Greetings Readers,
I was asked to write a guest piece for Alternate Interior, a tech blog by a good friend. The following is an appropriate piece that’s going to be posted on Alternate Interior later today. Give it a read and I hope you enjoy it!
I’ve never been one to bash on Microsoft. I believe that they used to manufacture a great operating system, but over time, I have come to know Microsoft and Windows as typical.
Microsoft has some competition, not much, but some from Apple. OS X is a great operating system and while it has it’s own problems to contend with, it is surely an operating system designed for now as opposed to then.
Windows Vista, the latest release from Microsoft, is due out to consumers early next year. Windows Vista is boasting all new features and security. The marketable, “this will make your life more clear” type of jargon is now starting to be spread everywhere. This is what I call typical.
Microsoft has essentially lost the ability to be creative. This does not go to say that the people working within Microsoft are not creative, but I believe they are being held back. Vista boasts a glass effect, similar and along the lines of the plastic look and feel of OS X. The windows are translucent and from time to time tends to be intense on the video card. No biggie, that’s what they are there for. A lot of the features from OS X have been implemented in Vista, all be it in different ways. Gadgets, Calendar and Search. Search is integrated into a small space in the start menu, Calendar used to look like iCal, now its bloated and will not likely gain a lot of use and Gadgets take space on the sidebar; valuable real estate on the desktop. At least Dashboard is hidden until you need it in OS X…
Though, I bet there is an auto-hide feature on sidebar.
While Vista does boast some new window animations and transparency, it really doesn’t offer me a reason to switch. Personally, I think Media Player is broken, along with Movie Maker and Mail. OS X offers iTunes with a store that just works, iMovie is a fun way to design home movies VERY quickly (it also has DVD authoring built in) and Mail keeps getting better and better. iCal is just a calendar, not a task list manager and also, the iLife suite is very usable.
Microsoft knows this software package and in Vista, they have tried to duplicated it and make it “better” in their eyes. By better, they have managed to bloat it and remove the simplicity that once made someones life easier.
It’s difficult to distinguish what these new applications do in Vista. Most of them look the same, but they really don’t throw an indicators as to their purpose. In iPhoto, you know your looking at photos. In iMovie, you feel like your working in a cutting room. In iTunes, you know your listening to music, but in each Vista application, you feel like your working in the Explorer window. Not very friendly to me…
The upper hand Vista will have is with gaming. Gaming is huge on the PC and with DirectX as the Microsoft cash cow, you can bet that there will be reason to upgrade. Vista will not debut with DirectX 10 and will later be distributed as a package, similar to the way DirectX has always been distributed.
The upgrade will come with Shader 4, which will offer vast improvements over Shader 3. Not even OpenGL can top what DirectX gives to the consumer and the developer. Microsoft is smart to keep DirectX in heavy development mode.
I know I’m being pretty rough on Microsoft here, but it’s justified. Microsoft needs to size down the Windows team and make it a very competitive environment. Additionally, they need to lose a lot of the project managers and hire creative team leaders. Internally, there needs to be a drive for creativity and usability that blows the socks off Apple and everyone else who thinks Microsoft has lost it.
Don’t be afraid to be like Apple, Microsoft; you already are.