The short of this situation (where everyone wants Windows Vista, but no one is installing it) is precisely a question of ubiquity. I am no Mac user, but, from what I understand, (do hurry to correct me, Mite ;) migration from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X did involve a degree of sacrifice in terms of backwards compatibility. In fact, according to Wikipedia,
To permit a smooth transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, the Carbon Application Programming Interface (API) was created. Applications written with Carbon can run natively on both systems. On the other hand, as mentioned before, Mac OS X inherited from OPENSTEP's APIs, which are not backward compatible with earlier versions of Mac OS.Granted, the leap from OS 9 to OS X was, doubtlessly, a leap of faith for many users, due to the embracing of *nix architecture, a radical GUI change and, most recently, the move to Intel processors. Although the move was probably painful to some users (after all, there seem to be a lot of sub-versions in Mac OS X - 10.0 to 10.5; I still can't understand how Apple has the gall to sell these updates), from what I understand, Mac OS X matured and became more stable in its own way. But what was Microsoft doing during this time?
Mac OS X 10.0 was released on on March 24, 2001; Windows XP was released on October 25, 2001. The two companies were trying to accomplish different goals: Apple was trying to reinvent itself to barely stay alive (a position they later reinforced by their ventures into the hardware market), while Microsoft was attempting to become a friend to the common computer idiot user. I'll spare you the history of the development of the two operating system, but I would like to quote a little something from the Wikipedia article on Mac OS X:
The initial version was slow, not feature complete, and had very few applications available at the time of its launch, mostly from independent developers. Many critics suggested that while the OS was not ready for mainstream adoption, they recognized the importance of its initial launch as a base on which to improve. Simply releasing Mac OS X was received by the Macintosh community as a great accomplishment, for attempts to completely overhaul the Mac OS had been underway since 1996, and delayed by countless setbacks. Following a few minor bug fixes, kernel panics became much less frequent, and Mac OS X began garnering praise for its stability at an early point in its development.Does this sound familiar? ;) But let us come back to the past, yet again: 2001 was a brand new starting point for the two competitors: so what did the two accomplish? In five years, Microsoft had patched most of the major holes in Windows XP and made it their most successful, stable and useful OS ever...all the while working on a brand-new OS...or two. Sure, Microsoft lay in wait and stole all the best features from Mac OS 9 for XP and Mac OS X and Firefox for Vista and IE7, respectively, but that's just good business: steal, improve, dominate! There is no shame in waiting for the competitor to make the first step; the winner is the guy who dominates the biggest part of the market, not the one who creates a cute little market niche.
So what did Apple accomplish in those same five years? Quoting from Wikipedia:
[Mac OS X] 10.1 increased the performance of the system and provided missing features, such as DVD playback.DVD playback was present from the outset in Windows XP, and consistent Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center upgrades only boosted XP's media capabilities with each iteration.
10.2 [...] brought profound performance enhancements, a newer, sleeker look, and many powerful enhancements (over 150, according to Apple), including Quartz Extreme for compositing graphics directly on the AGP-based video card, a system-wide repository for contact information in the new Address Book, [and] its own instant messenging [sic] client, named iChat. [...] Some consider version 10.2, or Jaguar, the "first good release" of Mac OS X.Mhumm. Too bad XP already had all this and more, and MSN Messenger was well on its way to inherit ICQ's crown; who gave a fuck about iChat?
10.3 [...] in addition to providing much improved performance, [...] also incorporated the most extensive update yet to the user interface. New features of "Panther" included an updated Finder, incorporating a brushed-metal interface, Exposé Fast User Switching, FileVault, Safari (web browser), iChat AV which added video-conferencing features to iChat, improved PDF rendering and much greater Microsoft Windows interoperability.Yeah, that interoperability thing was good foreseight...for when crazed fanboys would start running Windows XP with Boot Camp on their shiny, new Macs. Pathetic. Also, everything except Exposé (and, perhaps, FileVault) was already present in XP. After all that, 10.4 seems to have been nothing but a cosmetic upgrade and 10.5 is clearly a marketing gimmick, made to coincide with the release of Windows Vista.
So what? Well, in the last five years, Apple had essentially released five service packs for the same version of its OS, and in the process admitted to itself that its pathetic and uncompetitive operating system is unable to carry its market share by itself, and thus hurried to switch to Intel processors, also gradually beginning to lean on their music player (and, most recently, smartphone) device line, as on a financial crutch, in order to compensate for the now-predictable OS X and overpriced, underperforming hardware.
Microsoft, on the other hand, laboured through three incarnations of Windows Media Player (8, 9, 10 and 11), built a better Internet Explorer, made Windows XP safer and more reliable than ever, shipped a first-generation media player to market and delivered a brand-new OS, despite incredible pressures and demands. Kudos, Microsoft.
Now, what the hell does this all have to do with me not running Windows Vista yet? Well, look at it this way: Microsoft has between 85% and 90% of market share right now, depending on whom you ask. Thus, if you are a Mac OS 9 user, and you need to move to Mac OS X, you are likely to have problems only with a handful of programs, since there is only a handful of programs made for the Mac (and half of them are made by Microsoft, Adobe and Macromedia anyway - and those can generally take care of themselves).
