Yeah, Jobs' presentation of Leopard seemed to go out of its way imitating Vista-ish themes. The selection of desktop photo backgrounds, colors and the appearance of various features was probably not a coincidence. IMO the dark colors and emphasis on black is a step backwards from the bright and attractive Aqua rendering used in previous flavors of OS X. Windows users (most still on XP or 2K) seem to like garish color schemes, so maybe this new look for the OS X desktop is a subtle play for their attention.

This is simply stupid

Wow. We are all the Mac fanbois? They're usually clogging up otherwise good conversation with their "they stole it or copied it from Mac" posts. Ahh nevermind, I'm sure they'll show up with how much better Mac's do it. After all, it is ok if Mac copies what someone else does and improves on it. But by gosh, Microsoft better not do the same.

You're joking, right?

search, a download folder, 64 bit os - these aren't exactly microsoft inventions. Maybe if you've never used another OS they might look that way.

And there are an awful lot of things that are available as third party apps on windows, I'm not sure that means much.

you suck

Hmm... Mary Jo Foley published almost exactly the same article on ZDNet yesterday (http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=505). Wonder who wrote it (*cough* microsoft *cough*)?

Hey Joe you forgot another similarity. They're both late. Kidding aside the Microsoft site is sad sad sad compared to the Apple site (just look at the graphics).

That aside it took me like four clicks to get to the full details of the features and that was mostly luck. After finally getting there I was amazed at the list. Some feature items:

-BitLocker Drive Encryption and just below that Encrypting File System. Sort of the same thing, just different setup. Can't the put it together as "Data Encryption"??

-Explorer section which includes details on items like Instant Search which is then listed again a few lines below.

-Fast Sleep and Resume?? Huh?? How can they even list that as a "Feature", should be a given.

-Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista
-Internet Explorer 7 Printing
-Internet Explorer 7 Tabbed Browsing

Couldn't they just have called the section Internet Explorer 7?

And it goes on and on. I would have prefered a small, compact and clear list of features. In the end after searching through them I found two features Vista does not have. One is Spaces (aka multiple desktops) which can have a questionable functionality for some. The other is Automator. The exclusion of which is unforgivable. It is such a helpful tool that even being a programmer I use it all the time. The ability to automate simple tasks in such a simple, quick and clear way is a great feature in OS X which is missing in Vista.

Joe , you are really running out of idea and topic.

You even compare the look and feel of two different OS.

I thought this will only happen in Hollywood gossip where Angelina Julie and Ashley Judd is sighted wearing the same evening grown !!

Those features were announced in Leopard way before the bloated Vista made its appearance on the market, you tech analphabet.
MS stole from Apple those and made them poor copies.

Do your research.

You really have no shame.
So Leopard copied the 64 bit feature?
They should have made it 67 bits, right? Just to be original.
Time machine is copied after Volume Shadow copy? ROFL. The other way around, buster.

Dude, you are so computer illiterate. I bet you don't even know to configure your network.

That is a really poor review. Written clearly to raise allegations that everything that appears in Windows Vista is an original idea. Microsoft hasn't had an original thought since it bought its last competitor.

Hummmm! I guess you are as crazy as one of the bloggers in zdnet who came with the same BS, or you like to appear stupid or maybe you just have fun knowing that people will think of you as crap!!!! Or maybe you are just simply ignorant, totally igorant of what is going on around you, well you write on Microsoft watch,.... Or you just forgot your honor, received a nice green present from microsoft and wrote this ch...! But anyway whatever the reason, lets correct this mess, shall we?

Translucency. Apple had been using translucency for years, the menu bar back to the first version of OS X used translucency, but less than Leopard. Between OS X 10.0 and Leopard, apple has changed the intensity of the translucency and now came back to a stronger on. You are crap on this one!!!

Photo desktop: I don't really understand what you mean here, apple did not speak about any thing called Photo desktop, photo desktop means just photo desktop... And anyway OS X has been offering a way to change dynamically the desktop background/photo back to OS X 10.2. And also back to 10.2, OS X has a hiden deature that allows to put an animated background (like a screen saver, etc...) as desktop background. Microfost just copied everything here with DreamScene, so again you are crap....

