Windows XP and Vista Side-by-Side
BentUser - Windows XP and Vista b5270 Side-by-Side
BentUser does a comparison of Windows XP and Windows Vista to show the new improvements. But really, I think this is a comparison with Windows XP and how much Vista is trying to become like MacOS X. Microsoft is simply playing catchup to Apple and they’re very late to the game.
Start Menu Search/Search = Spotlight
Window Switcher = Expose
Breadcrumb bar = Apple’s 3 pane navigation
Library = Smartfolders
Media Center = Front Row (gotta give it to Microsoft here…they beat Apple to this one)
Where’s the Dashboards ripoff? Will there be a Microsoft Display Panel in the future? Maybe Microsoft is relying on Yahoo’s Widget Engine (aka Konfabulator) to handle that for them (which Apple copied, IMHO).
Calendar, Mail,etc … I can’t be picky about that. It’s very obvious to have apps like that on both systems.
I just don’t see anything new. With all the smart brains at Microsoft, we should all be expecting something revolutionary, not just simply following Apple’s lead. Where’s the new and improved ways of doing things. Don’t just follow…make Apple play catchup. Even though I love the Mac and use it daily, I say this because I’m still forced to use a PC in my dayjob and I won’t be getting away from it anytime soon. And friends and relatives will still be using PCs so I’d like it to be easier for them (which makes things easier for me).
January 16th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
You don’t see anything new because you’re not looking very hard, like most Macfans.
Start here: http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/default.aspx
It’s the blog of Office 12’s UI architect, and there are so many new features that I stopped counting. We’ll probably see most of them in some form or another in the next MacOS, but for now, they are quite unique to Microsoft.
January 30th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
Don’t worry, some of us are almost 40 …
heck some of us live on 2 dollars a day.