Its downright plagiarism – I am “borrowing” this title from Tom Yagers excellent article of the same title over at InfoWorld. This is a superb article which helps delineate why Apple will not steal significant market share from el Bloato, Vista, despite the latters price, peripherals driver nightmares and software compatibility give aways. At least Apple Mac OS Leopard as it currently stands just does not have the moxie. Here are my (and some Tom Yager supplied) showstoppers:
1)One application at a time monopolizes the one and only menu bar on the Mac versus multiple apps with menus in Windows;
2)Windows allows for multiple apps and MDI (all windows and dialog boxes confined to residing within the primary app Window borders) or non-MDI – dialogs and sub-windows can exist anywhere on the desktop;
3)Mac has one mouse button while Windows has not only right mouse click but also novel use of the mouse wheel;
4)Files do strange things getting to and returned from the trash on the Mac;
5)Files do even stranger things when clicked, double clicked and dropped on top of an app.
No one of these and the dozens of other Mac idiosyncrasies are show stoppers (except possibly 1 and 3) in themselves; but cumulatively – well Tom says it best:”These are small conceptual hurdles that she’ll overcome with time, but on each occasion that the Mac gets in her way with issues such as these, she heads back to Windows to get her work done.” So Apple has some serious work to do to make the Mac, good as it is in some aspects of its interface, consistently better than Windows Vista – especially since Vista designers have done their best to copy some of the best Mac OS GUI ideas.
Leopard Delayed for iPhone
When this news item hit the wires the expected reaction is what the stock market did – it dropped Apples value by a few hundred millions right away. Apple says staff is being transferred from the Leopard development to iPhone to make sure that iPhone gets out in time in June. I suspect there is a fair degree of truth to that.
But I am conjecturing more. Apple knows full well that GUI Integration is taking place. They also must know that Mac OS as Tom and I have described, does not have a clearcut advantage over Windows. But the pointer stylus driven iPhone does. Microsoft has dithered, overpriced and really fumbled its Tablet PC over the past 10 years – after liquidating the competition with its head fake towards a Windows Pen OS. The iPhone has an opportunity to give MacOs leopard a distinct competitive advantage while eliminating our objeciont 3) and maybe a few others above.
So why not get that stylus based code absolutely right for iPhone and then import directly over to Leopard. I have no inside knowledge whatsoever – and may be just whistling in the wind. The port from iPhone to Leopard is probably a huge kludge. Then again if my conjecture is right – then my friends Apple stock (I am still abstaining) looks awfully good.
(c)JBSurveyer 2007 If you liked this, let others know:
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