Mac
OS X vs. Windows XP: Is this what it's come to?
It's either a battle
for the ages, or the ghost of ill will past
In the good old days, I could write up an article about
the Macintosh or its admittedly beautiful OS, and if it
contained even the smallest hint of criticism toward the
mother ship (Apple Computer in Mac-speak), I could be
sure that my inbox would be flooded with vitriolic hate
mail from every corner of the Mac community. That's just
the way it worked: Groups like the Mac Marines, (then)
Guy Kawasaki's EvangeList, and others would send out the
word that some poor journalist had had the gall to
disagree with all that was holy in their worlds. It was
an age where people felt very strongly about such things
as the Amiga, OS/2, and yes, the Mac OS.
Those days have largely
passed. That's not to say that people don't feel very
strongly about the Mac OS: Of course they do, just
attend a MacWorld convention (as I do, fairly regularly)
or Apple Store opening to see what I mean. But the Mac
community, for the most part, has grown up in the past
five or six years. I don't know for a fact that the
average age of this group has increased during this time
period, but I can detect a certain maturity in the lack
of hate mail I get when I dare to criticize Apple, the
Mac OS, or--gasp--Steve Jobs.
And I do criticize
these things, when they deserve it. Just as I criticize
Microsoft, Bill Gates, and Windows when they deserve it.
I call it being fair. But people
assume--understandably--that because I'm a "Windows
guy," I'm automatically an idiot, a Microsoft sycophant,
a clueless Windows lemming, or all of the above. The
truth is, I'm not any of these things (well, I may be in
idiot, but my wife's vote doesn't count). In fact, I've
been closely following with the Macintosh community
since the late 1980's, and I don't actually harbor any
misconceptions about Apple Computer, its products, or
its leadership. I even own a Macintosh--a 2001 iBook
with 384 MB of RAM and a DVD drive--specifically so I
can run Mac OS X, and I favorably reviewed a PowerBook G4
(surprised?) for Windows 2000 Magazine earlier this
year. I hope to get my hands on a DVD-burning G4 next.
You see, I'm actually a big fan.
Paul reviews Windows
XP
Anyway, on to the reason you're reading this page. I
just reviewed Windows XP, and I do love it. I'm the guy
who actually revealed the code-name of this Windows
version to the world, and I also was the first to
publish the fact that Microsoft was using the XP naming
convention a year later. Windows XP, to me, is that
perfect combination of gotta-have-it features, a
powerful upgrade that will benefit almost all current
Windows users. It really does raise the bar.
However, I had the
temerity to write the following in my review of this
product:
And for the copycat
Mac OS X and Linux platforms, where innovation equates
to copying the feature set of Windows, the bar has been
raised yet again, this time to stupefying heights.
I agree that this was a bit harsh. So a few days after
posting the review, I modified it--qualified it,
you might say--to the following:
And for competitors
such as Mac OS X and Linux, where innovation often has
lately equated to simply copying the feature set of
Windows, the bar has been raised yet again, this time to
stupefying heights.
And I got hate mail. Not lots of it like the old
days. But enough of it that I thought I should explain.
The Linux half of this is hardly worth bothering with:
I've been running at least one Linux distribution since
October 1995 (I started with Slackware, BTW, but now run
Red Hat 7.1) on a dedicated PC, and if there are any
truths in this world, one is that the Linux community is
hell-bent on nothing less than whole-heartedly copying
Windows, down to the smallest detail, in various desktop
environments and applications. So we won't go there. But
the Mac OS X part of this bears some explanation.
Me and X
For the record, my first experience with Mac OS X
was actually a PC-based OpenStep (4.3?) product that
Apple sent to developers years ago (It's honestly hard
to remember how long ago this was, but I was still
living in an apartment in Phoenix at the time; since
then, I've own two houses. Weird). This was back when
the successor to the classic Mac OS was still code-named
Rhapsody, and before the
Yellow Box/Blue
Box scheme was contrived. I've looked at various
versions of this fascinating product--since then all
running on Macs of course, as the PC version was quickly
killed--leading up to the retail release of Mac OS X
version 10.0 in March 2001.
