Microsoft claim that their UAC security prompts in Vista are designed to annoy you. I’m trying hard to take them seriously and to not laugh them off… but did they really think it’d work? OEMs and users have been disabling it in droves. Other users have probably taught their muscle memory to automatically click the Continue/Allow button without the slightest acknowledgement or thought. I think Microsoft need to get their act together when it comes to UIs. Some of their recent efforts have been frustratingly inconsistent.
A major reason given by Microsoft in their UAC scandal was to encourage developers to avoid privilege elevations as much as possible. A noble cause, especially in the security-inexperienced world of Windows development, albeit poorly executed. It reminds me of Apple’s perpetual opposition to the multi-button mouse. One stated reason is to enforce more ‘sane’, ‘usable’ and consistent UI design, and overall I think they’ve done well. They don’t ban multi-button mice (‘XY-PIDSes’?), but given the simple one-button default there’s less need for them. I might prefer using a conventional 3-button scroll mouse, or even Apple’s own Mighty Mouse (a cleverly-disguised multi-button mouse), but I don’t lose any functionality by not using them.
It goes to show how much the graphical interface can be influenced by its physical input, something a lot of us don’t acknowledge in today’s world of >100-key QWERTY keyboards, multi-button mice and multi-finger touchpads. The real innovation in that space seems to be happening in the mobile and embedded sector, the iPhone being a good example. Players of games on both desktop computers and games consoles might notice the difference in ‘look and feel’ between games designed for keyboard/mouse versus control pad. Particularly for action and strategy games, ports from desktop to console (or vice versa) often aren’t successful. The software was designed with the assumption of particular input devices, and anything that deviates from this will also alter the feel of the game.
LotD: Your Windows licence fees paid to make this
In January, during Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote speech announcing the new Intel Macintoshes, Microsoft made a "commitment" to continue to develop for and support the Apple Macintosh platform. In true Microsoft style, they conveniently didn’t explain how deeply that commitment went. Now we know.
Microsoft have decided to kill their Virtual PC product, removing a virtualisation option from Mac OS at the same time that similar functionality is being folded into Windows Vista. They are aware that virtualisation is quickly becoming a killer feature, and they’ll be damned if they allow anyone else to have it. Fortunately (and probably preferably), VMware will be made available for the Apple Intel platform. There’s also Parallels, but they still do not have any server-oriented products.
In addition, Microsoft will also be removing Visual Basic support from Office for Mac. If you can’t stop supporting something, why not cripple it instead? Many businesses are dependent upon VB scripting, or exchange files with people/organisations that make use of it, so this is a major blow indeed for Apple. Such a deficiency will be subtle: people will purchase Office for Mac expecting it to work with files created in its Windows counterpart (or vice versa), and will be sorely disappointed. This has already been occurring for a number of years, but the problem is becoming increasingly acute.
Ultimately, the best solution is to remove our dependency on proprietary formats and languages, for they are the root cause of this mess. OpenOffice.org already does what most people require, and in some cases it does it better. It even has growing support for Visual Basic for Applications. OpenOffice is truly looking like a better Office than MS Office. The OpenOffice file filtering support developers work hard to support all the MS Office formats they can find (people have counted over 20 different versions of the Word .DOC format alone), which is more than I can say about the MS Office programmers, who are notorious for breaking compatibilty with older versions. Using the OpenDocument formats (which are now an ISO standard) assures that your data will be accessible on many different platforms for many years to come.
The main stumbling block to OpenOffice adoption on Mac OS is the Windows-like interface and its reliance on X11 for display. There is work being done on a native Aqua version, but in the meanwhile there is NeoOffice.
Steve "Reality Distortion Field" Jobs has delivered his keynote address to Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC). It’s amazing what he would have us believe. Apple has apparently invented virtual desktops. What does Microsoft have to say about it, given they applied for a patent on the technology in 2004 (complete with images ripped out of GNOME and KDE!)? Let’s just forget that they have existed since at least 1985, shall we?
That aside, I am heartened to see that OpenDarwin did not close their doors a couple of weeks ago in vain. Apple themselves are sponsoring Mac OS Forge, and in the process they have made readily available the source code for Bonjour, Collaboration (Darwin Calendar Server), WebKit (which is really just KHTML on steroids anyway), Launchd and even their XNU kernel (minus some essential proprietary parts). They have even licensed some of these projects under the Apache Licence 2.0. I pray that this signifies the start of a new era of collaboration between Apple and the FLOSS community, and not just a cheap attempt to contribute the minimum amount required to keep the bulk of the community on-side.
So with Tiger being favourably compared to the forever-delayed Windows Vista, what does that make Leopard? Mac OS just gets better and better, while the Windows debacle is far from over. With screw-ups such as this [video], it’s no wonder that Microsoft feels the need to prevent/destroy all competition.
Update (2006-08-13): Here is a much more sober evaluation of the so-called ‘copying’ going on between Mac OS and Windows. It puts everything into more perspective, showing that some of their killer features in fact originated elsewhere. It reminds me of a funny quotation: "Mac OS, Windows, BeOS: they’re all just Xerox copies."
As much as Paul Thurrott likes to claim that Spotlight is a copy of Windows Search, Apple had the same functionality in the mid-1990s with its Copland Project.
On the rare occasion, I find myself in front of a Macintosh. In its default state, the OS feels rather barren. The default set of applications is quite sparse, and you have to put some work into installing the software you need to get going. As a GNU/Linux user, I’m accustomed to installing an operating system and getting a full suite of applications without putting in any extra work. Mind you, OS X is not nearly as bad as operating systems from a certain other vendor.
Here is a list of software that I recommend to Mac users. Most of these apps are free software and also work on GNU/Linux (or a suitable analogue exists), so switching between the two operating systems is easy.
Desktop navigation:
Audio/Video playback:
Web browsing (like Safari or Internet Explorer):
Office suite (like Microsoft Office):
Desktop publishing (like Adobe InDesign):
Drawing (like Adobe Illustrator):
Painting/Photo editing (like Adobe Photoshop):
Printer drivers:
Get more free applications:
Windows compatability:
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