If, on the other hand, I, a power user, want to move from a stable Windows XP installation to a brand-new Windows Vista one, I have a problem: since Vista is not a minor upgrade increment, or a service pack, and, in fact, includes radical changes, like the gradual deprecation of the registry and the NTFS filesystem (in favour of the soon-to-come WinFS), as well as a myriad other little features, a simple upgrade won't cut it anymore (by contrast, systems with nearly-identical architectures, like Win2K and WinXP, allow each other to upgrade seamlessly). Since I have complete faith (and believe you me, this is most certainly a matter of faith) that all of my hardware (purchased in late 2006 and early 2007) is Vista-compatible, my remaining concern is for a handful of gray-area programs like Nero Burning ROM and Azureus, for the compatibility of which no one can vouch yet (and without which I cannot function). Thus, in other words, I want to pop my Vista cherry in just the right way; I want it to be very, very special. ;)
Of course, a less, uh, typical concern that many users have with Vista, is that (another testament to Microsoft's ceaseless efforts), its protection systems and schemas are now so reliable (and dependent on online services for necessary updates and improvements) that, even though I already had the RTM release for a month, and retail releases (now rumoured to be somehow better - or slightly different - from the RTM ones) have been slowly trickling onto BitTorrent, there is not one single reliable crack, patch, or hacked ISO, that makes one's installation of Windows Vista Ultimate fully "genuine" and thus updatable (oh, DevilsOwn, where are you when you are needed?). However, that time, no doubt, will come, and, by then, Ahead and Azureus will straighten out their shit and we will all take our first step into the brave, new world of Windows Vista.
Long live Microsoft. Apple can still suck my balls. Good night!
P.S. Here's a little bonus for those of you who sat through this little rant. ;)
Don't have Windows Vista but want to have Flip 3D on your Windows XP machine? TopDesk (aka The Poor Man's Flip 3D) to the rescue! 'Nuff said. ;)
Wow Mike, that Flip 3D gets my "cool but totally useless" award! How the heck can I read that when it's inverted? Haha just kidding.
I was at a Microsoft booth last week and they were demoing Outlook, Netmeeting and Vista. I was thinking, it looks good, the background can animate, but what's *new* about it? My coworker, who had been using Vista, replied: "Nothing."
So Windows is all dolled up but not much improvement eh? I'm too lazy to upgrade so there ya go!
Inverted? I don't quite get you. Flip 3D puts your windows in a rectangular perspective-like thing; I don't think it ever inverts anything...
Whoa, whoa, whoa: nothing?
• Better use of hardware resources, especially in terms of on-the-fly hard drive optimisation, memory use, ReadyBoost (i.e. you can stick a fast flash drive into your machine and have an extra gig of RAM), and so on.
• The end of NTFS. WinFS! (Coming Soon™)
• The end of the registry. It'll still be there for legacy applications, but the future is database, baby!
• New ways to represent your data. Most notable of these are the search folders, the ability to dynamically index and locate your data not by physical location but by data type (i.e. "find me all the documents, of all types, that have to do with 'school' and include the word 'aleatory'"); again, databases and query-based architecture will be king.
• A robust, vector-based interface (stolen very successfully from Mac OS X).
- and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Sure, if you are some sort of a foul-smelling, long-haired hippie living in a cave with your own, personal, super-special kernel and your *nix box...well, my condolences. Vista is the next big thing and you better believe it. ;)
P.S. Are you sure it was Netmeeting? Netmeeting was long ago deprecated in favour of Microsoft's line of Messenger programs, and was replaced by Windows Meeting Space in WinVista. Futher reading:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_NetMeeting
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Meeting_Space
Ah ok, it wasn't Netmeeting it was some new tech with video cameras :-)
My vocab sucks...I don't mean 'inverted' I mean sideways, like you showed in your screenshot...makes text hard to read, no?
And hey, I'm just talking about Vista from my coworker's perspective. I'm sure there's stuff under the hood as you describe, but the only thing I was thinking was that due to the fancy outside, I might have to upgrade my notebook. Yes, I don't have a desktop. Maybe it's about time I got one for gaming. Oh wait, I hardly game anymore except on consoles. Oh wait, I don't even do that much. I'm addicted to online poker...
Anyways sorry to go off on a tangent. Losing the registry sounds interesting. Now you know how long I've been living in a cave :-)
Heh, that's better. ;)
Ah, well...it is sideways - so you can flip through your windows like a stack of index cards. Having said that, they can be arranged in a variety of ways (especially in the real Flip 3D).
If you're like me, and you have a billion windows open all at once, a feature like this is actually pretty handy, especially since the windows are "live" (i.e. they're not frozen images of the window - they actually update in real-time); but, to each his own, nein?