Anyway, when the product that was to become Mac OS X
was initially hatched, Apple was in a tough spot. It's
previous OS successor, "Copland," had imploded for a
variety of reasons, and the company was stuck with an
ancient OS (System 7.x) and no clear upgrade path. Then Apple
CEO Gil Amelio quickly turned things around and got Mac
OS 8 on the development cycle, and when Steve Jobs took
over, Mac OS 9 also added some nice incremental
features. Behind the scenes, of course, Rhapsody--then
Mac OS X--was ever in the works. It took a long time to
release this product. And while that was happening,
Microsoft didn't sit still.
Innovation: Microsoft and Apple
The classic view of Microsoft and Apple is that
Apple innovates (they do) and Microsoft copies (they
did). But today, the roles are somewhat reversed. All
modern OSes derive some features from those that have
come before, and Windows XP and Mac OS X are no
different. But the idea that this innovation/copy
relationship is a one-way street is out of date. While
Apple was wallowing in the mid-1990's, Microsoft forged
on with two important goals: Bring the hundreds of
millions of people using Windows 9x to the stable and
reliable NT code base, and change the Windows user
interface dramatically to one that is task-based.
Microsoft's UI work is really the best example of how
this company has innovated. Before Windows 95, users
thought about applications: If you wanted to write a
letter, you opened Word. If you wanted to crunch
numbers, you opened in Excel. In Windows 95, the
gestation of a task-based interface was launched with
the My Documents paradigm and the notion that documents
were more important than the applications that created
them. Don't think application, Microsoft seemed to be
saying, think about what you want to do.
Over the years, this has been honed through UI
experiments (making the file system and Internet
browsing identical, for example), focus groups, user
testing, and research. What we've come to in Windows XP
is a true task-based interface, an important
distinction, that still uses a desktop metaphor so that
users can get up to speed more quickly. In a task based
interface, you don't have to think about documents or
applications, you think about completing tasks, about
getting something done. And as I've said in my review,
this was done very, very well in XP. It makes the system
much easier to use.
Before we compare Mac OS X and Windows XP, then,
let's step back a bit and see where Apple went with
their OS. Mac OS X is gorgeous, with liquid-like screen
elements and amazingly clear fonts. It's just a pretty
thing to look at. You can't customize it, per se, as you
can with XP's UI Themes, but then most people probably
wouldn't want to. But Mac OS X is quite definitely a
desktop-based OS, which means it offers no real
improvements over previous OSes in terms of usability.
You get a menu bar, a desktop, a taskbar-like Dock, and
icons. It is prettier, but one gets the feeling that
it's just different, not better. Users migrating from OS
9 to OS X face a steep learning curve.
Under the covers, of course, Mac OS X does for the
Mac community what Windows NT/2000/XP does for Windows:
It adds a secure and stable base, with modern OS
features. Sadly, to run classic Mac applications, you
need to load a painfully slow Classic environment,
something Windows users do not need to deal with. But
within a few months, there should be a decent enough
selection of applications, and eventually the Classic
environment will be unneeded. I can't wait.
Mac OS X vs. Windows XP (the short version)
In Windows XP, everything begins, appropriately
enough, with the Start button, which launches a new
Start Menu. This menu contains just about everything you
need to get to work, your most commonly accessed
applications, your most recently used documents, and a
list of commonly accessed system locations. In Mac OS X,
there is no equivalent to this. You are forced to hunt
and peck for things. Let's say you want to change the
resolution of the screen. How might you accomplish this
in OS X? Holding down the mouse button on the desktop
does no good. Choosing View from the Finder menu offers
no clue. Choosing Finder Preferences lets you change
icon sizes, but not the screen resolution. And so on.
How about System Preferences? In System Preferences, the
Mac equivalent of the Windows Control Panel, we see a
set of icons much like that used in versions of Windows
circa two years ago. Let's se... hmm.... Is it Displays,
General, or Screen Saver?