New Dock. So what, what is the point here? Apple has had a dock back to the first version of OS X, and anyway the dock and the start menu are totally differnt things, the dock is just much more powerful than the start menu. Again they are different things, why apple should not improve their dock just because microsoft improved (well maybe not!!!) the start menu, this is just plain stupid way to think, some people are getting crazy to the point that what they say becomes simply non-sense. Anyway you are really crap here....

Flip3D/CoverFlow. Well i guess you better check what you are talking about. Flip 3D is fist useless and it is about managing many windows on the desktop, and it is a bad rip off of Apple Expose, introduced with OS X 10.3 in 2003!!!! CoverFlow serves totally different purpose, it is about viewing files, folders, where a hell is the relation here between those two features? Microsoft tried to rip off Expose, and they came up with the crapy and useless Flip 3D, do you just realize that? So crap..... again

Preview Pane/live icons. OS X had live icons back to OS X 1O.0 but not for all files, now they extended it to all files. Micorosft again and again copied and came after with this in Vista, well after. OS X has been also using a preview pane in the finder since OS X 10.0, quicklook goes well behind that as it really allows to view all the document, quickly and effectively. Vista does not provide this kind of feature, so you are crap again. And don't tell me about third party products that can do that, they no way as intregraded and well designed as Quick Look is, otherwie they would be polpular, they are not.

Download Folders. MAC OS has prior to OS X some kind of download folders and this is absolutly not a new thing. What you don't say is that Apple uses this with their stack feature which at the end become more powerful and different. And don't say that Microsoft invented stacks, Apple invented the idea years ago, you can easily find the patent, they call it piles there.. So who is ripping off here, .....crap again.....

Improved search. OS X had search back to 10.3, build in the finder. With Tiger, apple introduced Spotlight for much more powerful search , which is still more powerfull than what Vista proposes. With Leopard they are continuing improving spotlight, what is wrong, again totally stupid argument. The point is that Leopard will have much powerfull search capabilities, and that's make you so pissed off, righ? Crap, crap, crap....

Home Network search. Tiger could already make some search over the network, with Leopard it has been improved and it does search on servers, which Vist a ca not do!!! You are crap.

Shared computers. OS X has been doing sahring since OS X 10.0, it supports SMB, AFP sharing, .mac sharing (webdave), it has also a ftp and a ssh server which Vista does not (hey, hey...). So can you say me what are you talking about here? With Leopard Apple has implemented a much solid sharing inside the finder with a better user experience, better features and stability. You are crap... OS X has mucher better sharing features than Vista.

64 bits. That's interesting, it just shows how poor you know about computers. Apple has started to use 64 bits with Tiger, all the unix layer is 64 bits capable on Tiger, which means that you can run 64 bits applications on Unix, but without any call to higher APIs like carbon and Cocoa. With Leopard Apple has implemented the 64 bits support to the whole OS. Now how could you even say that Vista is 64 bis, it is not, most of the versions of Vista are 32 bits, there is a separate 64 bits version of Vista that no one uses because it is crappy, it has poor driver support (32 bits drivers do not run on Vista 64 bits) and 32 bits applications run via an emulation layer which compromises their performance and compatibility. And again most of the sold Vista are 32 bits versions of the OS and most of the OEM use the 32 bits version for their computers.
Leopard is the first mainstream 64 bits OS, there is one OS for both 32 bits and 64 bits computers, it supports 32 bits applications and drivers natively. Again one OS, Leopard 64 bits, that runs everywhere. Compared to the microsoft mess, this is just fabulous. You should even not talk about this as it reminds us how the 64 bits support at Microsoft is crap. And like it, you are crap too.

WPF/Core animation. WPF is a catch up technology that brings to windows desktop compositing, transparency, vector graphics and limited 3D effects. Apple has INTRODUCED this since OS 10.0, yes they were the first to bring modern graphics wih compositing, visual effect, vector graphics, etc... and Apple introduced GPU accelerated effects with 10.2. WPF is nothing more than a Apple's Quartz like, but much slower. I mean Apple can do transparency, the dock visual effect, the real time shadows and most of the nice quartz effects on a mac with G3 processors and 8 Mo of memory for the graphic card. And it runs nicely.. Try to do that with WPF/Vista, it is just silly how much ressource it requires to do basic effects. So in other words, Microsoft came up with a modern graphical layer 5-6 years after Apple, but it is still crap and slow. Core animation builds on top of Quartz to provide rich animations and sophisticated animations to the user interface in a more powerful way than WPF can do, as WPF can do simple animations with basic 3D as a subset of its compositing capabilities. CoreAnimation is all for animation. So you are awfully crap here too.

