The article I will be responding to can be found here: Leopard looks like...Vista
I will simply respond to the ten point list the author published, so if you need to see what the article said, please check it.
In response:
1. No, the Vista Sidebar was in response to Apple's Dashboard, introduced in Tiger. As far as aero is concerned I cannot find any real parallel. Also, the real improvements to the desktop were in the dock with the introduction of Stacks, something Windows lacks entirely. However, the author skipped over that part.
2. Instant Search is, again, a response to Apple's Spotlight, introduced in Tiger. Notice the lack of gaudy transparency around the border of every window, which is one of the prime "features" of aero. Furthermore, Cover Flow in Finder is a method for browsing files whereas Flip 3D is a method for switching between application windows. Obviously, the two share nothing aside from being three-dimensional effects.
3. QuickLook is NOT a thumbnail. Thumbnail previews of certain documents do not allow you to scroll through the pages of the document, the slides of a keynote, or watch a video.
4. Actually Leopard is the first to be 64-bit from "top to bottom". There are quite a few problems with Vista's 64-bit "support", not the least of which is driver and application support. In addition, 32-bit applications still run on Leopard without any difficulty and the argument that 32-bit still matters doesn't apply. The author seems to have forgotten that, as Jobs mentioned, almost every Mac computer is running a 64-bit processor. In fact all but the Mac Mini and the low-end iMac have Core 2 Duo processors, which offer the wondrous 64-bit technology.
5. Core Animation, not important. Somehow I don't believe the author was at WWDC because if you watch the keynote, the crowd applauds profusely and, if you read any articles by Mac developers in the past 2 months you'll hear plenty of excitement about Core Animation. As a matter of fact, quite a few major developers are bringing their next applications out as Leopard-only, mostly due to Core Animation.
6. Boot Camp has nothing to do with Leopard looking like Vista. In fact, it means the users aren't only running Tiger, they're running windows too. An entirely different argument.
7. You're right, Vista doesn't have this. As far as being excited about it, it isn't a developer accessible technology so I am not surprised the 5000+ developers did not get very excited. It is an end-user feature and the argument is again, entirely unrelated.
8. Dashboard, as I mentioned earlier, is a feature of Tiger, released well before Vista.
9. For starters, the technology that you mention, Meeting Space, is not actually a video- or audio-conferencing tool. Second, it is not a presentation tool, it is a collaboration suite. Lastly, the application you may be looking for is Windows Live Messenger, which does not offer any of the presentation or extended video-chatting capabilities. Messenger cannot do audio- or video-chatting and does not even work on a local network, it requires an internet connection. All of these applications have a variety of features that the others do not, my point is merely that this is another inaccurate comparison by the author.
Wikipedia - Meeting Space
10. Time Machine. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of non-Mac users. It is not always about the features. It more often about the intelligence, ease-of-use, and logical patterns found in the application, while still maintaining the customization that power-users require. That quality is what Time Machine brings to the table. It makes it a no-brainer to configure and makes it even easier to retrieve a file. If you know where the file was, you just go back "in time" through that folder. If you don't know where a file was, use a spotlight search and search back through that method. I'd like anyone to volunteer if they use Volume Shadow Copy on a regular or automatic basis, please reply in the comments, with usage examples.
WIkipedia - VSC
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