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Asher
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Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Agathon
I suppose you could buy Longhorn at the end of next year and finally get the standard of graphics that mac users have been enjoying since 2001. 
But why bother. You could buy a mac mini with Tiger this Friday and it will be better than Longhorn will be and you won't have to wait 18 months.
Microsoft has dropped the ball. Even Paul Thurrott is starting to get tetchy. |
The quotes above are from Paul Thurrott. You know, with words like "unsurpassed," etc.
And people are more than welcome to buy a Mac Mini, with the 1.25GHz G4 and a bloaty OS X Tiger, but it won't be in the same league as Longhorn.
As reviews have said, OS X Tiger is a minor, incremental upgrade that is more akin to a service pack for Windows that you get for free from MS. It's $129US from Apple.
quote:
Though it is marketed by Apple as a major release, Tiger is in fact a minor upgrade with few major new features for end users (though developers will be interested in some of the low-level work Apple has done with Core Image, Core Audio, and other technologies. That won't stop Apple fans from flocking to Apple Stores on April 29 and standing in line to buy it, even at its inflated $129 price. |
Apple still doesn't get the concept of inductive user interfaces, either.
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcas...sk-based_ui.asp
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:18
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quote:
The quotes above are from Paul Thurrott. You know, with words like "unsurpassed," etc. |
This Paul Thurrott, quoted this very day
quote:
Though the Longhorn demonstrations Gates and his minions provided were interesting, they were visually unimpressive, falling short of the graphical excellence found today in Apple's Mac OS X. However, various Microsoft representatives told me that the Aero Glass user interface demonstrated during the keynote was not the final user experience and would instead by dramatically nicer looking in later beta releases. The Aero Glass interface that Gates demonstrated did support OS X-like transparencies, translucencies, animations, and other effects, however. Gates also showed off application scaling, which will help legacy applications display correctly on the high DPI displays of the future, and a sample media-oriented sample application that takes advantage of Longhorn's display features. |
http://www.windowsitpro.com/windows...rott_46173.html
But more galling...
quote:
I hate mornings. I wish that wasn't the case, but it is. It's especially true after an excruciatingly long day followed by not enough sleep. In the cold light of morning, I'm reflecting a bit on Longhorn 5048. My thoughts are not positive, not positive at all. This is a painful build to have to deal with after a year of waiting, a step back in some ways. I hope Microsoft has surprises up their sleeves. This has the makings of a train wreck. I'll have more on that later. |
http://www.windowsitpro.com/windows...rott_46175.html
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Atahualpa
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Hawthrone
Mar 1999
time: 06:18
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quote:
Though the Longhorn demonstrations Gates and his minions provided were interesting, they were visually unimpressive, falling short of the graphical excellence found today in Apple's Mac OS X. However, various Microsoft representatives told me that the Aero Glass user interface demonstrated during the keynote was not the final user experience and would instead by dramatically nicer looking in later beta releases. The Aero Glass interface that Gates demonstrated did support OS X-like transparencies, translucencies, animations, and other effects, however. Gates also showed off application scaling, which will help legacy applications display correctly on the high DPI displays of the future, and a sample media-oriented sample application that takes advantage of Longhorn's display features. |
Bah nobody needs this stuff anyway... they should focus less on eye-candy which is useless in every way.
The best looking interface is still Mac OS 8. Perfect for working, nothing that distracts. All these animations are completely useless and unecessary.
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St Leo
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Member of the Apolyton Social Democratic Party
Jul 2005
time: 00:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Asher
The dropshadows that I see are black...is your monitor calibrated correctly?  |
I am referring to the halo around the username in the Star Menu and the purple titlebar titles.
quote:
Cairo: Windows NT 4.0
(No codename): Windows 2000 |
I think you have those two reversed.
Gods preserve us from Vikings, Magyars, and inductive user interfaces. Computers aren't made better by turning chess into rock-paper-scissors.
I don't want to edit pictures. I want to run Paint Shop Pro, open a few pictures in it, compare them, juggle around values, duplicate windows, and so on.
