Leopard's new and improved Voice recognition has already been shown. You never mentioned it. Leopard will allow widgets to be dragged to the desktop. You never mentioned it.
Leopard will allow the user to create their own widgets. You never mentioned that. We have only seen a 10th of what Leopard can do and it's already kicking Vista ass. Do up to date comparisons or don't write stupid articles.

Yes, it does.

Ihnatko is usually too much the unthinking Apple fanboy. And now now he goes and rolls over for Microsoft when he shouldn't. Vista is a most serious backwards step for users in many ways. Just ask someone with the technical know-how to make a judgment worth reading:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt

Actually.... you can easily zip through different windows of an open application.... instead of using Command-Tab (which, as you said Tabs through apps)... simply use Command-` .... this "Tabs" through all the open windows in an application.

I figure this - Microsoft will get it right one day. Apple just needs to get it right earlier. I will give Apple this - they are consistent. I have always had less gripes about my Mac, but I am no fan boy because I NEED to use a PC for work.

The one thing for Macs that Windows hasn't figured out yet is Drag and Drop installation. My father can't install a program if his life depended on it on his PC, but with a Mac he just needs to drag it to a folder. Easy as pie.

It's outdated (2 years now?), and not as accurate as Vista's, I'll give you that. Other than that, the only two missing feature is dictation, and the everything-on-screen speakable. Other than that OS X is completely capable of switching/ launching apps, and full control of menu items and any interface elements (buttons) just like in Vista. Plus you have the ability to make custom speakable items and tie them up with applescript.

Granted Vista's voice features are impressive, but give credit where credit is due.

As a dual-wielder myself (both OS X and Winders) I prefer my Mac for simple tasks like web browsing and mp3, but I prefer my Vista for heavy duty multitasking where I have 20+ windows open for work purposes.

But I'm not writing to comment on the article- really I'm commenting on the other comments. I'm highly amused at the fanboys (three I count so far, more to come as this gets dugg) that are trashing vista when a) you've never used it and b) you never will use it. I could understand pointing out that OS X (what's the version now, Tabby, Garfield? I can't keep up :) ) is coming with features to counter some of the nice parts about vista, but the abusive language (towards the author) and anger (towards Billy G) isn't really helpful for anyone. How about commenting instead what you prefer about platform X or Y's functionality?

To be fair, there are a few comments from fellow Mac users that are more along the lines of "I hope this pushes Apple to get even better" and "I might have to try Vista." I agree with Tony's earlier comment that competition only helps the consumer.

What we really need is for Linux to become a viable (for most users) alternative. There are some really slick interfaces coming into the mainstream but it isn't serious competition for either team yet.

When we have 3 different platforms competing for our attention, then we'll probably see some real innovation... and better prices!!

What of the registration process, the kill switch functions, the security issues, the hardware gotchas, etc.? I hope you do a follow-up and don't get food-poisoning from drinking the MS-flavored Kool-Aid. ;^)

Oh, and please let us know when you get your first malware instance in Vista, since it has already been compromised by the online bandits.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=84&tag=nl.e550

http://www.maccompanion.com/archives/July2006/Software/iListen.htm

Call me altruistic, call me an Apple fanboy, but it's wrong to reward this monolith.

Apple shares dropped 3.9% to $78.37 in early trading on the Nasdaq. Stock option accounting scandals have clouded hundreds of companies in recent months and led to the ousting of CEOs.

I think Mr E said it best, so I won't repeat what he said. However, keep making this an ethics or "who stole from who" debate and neither company wins. All this fanboi bickering takes away from the point of the article and I give praise to Andy for attempting for temporarily setting aside his admitted bias.

Actually, it seems the point of Andy's review was to point out several substantial features that Microsoft adapted with lots of change for the way better. This is something we're not used to from Redmond.

1) As someone else mentioned, Vista isnt up against Tiger. It's up against Leopard. Just because you didn't get Leopard in the mail for free doesn't mean you can write an article made up of almost 100% poor comparison.

2) Apple has worked on this really neat feature in OS X over the past few years. It's called Exposé. You should try using it some time.

3) There's also these things called Hot Corners. They're neat too. You should try using them. Especially before writing an article boasting your own intelligence.

Man did this article make me lose absolutely all respect for you. I've never read any of your other article, because, honestly, the titles bored me enoug to move on. This one caught my eye and I read the entire thing. Having done that, I can honestly say that I probably won't read another one again. You just produced an extremely poor article that had no almost validity when looked at through eyes that aren't as ignorant as yours.

I won't argue about your opinion of the present article, but I'd suggest you to read something more by Andy before taking your decision.
For what concerns me, I believe Andy should apply at least to a complete 5-year course on "Apple-trollism" by prof. Dvorak before he could write anything that might divert me from his articles!

You can call me a fanboy if you wish but that doesn't change the fact that I use Windows everyday and my preference is still for Mac OS X. You'd have to be ignorant to not realise that a lot of the features that Microsoft incorporates into it's OSes are stolen from Apple's OS to begin with.

Believe what you want, but Apple will always be ahead in innovation and always a step ahead of Microsoft in the OS game.

-guigui,
It's not people getting irrational over the topic, it's people who realise how one-sided the whole comparison is and saying something about it. Don't be a retard.

Anyhow, it would help in the future to write proper, researched articles instead of doing biased write-ups and making one's self look like an idiot.

For me, the big thing is that vista is the first os from microsoft that can compete with mac os for an average user, including from the point of view of the gui where's microsoft is catching up.

The point isn't what microsoft took from mac os, of course they took all the good ideas they could. They did inovate nevertheless. But, all the os tend to do this.
I'm not a fan of microsoft commercial politic, i'm just saying that vista is the first os where microsoft can begin to venture into mac os lands. And i think it's a good thing for windows and mac users.

If thinking so make me a retard, then i will learn to live with it ;P.

With respect, Andy Ihnatko has not only written numerous books about the Mac, but he's forgotten more than you'll ever know about Mac OS X. Disagree with his article if you like, but accusing him of being ignorant makes you look dumb, not him.

anyways i just wanted you apple fanboys to think about one thing:

did you know that windows was the ONLY operating system that isn't based on UNIX ?

And M$ft is the one that's copying ?

Get your facts straight!

It's a good article. Just because you don't agree with it and you somehow take your operating system choice personal, doesn't mean this isn't a witty, honest article.

And whats with all of this shit about looks? Function > Form.

That and microsoft is the company that can basically do whatever they want. If they wanted to make a super easy to use all inclusive setup that relatively few users used, they would. They are a company that could realistically enter any market that they wanted to or shift a market to be where they want it. Just accept it, ok?

i for one am glad to see a tongue-in-cheek style "unbiased" review of vista from a mac user. it's hell'a refreshing, really.

i like how you contrasted the two dishing praise and fair licks where necessary/appropriate, even though the comparison is a bit one-sided as vista is still being compared to tiger (which is on its way out) where we should really be comparing it to leopard. but apple being apple seems to have made that a bit difficult to pull off.

keep it up... i hope to see an update once leopard ships. yours will probably be the only review/comparison i'm looking forward to reading, as you've proven yourself to be moderately open minded enough to make a fair comparison... albiet cheeky.

I just did a right click on his spelling in Safari and in less than 10 seconds it showed me it was wrong.

Funny that it takes a new release by Microsoft, which haplessly apes all that technology to really appreciate Apple's brilliance.

In the end it really will not matter who stole what from whom, but Mac users will know and so will Microsoft...

0.94 on original site

http://virt-dimension.sourceforge.net/

0.95 Beta here

https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=74581