Tiger vs. Longhorn: A biased look

Published on 4/28/2005 in Apple, Gadgets, Media and Productivity. View Comments Tags: , .

As the rest of the world gets to drive a Tiger tomorrow, here’s a quick comparison of Tiger vs. Longhorn (See ugly screenshot above!). Yes, some may say to judge the OSes on their own merits instead of comparing them, but come on, Tiger is already done, while Longhorn is far from done!

Information on Longhorn (the next Windows OS which has been delayed countless times) comes as Microsoft recently presented to technology journalists at their recent “status update” press conference. This “see we have it already” tactic is one where Microsoft clearly feels threatened by Apple’s feature-filled OS, so the public wouldn’t point fingers if similarities happen to occur when the next Windows OS comes out. Well, let’s see if they can cover their ass convince us by looking at what they presented versus what Tiger already has. According to Ina Fried’s (CNet news) report on Longhorn’s demo, this is my quick summary of how Microsoft shouldn’t have even bothered with the presentation:

Microsoft’s Longhorn

Apple’s Tiger

File icons are a representation of the first page of the document itself

Erm, ever heard of thumbnails? Tiger does this with PDFs already

Files can be grouped in a variety of "virtual folders" according to criteria such as "created by Mary" or "modified in the past week.

OK, Apple had it since iTunes came around. In Tiger, you can create the same thing in the desktop called "Smart Folders"

An Internet Explorer window in a test version of Longhorn shows the graphics improvements in the forthcoming operating system, including translucent windows

Mac OS X has always had Quartz Extreme graphics capabilities, which includes transparency, shadows, blurring and so on. In Tiger, Core Image is more powerful with a bigger range of real-time effects on your desktop

Conclusion

CopyCat! Microsoft can’t even innovate and had to scale down key differential features in Longhorn just to make sure it doesn’t get delayed any further.

An Operating System that’s simply generations ahead of the rest.

Sure, you can call this Windows-bashing, and you’re right. My point is that Microsoft should just give it up. If you haven’t listened to the PC laptop user’s horror story (mp3) which I posted earlier, you might want to now. Get a Life, Get a Mac! :P





  • Paul
    Fanboys are lame regardless of what they're fawning over. XP has vastly superior file manipulation. You can cut, paste, drag, drop and transmogrify files from nearly anything into nearly anything. See an errant file while opening a document? Erase it! Or drag it somewhere, or rename it all within the "open file" dialogue.

    I own both Macs and PCs and both have strengths and weaknesses.

    But I'll never understand fanboys. Loving one OS to the exclusion of another is like being a carpenter that would argue themselves stupid comparing the vast superiority of Hilti over DeWalt.

    Wouldn't you look at him like he was the single lamest human being you've ever met?
  • Ray
    I hear alot of people talk about the fanatical Mac userbase. Some of it I'm sure is arrogance, but in some cases, people are excited about actually having a computer that works, and does the things they want it too. Based on personal experience my Mac does that better than any of my windows computers did.
  • Windows gives you choices?

    Well it does, but Mac powered by Unix doesn't just give you choices, it adds to your potential. Windows is a bad product, like cocaine or heroin. Shure it feels good to use, but you are slowly killing yourself.

    Jason
  • Ah, a religious posting, I see. It's always easy to find laptop horror stories on both sides of the divide. Mac owners know about the software and hardware bugs that are endemic to many of the laptop models, and although Mac has done a good job of making sure their "geniuses" are at least a bit customer-friendly, I've never had to bring any of my Sony laptops in because of a problem. You open them up, they work, no problems.

    Moreover, I've never had XP crash on me. Applications, yes, once in a while, but they seem to have done a decent job of isolating issues of memory leakage, etc., which allowed bad programs to bring down the system.

    Outlook is a failed product. It's just insecure (for most users), and the same goes for IE. But there is no reason for PCs to fall prey to viruses, despite the fact that most viruses are designed for PCs (danger of being the majority platform). Yes, Windows works on a much larger variety of systems, and this leads to vulnerabilities. But if you buy your PC with windows preloaded and decent anti-virus protection, you are fine.

    Note also, that one of the reasons Windows has been behind the curve on the UI is that they have to deal with the fact that it may be running on a very wide range of software. I have Win2K running on a 100MHz system, and that wouldn't be possible if they were getting all transparent and dithery.

    I'm *not* a Windows booster, but frankly one of the reasons I avoid the Mac is the fanaticism of its user base. I've administered a half-mac half-PC lab, and both platforms had their problems and their strong points. The reason all of my machines are Windows based right now is simple: I don't have the extra money to spend on Mac hardware. If the OS was available for Intel systems, hey, I might consider it. But I like the choice that Wintel gives me. One of those choices allows me to build a pretty solid little PC for
  • Yeah, sorry you can't edit your comments, but Macs definitely appeal to a greater mass now ever since it become Unix based. You'll be glad to know that Tiger has an even newer Unix core now, which is suppose to be more efficient.
  • Oops, make that "right balance of stability, ease of use and open source apps" :)
  • I recently got a PowerBook even though I've never seen or used Mac OS before. I have a good first impression but still finding my way around tough, especially the keyboard shortcuts.

    Anyway, coming back to topic, I agree with you. Mac is here _now_. Longhorn is a long way off.

    The part I like about Mac is that it has the right balance of open source and all the open source apps I use.
  • Yeah, I think it damaged the impression most people had of Longhorn. M$ shouldn't have even bothered doing this press event.
  • I agree. All of those new Longhorn shots that came out from WinHEC make me wonder who is actually in charge of UI and experience design at Microsoft. I vote for a monkey (Balmer maybe)? :-)
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