a workshop. A workshop with its tools well organized is a pleasure, but a disorganized one, with tools mixed up is a real pain. Organization in a computer is just as beneficial in getting work done as it is in a real workshop. Even so, adding a good search system should not affect an organized computer user much, but might help those who are not well organized.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uhh, GOOGLE? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why Mr. Allchin, what a big RDF you have! (Score:2, Insightful)
Not Really. Longhorn Beta 1 ships in just over a month, and the RTM date is set in May 2006.
"No matter what features it has, they're not doing anybody any good at 6PM on April 29th, 2005"
Yeah, and Tiger's features aren't doing anybody any good at 5:59PM on April 29, 2005.
Yes, Tiger will be released before Longhorn. But, when you get down to it, neither product has shipped yet. Right now, it's prerelease vs. prerelease.
Microsoft *will* get Longhorn out the door in 2006. Whether it will be a good product has yet to be seen.
Don't sell them short, though. They have a *lot* of programming talent and they *can* release a solid product. More and more, it's looking like they will *have* to release a solid product.
Re:Uhh, GOOGLE? (Score:2, Insightful)
D
Re:3 words - locate | grep (Score:2, Insightful)
Not that I think that meta-data is a bad thing. More than one way to get things organized is always a good thing. I think that while all this stuff is mostly PR, you and me will be able to put it to good use. Just ignore the hype and enjoy the fallout.
Re:Why compare OS X 10.4 with Longhorn? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:3 words - locate | grep (Score:2, Insightful)
Otherwise, yeah, I'm with you 100%. Except I tend to over name my files, and am anal about what goes where and why. A simpe find | grep usually does the trick for me.
Even in the Mac world I find people putting stuff all over. / is up for grabs. ~/Library is usually not a good place, but they're there too. ~/Documents? I stay away from it as too many applications like to use it for settings as well.
Every grandma type Linux user I've seen sticks everything into ~/ for no particular reason. Those are rare -- and typical Linux users are anal in their storage as well...
I remember, way back when, on the "main frames" at college (Unix based) people were always "losing" files.
Who will win "desktop search"? Apple. Hands down. For functionality. Otherwise for the numbers, today, it will be Google in the Wintel world.
Re:Microsoft has delivered in the past. (Score:3, Insightful)
Win95 was the most hyped thing in computer industry history, and Apple's management was so screwed up at the time they just ignored it (other than the snarky Win95=Mac84 bumper stickers).
Re:Why Mr. Allchin, what a big RDF you have! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not Really. Longhorn Beta 1 ships in just over a month, and the RTM date is set in May 2006.
Yes, really. Until it's preloaded on systems, and in boxes on store shelves, and can be bought and used by the public at large, it doesn't exist. Betas don't count for shit, even if Microsoft says they're okay for use in a production environment (HA!). Neither does some RTM date that's more than a year away and not even remotely set in stone no matter what Microsoft says.