VSC/Time machine. Again you misunderstand the technology. VSC is limited as it acts as a simple incremental backing up system with a terrible poor interface to retrive the lost files. There is nothing new in VSC in terms of how backing up is done, and let me tell you that Microsoft did not invent the idea of backing up as far as i know. Now, Time machine is a different beast as it works with the file system to monitor (via a notification mechanism) every change that is happening on files in the file system, so that this is damm deeply implemented in the system. This allows to monitor in real time the changes in file system in oder to build a tree of changes to later build the back up. This is quite different than to only do incremental changes back up as this is less effective ( a new files created but not modified won't be backed up during the next back up) and ressource consumming because it has do go to the all file systell to check which files has changed. Time machine when doing the back up already knows which files it needs to back up as it continuously knows what is happening in the file system. Also Time machine brings a totally innovative interface to retrive the lost file, something never done before because it really allows you to go the past and see how your system was. That's a totally new way than to go and look for a file in a strange back up directory. And it also proves how Core animation can be used to create new interfaces to handle annoying tasks nicely. So you are crap.

At the end of the day, the thing that you wrote is totally wrong and incredibly trollish. I know that you get paid by Micro... but please why do you feel forced to shame yourself on the net?

Have a nice day, and stay a fool!!!!!

@Hakime.
I use both OSX and Windows Vista a lot.
And both of them have their pros and cons.

But you are slightly off on a couple of things.

Preview Pane:
While the preview pane in Vista doesn’t work for all file types. For the file types it does support. It DOES allow you to preview the ENTIRE file contents. That being most Image formats, Document formats, video formats and music formats.

Stacks:
Vista's Stacks and Stacks in Leopard are totally different things. So they can’t be compared. Wait i think you are trying to say that Vista's Stacks are what apple invented ages ago and called them Piles? If that’s what you mean then you are correct. However for other readers out there, Stacks in Vista is something totally different to Stacks in Leopard.

WPF:
Let me start off in saying that you are right with WPF (aka Avalons) performance being crap. And you are right about apple having a hardware accelerated desktop first. But you have mixed the technology up.

WPF, is a programming framework which allows you to EASILY jazz-up your programs UI with some fancy animations and affects (eye candy). While before to do this you would have to use Direct X which is much harder to learn and use. It’s NOT the technology which is responsible of accelerating Vista’s desktop. So it’s JUST a programming framework.

You have gotten it confused with DWM (Desktop Windows Manager).
This is the technology that powers the GPU accelerated desktop in Vista’s Aero Glass. Not WPF!

I almost stopped reading after the first entry in your table that indicates Leopard has more transparency than Vista.

Did you actually watch the demos, they are available on Apple's website. Transparency is nowhere near the fixture that it is in Vista. Despite a few new tricks, Leopard appears to be a move towards even an even more functional system over aesthetics. All one has to do is look at Leopard's folder icons to prove that.

If a person at Best Buy cannot differentiate between Vista and Leopard desktops then they should ask for a salesperson to sell them a Mac to provide them with the system tools for their obvious visual handicap.

"If a person at Best Buy cannot differentiate between Vista and Leopard desktops then they should ask for a salesperson to sell them a Mac to provide them with the system tools for their obvious visual handicap."

I can't agree more! LMAO!!!

Give me a break, this article is nothing but an attempt to start a flame war and generate traffic. Each OS has it's pros and cons, I've used both, like both but prefer OSX.

Are we really going to argue over taste / preference? This is like arguing over what brand of grape jelly I like most.

OK, now write an article which is interesting.

Nice use of headline to grab attention over nothing! Apple OSX had most of these features four years ago, so if Microsoft "copied" them for Vista, you can't really accuse Apple of copying Vista for Leopard. Aren't they just improving on their own product, and in most cased, going further than MS went?