You have to understand, James, that I am a hardcore Microsot zealot (read: fanboy), so you have to take everything I say with a grain of salt...and maybe a shot of vodka. ;)
At any rate, by "upgrad[ing] your notebook" do you mean installing Vista on it? What are its specs?
Consoles, eh? I am so jealous of the console people right now. Two words: Mass Effect (I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though).
Online poker. Why does the phrase carry such a...seedy connotation in my head? I guess because of the endless "Texas Hold 'Em" blog spam that threatens to put any website without a submission filter into a chokehold. It's right up there with classics such as penis enlargement and Viagra. ;)
No, no, my friend. "Tangents 'R' Us" here at mig81.com. Feel free to touch a curve at exactly one place - anytime. ;)
No, by upgrading I mean I might have to upgrade the machine to run vista. I mean sure, it's a Centrino 1.8 with 1.5 GB of RAM, but I wonder if Vista needs more. Sure I guess I could turn off all the graphic options, but then I'm not getting the FULL VISTA EXPERIENCE.
And speaking of Microsoft, I now really want to get an XBOX 360 to add to my growing list of consoles I don't play and gather dust...;-) The 360 looks great right now, Gears is a monster title, and I want my Blue Dragon :-)
I'm not even a big time gambler (nowhere near 'degenerate'...thank you Tony Soprano for that term) but I do decently enough. I play super small stakes although I got lucky and won back the cost of my plane ticket in about 2 days...it's definitely an exercise in frustration. Some days you're riding high, some days you wonder why you're wasting your time. But it's just a fun little diversion.
Eh? Vista can support up to 8GB of RAM...if not more (depending on your motherboard, bien sûr); a mere gig and a half won't save you from the need for speed. Regardless of official requirements, I'd say 2GB of DDR2 are an absolute minimum (let alone a video card with a GPU no older than a year and at least 256MB of DDR2 memory).
Personally, with a dual-core AMD Athlon x64 3800+, running at 2.01 GHz, 2GB of DDR2 667MHz memory, running in dual-channel, 128-bit mode, and two Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS 256MB DDR2 PCI Express cards, running in an SLi set-up, I'm pretty damn ready for Vista; but perhaps I should get a little bit more RAM...just in case. ;)
Yeah, well you missed the boat on the 360...you could've gotten insane discounts and duty-free prices in Tokyo's Akihabara. Oh, well, eh?
*shrug* Poker. I don't like it.
Wow, this article was well thought out and exceptionally written. I still won't switch to Windows, only keep it as a sort of unfortunate necessity in its own little part of my MacBook's HD, but I like knowing what makes Windows so appealing to those of you who...well, to put it nicely, those of you who use it frequently and (gasp!) actually LIKE using it. Kudos.
And honestly, Apple's dive into the hardware market was definitely a survival move, but it also gives Mac users a definite advantage over Windows users, who get stuck with cheap, useless third-party software on every new PC. Macs OS X and all of Apple's hardware were made for each other, and everything works together seamlessly: programs and hardware just WORK, without installing all sorts of converters and drivers and God knows what else.
It is true that Apple lacks backward compatability. But is keeping your ancient, unstable programs running really necessary if it means sacrificing progress? Windows has been dragging around all sorts things for years just so it could be backward compatible. Really, though, people? Have you SEEN the so-called "changes" in Windows VIsta, how even the most "streamlined" and "simple" processes require several dialogue boxes and how the whole OS just got a facelift, with only minor improvements? And even with the redecorating Windows slapped over XP, the whole thing feels shallow and unstable, and to access all the pretty features of Aero you have to be willing to waste RAM like it's nothing, whereas Leopard comes standard with all features included.
Yawn.
But like I said, I thoroughly enjoyed your article. Thanks again! You'd be able to sell me a PC any day...almost...
Thanks, MacFanCam. You are a gracious debater, especially since (and even more so, in retrospect), my entry was, as always, blunt, offensive and overbearing (let alone, incorrect - Microsoft stiffed us on a shitload of WinVista features in the end), but you love me for all these things, right? Thanks again for reading. ;)
To answer your question, the "Windows people" see the world running Windows products. Not a single person owns a Mac over at my office...or at my previous job, or the jobs before that (both in Canada and Japan). There are thousands of programs available for the PC; there is an innumerable number of users. Something breaks, and the world wails; the problem gets fixed immediately - hell, you can fix it yourself. Can you do this with a Mac? To what extent? (Heh, and don't get me started on Mac purchase and upgrade prices.) We've been taught to think outside the box, but never look inside it. *shrug*
Look, ultimately it doesn't matter what "just WORK[S]"; if, and when, 90% of the world will use Macs, I will quietly convert. Until then, it's mob rule, I'm afraid. In this world of ours, ubiquity is king.
There is always a flipside, however; and, though I am a zealot, I am not a fanatic. Yes, WinVista was a great blow to the PC community (Why yawn? I'll gladly join you for a nice shudder.), but so was WinME. I stand by my words: this is a move in the right direction. A few more incarnations of *nix/Apple rip-offs and we'll have ourselves an OS. ;)