Mac Osx Tiger Vs Windows Vista
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| Mac Osx Tiger Vs Windows Vista |
Mac Osx Tiger Vs Windows Vista:
Microsoft's next-generation operating system is coming in early
2007, offering improvements that are both impressive and unprecedented in the
Windows world. On Apple's side of the world, Tiger, the 5th incarnation of
Apple's legendary OS X operating system is still up to challenge as to what
Vista has to offer, even if it's already two years old.
Although Vista and Tiger are
almost playing in the same field in terms of features and technology, there's a
major difference in the strategy that the two companies made in delivering
their next-generation operating systems. Microsoft wanted to bring everything
new and shiny to the table all in one big package, while Apple slowly built and
perfected a world-class operating system by frequent, less dramatic, major
upgrades. This explains why while Windows XP stayed for 5 years without a major
upgrade, OS X had 3 major upgrades to its original incarnation in roughly the
same time frame.
User Interface:
The most noticeable improvements happen here, and rightfully so,
since improvements in the user interface are the ones that affect the users
first and foremost. Vista seems to have taken
many pages from the Tiger book of slick features but also has some features of
its own that's missing from the Apple operating system. I think it's fair to
say that some similarities are really just inevitable end results of improving
the current state of the UI in both platforms.
Vista's icons are now as
slick as its Tiger counterparts, supporting icon sizes of up to 256 by 256
pixels. Tiger on the other hand, currently supports only up to 128 by 128 pixel
icons. But Vista takes it even further, using
what is called as live icons. A live icon visually resembles the actual
contents of the document it represent so that a folder's live icon is shown as
a folder icon padded with the thumbnails of the actual files that you'll see
inside the folder. This is very helpful in skimming through your files and
folders without opening them. Tiger can only show previews of graphic files.
In Vista, the "My"
way of naming user folders such as My Documents, My Music, etc. has been
dropped. Now you will only have user folders named Documents, Music and
Pictures. Not unlike what Tiger has.
Aero, the user interface of Vista
brings to the Windows world lots of transparencies. Application windows in Vista show a translucent border that lets you see through
it. This is a feature that OS X once had, but was taken out in Tiger.
Expose, which is perhaps the most innovative UI feature of
Tiger, elegantly addressed the window-management problem most users had,
especially those who work with lots of windows open. At the touch of a button
or at a flick of the mouse, all your windows are miniaturized and smartly tiled
across the screen. Vista offers its own take,
with a feature called Flip 3D. In Vista's
version, windows are miniaturized and stacked on top of each other, and angled
such that you can see enough of each window's content distinctively, and you
use the scroll wheel to go through all the stacked windows. Tiger's
implementation is more usable and convenient than its Vista
counterpart.
Widgets vs Gadgets:
In Tiger, the days of opening full-blown applications for
simple, specific tasks have long been gone. Thanks to Dashboard. With
Dashboard, you can install and run mini-applications called widgets that are
specially designed (using a relatively easy language) for certain tasks.
Widgets include calculator, stocks, dictionary, yellow pages and many others.
At the touch of a button, all these can auto-magically appear when you need
them, and as quickly, disappear to let you go back to what you're doing.
Vista sports the same feature, only the mini-applications are
called Gadgets, and the Vista version promises
more integration with Microsoft's online service http://Live.com.
Desktop Search:
When Vista was first announced
many years ago under the code name Longhorn, one of the most impressive
promises that Microsoft made about the new operating system is its desktop
search capability. However, Apple beat them to the punch in implementing the
much needed search technology (and interface).
Tiger's spotlight search won the hearts of analysts and
reviewers when it debuted in October 2004. Both in the main OS's shell and in
the individual applications, Spotlight brought lightning-fast desktop search to
the Apple users. The system-wide Spotlight item on Tiger's menu bar provided a
quick way of opening files and applications. With Spotlight, users didn't need
to know exactly where their files are since they can find and open them using a
simple and single user interface - the spotlight search field. Vista's desktop search also promises all the things that
Spotlight has, including its integration with Windows Explorer and Control
Panel, in the same way that Spotlight integrates with the Finder and the
Preferences. In Vista, the desktop search has
been placed in the improved Start Menu. Saved searches (in Vista) or Smart
Folders (in Tiger) are different implementation of the same kind of innovative
feature that both systems have - a way for creating folders that are defined by
a certain search criteria, and the contents of which are files that match that
certain criteria. Both are live-z.
Security:
This is where Tiger has long beaten Windows, but with Vista, Microsoft want to change that, and perhaps even
leapfrog what OS X is offering.
In Vista, Internet Explorer
(the source of many security headaches) will run in a low rights mode to
prevent malicious software entering through the browser from illegally writing
files or changing the registry. Vista will
also support computers with TPM (Trusted Platform Module) Chips which starts a
computer in a secure way such that the hardware and applications are protected
from being run by unauthorized users. One of Tiger's security strengths, the
feature that asks for the administrator password when changing critical
preferences, has also found its way to Vista.
When changing important settings or files, Vista
now warns the users and asks for the administrator password. Both Tiger and Vista has support encrypting data on users' hard disk.
Conclusion:
This article tried to compare some of the different aspects of
Windows Vista and OS X Tiger, wherever it made sense, since each has its own
way of doing things. Tiger has been out for almost two years now, but still holds
up its own against Vista. It's no doubt that
some of the features that Vista is promising are better than its Tiger
counterpart, but Vista won't be out until 2007, and by the same time Apple
probably would no doubt have at least shown its latest weapon, the upcoming
Apple OS X Leopard.
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