I think Mr Jobs intentionally went with a Vista style desktop and color scheme to spark this exact debate... more brilliant marketing maneuvers from Cupertino.

Oh, you liked Vista's flashy backgrounds...? We can use them too because a wallpaper does not and O/S make!

My dock has been transparent longer than Vista has existed.

Can consumers tell the difference between the visual effects in Vista and Leopard? Not until they actually TRY them, where they will learn that the Vista effects respond like molasses in January on anything but the very fastest hardware. This stuff is never going to fly on typical consumer-grade machines in Best Buy. Go ahead, try the Vista Mah Jongg game on any current hardware that doesn't come from Alienware, or, believe it or not, Apple.

Hahahaha.

the simple fact is that these OSs are converging. you see a lot of feature overlap. it very difficult to really tell who had an idea first. MSFT announces things way ahead of time. Apple keeps secrets and ships more often.

In general, the key to the Apple experience is the fit and finish of how anything they deliver works. Expose is a great example of this. It just works amazingly well and is extremely useful. Flip 3D is nice nice eye candy, but its not quite as handy as expose.

Both offer a 64 bit OS, but the point for Apple was that OSX has a single OS that supports 32 and 64. that is a huge advantage. The user can install the OS and apps, 64 bit functionality works were possible, and 32 bit works where needed. On Vista, the user has an initial choice of which direction. In my case I picked 32 bit since I just did not have confidence in 64 bit apps and what other issues that might bring. I know I've seen other Vista users make the same call.

You could go on and on comparing these issues. I like macs and prefer that UI, but the real question is does any of this matter? If you have a Windows box and Windows apps your switching cost is high. You are not really concerned about who made what first but is your OS competitive. Vista is competitive with OSX, XP increasing wasn't, so its probably good enough parity for Windows users for the time being. And on the Mac side, they see Vista in the rear mirror, not so far back, but still not as nice in terms of the details - so it does not really matter.

The question should not really be which is better. To me the question is who is innovating faster. I think its hard to make the case that faster innovator is Windows. OSX seems to be evolving new functionality faster and with more stability than Vista. OSX is 5 years old, and it seems to have a better foundation for innovation.

The other side is that OSX has less baggage. Apple dispenses with legacy functionality easily, this is the benefit of a tiny consumer focused install base. MSFT necessarily has more resources dedicated to backwards compatibility - the have 1000s of big customers with enterprise apps that must be supported with any change. Apple just does not have these sort of scenarios to support.

Instead of arguing over bragging rights, the prognosis for the next 2 years is really the question. MSFT caught up with Vista, but in terms of time and resources, it has got to have been much more expensive than the path to 10.5. You'd think that Vista would be the OS that is far ahead at this point. That Apple can roll up with 10.5 and match most new functionality in Vista, exceed it in some areas and have better quality with maybe 5 - 10% the resources (my guess) says something about Apple technology. Even if you think they are just matching Windows - or even copying it, I don't but even if you take that position - the fact that they do it, that they match WIndows functionality with arguably better quality and fit and finish, and continue to do so with a fraction of the resources, thats the game to watch.

Hopefully, we'll all get to continue to watch this cat and mouse, David and Goliath match for years to come, and this will be for a short time a golden age of desktop experience development.

Hey, Joe, You've just forgot to add first column on the comparison table.

It should be "Tiger" "Vista" "Leopard".
Just add the first "Tiger" column and compare them.
Then you can find out how stupid your blah-blah is.

This is baloney. OS X "Leopard" is vastly superior to anything Microshaft could come up with. Besides, Windows is junk. I should know - I have been using Windows since '85. I will be "converting" to Mac full-time when Leopard is released in October.

You've lost credibility with that stupid topic. It turns out you are one dishonest MS troll.
Bleh

Umm, the comparison is a bit misleading. Vista 64-bit? No, it's not, unless you get the 64-bit version. But better check out your drivers first before taking that jump.

@Gerardo

I can't even believe you brought that stuff up. Have you ever seen the mini-page on Apple's site listing Tiger's 200 new features. They actually broke down every Widget and listed it as an individual feature, they even listed individual mail templates as new features.

