Funny how when MS copies some Apple features, it’s OK for everyone to claim it copied Apple wholesale, but when the opposite occurs, it’s “funny.�

No, what’s funny is your article is about Apple stealing from Microsoft and your list is comprised of stuff not stolen from Microsoft. Most of that list of yours is either beta or not included with WMP and some 3rd party has added the feature.

Let’s go through your list, shall we?

Movies - Microsoft’s WMP doesn’t let me purchase movies to own, does it? Where is the movie store in WiMP?

Now lots of people are selling TV shows too, to own, which I thought wasn’t going to be a trend. Right?

CoverFlow: New feature not stolen from Microsoft..

New UI: You think Apple ripped off beta software from Microsoft, as if they developed iTunes 7 and did all this new stuff really quickly in response to Microsoft’s beta software. Gee, I haven’t heard that argument before. Microsoft’s music store didn’t rip off Apple’s UI, but Apple ripped off Microsoft, right undunn?

iPod games: new feature that you dismiss because your beloved Microsoft doesn’t included it in their software.

iPod summary: new feature not stolen from Microsoft.

Download Manager: new feature not stolen from Microsoft.

Higher resolution: not stolen from Microsoft because Microsoft doesn’t sell movies or TV shows.

On-screen video controls: already in QuickTime Player and now in iTunes.

Multiple libraries: not stolen from Microsoft.

Library back-up: not stolen from Microsoft.

Gapless playback: Wow! A feature WiMP has first! Let me know when you can play multiple videos at the same time in WiMP.

Ratings and Parental Controls: beta Microsoft software does this with the beta OS that finally gets parental controls that has been in OS X for a while now.

Do you think Microsoft will sell TV shows and movies too for their iPod rip-off that has a fake round dial that isn’t really a dial?

iTV still doesn’t record TV, doesn’t have a program guide, can’t play DVDs, can’t be extended with third-party services, doesn’t include off-air radio functionality, etc. All of which are features of Media Center, and will probably be copied by Apple in their next release.

Microsoft invented all of that? LOL!

Windows Media Edition Nightmares:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10168_7-630245 3-1.html

Paul Thurrott June 28 2006:
http://www.connectedhomemag.com/HomeTheater /Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=53893

The final straw came Monday. Microsoft shipped a new interim build of Vista over the previous weekend, and it offers much better performance than Beta 2. I thought, maybe this build will fix Media Center once and for all. As it turned out, the new build did fix a few issues, but the performance problems remained. More important, it was no longer possible to use Media Center full-screen, which is what you want when it’s your TV interface. It was only viewable in a window on top of the Windows desktop.

And that’s how I found myself, alone, hot, and tired, finishing up a restoration of the original XP Media Center Edition 2005 install that came with the Media Center PC in the wee hours of the morning. But my family is happy because the TV works once again, and I’m tired and confused and wondering how I’m possibly going to get Vista back on there again in the future when these problems are actually worked out. It might be quite a while.

And another thing… Mac Fan, weren’t you one of the folks lambasting WMP for doing too much? Wasn’t iTunes supposed to be great, because all it did was music?

No, I wasn’t. I hate WMP because it doesn’t play multiple video files at the same time nor does it scrub most of the time, basic things. I also hated the user interface that had Microsoft’s penchant for vomiting user interface elements all over the screen in no logical order, which is what they do with their OS.

Why don’t you hate iTunes now that it does music, podcasts, video, TV, movies, photos, etc?

Because I can still use it as just a music player without all the other crap getting in my way.

Microsoft likes to put dedicated buttons all over the place for every single feature, making it a mess. Apple is much better at creating user interfaces than Microsoft, so having a store or videos doesn’t negatively impact the ease it is to listen to music.

unnDunn just got pwned by mac fan there

Majorly pwned, it seems.

That’s not what I call ownage.

No, what’s funny is your article is about Apple stealing from Microsoft and your list is comprised of stuff not stolen from Microsoft. Most of that list of yours is either beta or not included with WMP and some 3rd party has added the feature.

Nope, its correct. Apple had a lot of catching up to do in this game and seriously had to rely on so many 3rd party software and ideas its not funny.  Seriously, Konfabulator anyone???

Movies - Microsoft’s WMP doesn’t let me purchase movies to own, does it? Where is the movie store in WiMP?