I don't want to browse the web. I want to open Opera with my last workspace already in place.
Microsoft Word has an awful interface, if only because I have to create decent heading and body styles before I start writing anything.
And Mac OS X is easier to use. There is a difference between "ease of use" and "ease of learning". One would think that a strategy gamer would know it. Doom is easy to learn. Total Annihilation[0] is easy to use.
[0] Civ2 has a pretty crappy interface compared to cEvo or even FreeCiv, so I can't really give it as an example. Warlords Battlecry III and maybe Kohan II have surpassed Total Annihilation in the interface department, but they are a bit more obscure.
quote:
And third parties can extend the shell with their own options too, though curiously few do it (I guess they're too busy complaining how evil Microsoft is). |
Probably because programmers disable n00b crap like autorun and task panes, and so don't think of customizing them.
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Asher
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Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:18
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quote:
Originally posted by St Leo
Gods preserve us from Vikings, Magyars, and inductive user interfaces. Computers aren't made better by turning chess into rock-paper-scissors.
I don't want to edit pictures. I want to run Paint Shop Pro, open a few pictures in it, compare them, juggle around values, duplicate windows, and so on.
I don't want to browse the web. I want to open Opera with my last workspace already in place.
Microsoft Word has an awful interface, if only because I have to create decent heading and body styles before I start writing anything.
And Mac OS X is easier to use. There is a difference between "ease of use" and "ease of learning". One would think that a strategy gamer would know it. Doom is easy to learn. Total Annihilation[0] is easy to use.
[0] Civ2 has a pretty crappy interface compared to cEvo or even FreeCiv, so I can't really give it as an example. Warlords Battlecry III and maybe Kohan II have surpassed Total Annihilation in the interface department, but they are a bit more obscure. |
The point is -- you can do both in Windows. You have the inductive task-based interface and the deductive program/document-based interfaces. The latter are better for "power users", the former is better for novice/"average" users.
I consider Mac OS X awkwardly inbetween ease of learning and ease of use. The Dock is the most heinous of all user interface innovations -- mixing running programs with non-running programs and without any description other than an icon, for instance.
quote:
Probably because programmers disable n00b crap like autorun and task panes, and so don't think of customizing them. |
This is the exact kind of mindset that prevents people from making computers readily accessible to most people. You don't understand and are seemingly incapable of entering the mindset of other users and how they perceive the computer, and how they want to drive interaction.
A grandma goes to her computer and says "I want to send an email". Is it obvious that the first step to do this is open Outlook?
What if she wants to print pictures she downloaded from the internet? She's looking at the pictures, what now? With task-based, you have a task pane on the left that'll say stuff like "Print picture..." and "Order prints online". It then becomes an inductive process, accelerating the learning process and thus becoming easier to use for her and people like her.
Then for people like you, arguably more competent with computers , can still open PSP to print your pictures first. No one stops you.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:18
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More Thurrotty goodness:
quote:
Here's what happened. At last year's WinHEC 2004, Microsoft showed off its Longhorn OS and made promises about shipping it in late 2005. It showed off hardware advances, such as auxiliary displays for notebooks and Tablet PCs that would let you access email, calendar, digital music, and other services while the machine was closed and powered down. The company touted small-form-factor Tablet PCs that would straddle the increasingly blurred line between PDAs and ultra portable notebook computers.
Flash forward to this year's WinHEC 2005. Longhorn is in complete disarray and in danger of collapsing under its own weight: Since WinHEC 2004, Microsoft hasn't shipped a single public beta release of the product, which is now delayed until late 2006. Now, we get a new build of Longhorn, finally, but it's surprisingly similar to the version we got last year. In fact, it's almost less exciting, because it looks more like the existing Windows version—Windows XP—than the year-ago version did. You can literally see the backtracking.