As a cross-platform user, but also as a Mac advocate and Apple stockholder, I want to apologize to you on behalf of many the rude and profane responses you have received from Mac users. Sadly many amongst us simply have no social graces and have far too great a portion of their egos invested in their choice of tools. It is regrettable, but probably inevitable. Please don't take it personally.

Having familiarity with both systems, I thought the same thing during Jobs previews. There are other items as well:

Spaces from Apple looks like the PowerToy add in for XP. Actually, virtual desktops have existed for Windows for years from 3rd parties. They have existed for UNIX for even longer.

Fast User Switching debuted with XP in 2001. I don't use this, so maybe it hit OSX pre-Leopard, but I still remember this touted "original" feature.

Oh, and sidebars were not an Apple invention. They got their idea from Konabulator (now owned by Yahoo) who got the idea somewhere down the line from OS/2. Yes, OS/2. Here is a screen shot: http://pages.prodigy.net/michaln/history/os221/od_fold.gif

There's also STACKS: This is combination of WMP11 stacks plus grouping similar programs in the XP tool-bar.

george k,

No I haven't seen the mini page. I saw the one under macosx/leopard/features/

On the left side I have a nice compact list of top features. Each feature is unique. On the right side I have a preview of the features with graphics which are not just screen snapshots (unlike the MS site which just limits itself to snapshots).

If you go into any one you'll see a demo. The demo and the gallery pop up in a layer. Which adds up to a more pleasant navigation.

Overall the Apple site is better looking and also presents its information in more media types. I also liked the fact that they make a better synthesis of the OS features than Microsoft.

If you have that link you speak of, I'd love to see it.

Silly GUI wars.
Everybody always "copied" from everybody. Mac wasn't the first to invent (LOL) toolbars/docks, to introduce transparent menus etc.
If you would gravitate around Amiga and Linux world you'd see how these kind of things were implemented more than 10 years ago, by 3rd party apps obviously, and even them "copied" from others... and you can continue forever.
Please, stop this war and grow up. Thanks God good ideas just improved user experience. That's all we need -stop-.

Let's clarify the following here:

For starters:

1. You can't compare WIndows Flip 3D to Cover Flow in the Finder (one is MSFT's attempt at an application/window switcher like Apple's Expose - first in Panther 10.3 - and the other is a file preview utility, by the way, previews were already possible in a limited way with photos and by choosing save preview in the parent application's save box)

2. As for Spotlight search text boxes in the top right-hand corner being like Vista's I have the following points: search boxes in the top, right-hand corner of windows were in Mac OS X since Jaguar 10.2; indexed-based searching of meta data was in Mac OS since OS 9 with Sherlock (users could index their HD); Smart Folders (or Live Search Folders) existed in Mac OS since OS 9 when users could save their Sherlock Searches and criteria.

3. I don't see how Time Machine and Shadow Copy can be the same. Shadow Copy sounds like a tool that takes snapshots of the disk directory like System Restore points (it probably is System Restore by another name)

4. Users could already set photos as their desktop backgrounds since the early days of Mac OS 8, in fact, OS 8 came with some nifty desktop photos of places around the world - like the Acropolis, etc.. Microsoft didn't invent photo desktop backgrounds, neither did Apple.

5. I don't see that the Windows Task Bar is translucent like the Mac OS menu bar (perhaps something Redmond can photocopy for Blackbomb!)

6. There is no comparison between .Mac or iChat with Windows Meeting Spaces, that's just folly!

7. Your point about 64-bits is misleading, and frankly, bad journalism: Mac OS X Tiger was 64 bit in part at least, and the 64 bit Unix layer came ON THE SAME DISK. Leopard will be expanding 64 bit to the ENTIRE Operating System, and what's more it will be ON THE SAME DISK (NO SEPARATE VERSION).

One last point I should make is that Apple will also have Basic, Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 - all at the same low price of $129 and ALL ON THE SAME DISC!!!!!

Frankwick re: Stacks and Grouping on XP Taskbar...

You are confused, my friend. XP Grouping deals with minimised Windows; Stacks deal with Actual files, not their application windows, etc.

I can't be bothered reading through all these comments to see whether anybody remotely tech-savvy who HASN'T had their head buried in the sand for the past half decade has corrected EpsDel re VSC/Time Machine.