The approach in XP is different. You could still
spend some time wandering around, I suppose, though
right-clicking the desktop and choosing Properties would
work. But if you choose Control Panel from the Start
Menu, you will see categories of options, rather than a
slew of icons. One of them says Appearance and Themes,
and none of the other categories could possibly be
misconstrued as a possible choice. When you click this,
you are confronted with tasks. One of them is "Change
the screen resolution." Done.
Not convinced it's easier? Well, look to Mac OS X
10.1. Apple has changed the System Preferences dialog so
that it's arranged by... categories. Here's how Apple
describes it: System Preferences are now arranged
logically by use, making it even easier to find the
panel you need at a glance. You set your desktop picture
from System Preferences in Mac OS X version 10.1,
instead of from the Finder’s preferences. It's more
logical. But then, Microsoft added that to Windows XP
over a year ago.
(There are other examples, but I've cut them for
brevity. You'll see why in a bit.)
Does this mean that Apple is ripping of Microsoft?
No. But I think it's fair to say that Microsoft has done
a lot of work to make PCs easier to use, and some of
that stuff is now showing up in the Mac OS. And some of
the advances in XP, surely, will end up in future
versions of OS X eventually as well. Witness the
wonderful Scanner and Camera Wizard in Windows XP: It's
equivalent in OS X is not exactly full-featured, and it
does nothing to walk you through the process or let you
know where the files you just saved reside. The
task-based approach really works. And Apple, stuck in
the old desktop metaphor, will need to adapt. They will.
They know what they're doing.
What Apple does best
I met with Apple Computer this summer and looked
over their new products, both hardware and software.
MacWorld New York 2001 was a great show, with the new
Quick Silver G4s, new iMacs, and the impending releases
of Mac OS X 10.1 and iDVD 2. But as I said to Apple at the time,
what the company really does well is digital media. They
don't just "get" digital media, they take it and run
with it in ways that Microsoft can only imagine.
Take digital movie making. Windows XP includes
Windows Movie Maker, but it's sort of a joke, capable of
acquiring video and performing only the simplest of
edits. On the Mac--even the cheapest iMac--you get
iMovie 2, a wonderful application that lets you acquire
and edit video, yes, but also add numerous visual
effects, motion effects, titles, and more. And you can
record back to tape. Microsoft likes to talk
"end-to-end" solutions, but this is one case where Apple
just blows them away. iMovie 2 is unbelievable, and if
you're into consumer-level digital movie making, it's
the place to be.
But when it comes to DVD movie authoring, Apple takes
it past another level to another planet altogether. It's
amazing iDVD software, currently available for free with two of
its G4 desktop configurations, lets users create DVD
movies that can be played on just about any DVD player.
And it's super easy to use, with menuing capabilities
and other effects. iDVD is a reason to buy a Mac, pure
and simple.
Surely, we will see these types of features in
Windows eventually. They won't be as easy or
inexpensive, perhaps, at first. But the cycle will
replay itself again, as it always does.
So what's the point?
All OS products copy from what came before, that's
the nature of the game. Windows and the Mac OS both
benefit from what's come before. What I was trying to do
(in a rather crass way) was to disavow Mac users of a
commonly held myth, that innovation is a one-way
street. It's not: There is plenty of innovation in
Windows, and much of it came directly from Redmond.
That's not to say that Apple doesn't innovate,
however--as I've said, it's digital media products are
in a class by themselves--and that Apple isn't doing its
part to move the PC forward. Of course they are.
With this in mind, I'd like to amend that line in the
original review a final time to the following:
And for competitors such as Linux, where
innovation often has equated to simply copying the
feature set of Windows, the bar has been raised yet
again, this time to stupefying heights.
Lumping Mac OS X in with Linux was, perhaps, a bit
unfair. But make no mistake: I think that the Mac OS has
benefited from Windows as much as the reverse, but then
that's the nature of evolution. Just remember that
innovation is a two-way street.
--Paul Thurrott
September 5, 2001
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