Microsoft once again showed off auxiliary displays and small-form-factor Tablet PCs. Neither technology is any closer to shipping: They're expected to show up in late 2006—yep, about the same time frame as Longhorn—which means we might be lucky enough to see them again at WinHEC 2006 next spring. You know, if I actually show up for that one. |
http://www.connectedhomemag.com/Hom...46181&#Comments
With every passing week it becomes clearer that Longhorn will just be a minor upgrade to XP: an upgrade that has OS X like security, OS X like graphics, and OS X like integrated content searching.
Why would you buy it, when you could have bought OS X four years ago?
Microsoft has dropped the ball big time.
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Asher
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Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Agathon
With every passing week it becomes clearer that Longhorn will just be a minor upgrade to XP: an upgrade that has OS X like security, OS X like graphics, and OS X like integrated content searching.
Why would you buy it, when you could have bought OS X four years ago?
Microsoft has dropped the ball big time. |
A minor upgrade with a completely new API?
A minor upgrade with a completely new environment (in .NET instead of C++)?
A minor upgrade with a completely new graphics engine?
A minor upgrade with a completely new document architecture?
One thing to remember is Paul is a journalist, not a software engineer.
In huge projects like this, you get the "back end" and fundamentals done before the touch-up appearance and looks. Look how fundamentally different Windows XP final looks from the betas, for example.
There has been huge reworkings on the internals that are not evident from screenshots and quick demos. For example, Explorer (or the UI...comparable to KDE/Gnome) has been rewritten to use .NET, which is both more flexible and more secure (and portable, curiously). Win32 has been deprecated and recoded in WinFX, which is also more flexible and secure.
Longhorn is a major overhaul of the internals, and that's what's been happening. Spit & polish and things that superficial journalists like Paul (and most Mac users, I'd imagine) would notice come after the basics are done.
You can't add all kinds of functionality to Explorer when it doesn't even exist yet...
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Asher
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Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:18
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Longhorn and laptops: http://news.com.com/Can+Longhorn+im...l?tag=nefd.lede
quote:
Yet another Longhorn feature was, in fact, inspired by the cell phone. For years, clamshell-style phones have had a second, smaller screen on the outside so basic information, such as a clock and caller ID, can be viewed without opening the phone. Microsoft, along with Intel, has been working to translate the same capability to the laptop.
special coverage
Show-and-tell for Microsoft
"Black boxes" for Windows, Longhorn for laptops, 64-bit software--and more. Click here for stories from WinHEC.
With Longhorn, Microsoft is adding support for such devices, although the approach is somewhat inelegant. Either the PC will be off, and the calendar or e-mail information on the secondary display risks being out of date, or, when accessing functions such as playing music, the laptop will be fully turned on. Down the road, Mitchell hopes to do the engineering work so information can remain updated with only needed parts of the computer being powered up. The company also hopes laptops will someday even be able to use a nearby watch or cell phone as an additional display.
One thing that remains unclear is just how Microsoft will sell the Tablet PC OS in the Longhorn time frame. More and more, tablet features are being added to mainstream laptops, and Microsoft said the cost difference between a tablet-capable PC and a similarly equipped laptop has declined to about $100, from $250. However, computer makers currently still have to buy Microsoft's higher-priced Tablet PC edition of Windows XP in order to offer those features. Microsoft has not said how it will package Longhorn.
Show-and-tell
IDC's Kay said he anticipates that tablet features will still command a premium price in Longhorn, but he expects the added price to be less in Longhorn than it is in Windows XP. Kay noted that Microsoft has seen a significant increase in sales of Windows XP Media Center Edition since it cut the price premium on that product last fall.
It does appear that consumers may at least be able to combine the features of Microsoft's premium operating systems.
"Our grand goal is to provide as much feature richness as any particular customer segment wants," Mitchell said. "Right now we have arguably artificial separation between things."
Today, for example, consumers can buy a laptop that has either the pen-based abilities of the Tablet PC OS or one with the TV recording abilities of the Media Center OS, but not both. In Longhorn, computer makers may be able to combine the two capabilities.
"There's no reason that you shouldn't be able to do that," Mitchell said. |
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26-04-2005 20:53
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