Volume Shadow Copy was included in Windows Server 2003 - roughly three years before the world even got wind of Time Machine.

Time Machine is VSC, but slightly more functional and far better implemented. But, contrary to popular rumour, VSC came first.

Nice try at the spinning, but you know as well as we do that Vista is a shabby knock-off of Apple's Aqua UI, just in time for Apple to move beyond it.

I notice that you don't mention the #1 feature of the Mac, which is reliability. Any chance of Microsoft getting there in the next decade?

I will be "converting" to Mac full-time

Thats says it all.. I'll never understand how blindly loyal an fanatically religious some people get over machines.. If you're thinking in these terms, you should be a mac zealot!

jajaja! look how these "mac-in-touch-fans" get all pissed off! rofl...

they argue when Windows is ahead (and its always been, and it will always be), they celebrate when Apple seems to come with something "better" than Microsoft, and they argue and get pissed at the truth cause they just hate seeing Apple being bashed at... Simply the mediocre feeling of thinking Mac Fan Boys are Perfect among us. Your little piece of marketshare and supposedly-expensive computers makes you all think you've got the power to call this Journalist any horrible name that comes up of your sick Apple minds... Poor little puppets :)

Stupid :)

Like "anotherguy" said, it has become your Religion huh!? "I'm on the cool side cause I have a Mac" jajaja... I have a friend of mine who told me that and I just had to laugh in his face X-D

Jajaja, this thread is so funny alltogehter!

reliability the number 1 feature?? keep dreaming! the macs at my work crash a few times a day!! they are all dual G5 towers with 4 gigs ram and EVERY day we have problems with them. its just another day in the office when 1 of the macs boots up with nothing on the screen and it has to go in to be fixed. my machine alone has had its $1000 "logic board" replaced twice!!!!

Tenho vontade de entrar em contato com parentes da família Hakime em outras localidades, moro no brasil em Franca estado de São paulo, meu avô veio pro Brasil no ano de l900, fugiu do Líbano, aqui casou-se e formou família, e somos muitos desta família aqui em Franca e região, estamos quase todo mundo concentrados por aqui. Espero que tenha sucesso nesta busca, gostaria de conhecer parentes e principalmente se forem honestos e bons, porque nós aki somos todos gente de bem. Grato.

Tenho vontade de entrar em contato com parentes da fam�lia Hakime em outras localidades, moro no brasil em Franca estado de S�o paulo, meu av� veio pro Brasil no ano de l900, fugiu do L�bano, aqui casou-se e formou fam�lia, e somos muitos desta fam�lia aqui em Franca e regi�o, estamos quase todo mundo concentrados por aqui. Espero que tenha sucesso nesta busca, gostaria de conhecer parentes e principalmente se forem honestos e bons, porque n�s aki somos todos gente de bem. Grato.

It's amazing how many experts are willing to contribute through the comments column, thus bestowing us with their dazzling knowledge on this debate.

Why don't you all start writing blogs and tech articles? You could all get free hardware to try and even make some money, presumably.

Oh yeah, I guess "windows sucks", "mac sucks" wouldn't exactly command much of an audience, huh?

I use Mac OS X and Windows Vista daily. I prefer Windows. However, that is my opinion, and unlike most people posting here, I actually realise that my opinion counts for absolutely nothing whatsoever to anyone but myself.

I agree. Leopard does have many features that Vista has. But where did Vista get them?

Tiger.

Leopard is mostly improvements of stuff already there in Tiger.

I must say that I have never read anything as biased and as dumb as this.

BMW makes cars with 4 wheels and a steering, Mercedes seems to be copying them and and VW copies them too, no wait Toyota also copies them .... wait a sec, it appears the entire auto-mobile industry does that.

And FYI, Flip-3D was released before coverflow, and also why are you comparing the two? Flip-3D is for windows (not the OS) whereas coverflow is for documents, Vista shows thumbnails for documents which I find much more useful.

And you think WPF is the same as Core Animation? You seriously need to do some reading before you start typing. WPF includes multimedia, animations, a UI framework, a rendering engine and even 3D support.

Quote:I wonder how well consumers will be able to tell the Leopard desktop from the Vista desktop on computers in their local Best Buy

...easy..the machine with Mac OS X has an Operating System installed on it.