Who wants to buy crappy encoded movies to watch on a crappy small screen iPod?  Nobody I know uses their iPod video to watch video.  Funny that isn’t it

Now lots of people are selling TV shows too, to own, which I thought wasn’t going to be a trend. Right?

Wow, when Ballmer said that the iPod was going to be the gateway to piracy I guess he wasn’t kidding.  It started with music, movies and now tv shows.

New UI: You think Apple ripped off beta software from Microsoft, as if they developed iTunes 7 and did all this new stuff really quickly in response to Microsoft’s beta software. Gee, I haven’t heard that argument before.

Apple is so late in the game, why won’t they?  Apple is not an innovative company, they are a marketing company who gets ideas from other countries like Korea and Japan (the ACD is a good example).

Microsoft’s music store didn’t rip off Apple’s UI, but Apple ripped off Microsoft, right undunn?

Who gives a shit about iTunes anyway?  That’s right, a billion and one people who don’t use Apple or iPods. 

iPod games: new feature that you dismiss because your beloved Microsoft doesn’t included it in their software.

Now that’s not fair, we are not suppose to talk about games around Apple and not especially when Jobs is around.  Apple will never ever get it even though they themselves tried to start a console which of course resulted in failure.

iPod summary: new feature not stolen from Microsoft.

Didn’t Apple had to pay Creative a bunch of money for...ah yeah..copying.

Download Manager: new feature not stolen from Microsoft.

Whoopeedoo!

Higher resolution: not stolen from Microsoft because Microsoft doesn’t sell movies or TV shows.

What?  Apple didn’t sell higher resolution movies?  What the hell did I buy a big screen for?

On-screen video controls: already in QuickTime Player and now in iTunes.

Quicktime is the biggest joke of a media player ever.  Nuff said.

Gapless playback: Wow! A feature WiMP has first! Let me know when you can play multiple videos at the same time in WiMP.

What?  iTunes didn’t support gapless playback?  What version is this? Unbelievable.

Ratings and Parental Controls: beta Microsoft software does this with the beta OS that finally gets parental controls that has been in OS X for a while now.

Another big whoopeedoo, not that your grandma gives a crap anyway.

Do you think Microsoft will sell TV shows and movies too for their iPod rip-off that has a fake round dial that isn’t really a dial?

Wow Microsoft is making a media player?  I hope it will be a ton more useful than the iPod crap.

Shuffle: Still no screen? Even the smallest, tiniest PlaysForSure players have a screen.

Absolutely.  Its just a popular Apple trick, a lot of flash but no substance. 

My mp3 player has been recording and playing radio, and Apple still hasn’t got anything worthy of comparison. 

Nothing!  Apple doesn’t konw how to make media players.  A lot of us knew that from the beginning.

iTV:
The whole thing is just a cynical rip-off of Microsoft’s Media Center Extender, so there’s no point in elaborating further.

I expected Apple to do something like this.  Good for Apple users but guess what, my media server records HD! 

Apple has another decade to go.

All in all, it’s good to know that the photocopiers up in Cupertino are in good working order.

Now that’s what I an ownaged.

Well, Album view is now definitive proof that Apple does have copiers and that they do use them when they see an idea they like just like everyone else.

Eh, it’s fun to point and laugh (I do it too) but I think I gave up seriously caring about who copies whom a while ago. I’m more preoccupied with finding a way to deal with this undeniably hideously bland new UI. 

Nope. But stolen from the small shareware shops that make plugins for WMP. But then Apple is used to stealing from small shareware developers (see: Konfabulator, Sherlock, CoverFlow, etc.)

Apple actually bought CoverFlow. They did it legitimately this time.

http://www.tuaw.com/2006/09/12/coverflow-i- knew-that-looked-familiar/

As far as I can tell, all the words you used have been used before ... you build any of the roads you drive on? You use our currency system?

Are you 100% orginal 100% of the time? Of course not.

Creativity is taking what’s out there and making it better ... the opposite is just to sneer at everything and never want it better or to make any changes because it’s good enough already ... if you are a bureaucrat at the DMV or the IRS, congrats on fulfilling your life’s wishes since you have everyhing nice and gray and you need nothing more.

The rest of us would like everyday to be a little better.

Again, UnDunn, your list of things Apple “stole” from Microsoft doesn’t include anything Microsoft did first and most of it are things Microsoft didn’t even do themselves, but 3rd parties added them on. On top of that, you list several things you admit Microsoft doesn’t have in their software and wish they did. It would be hard to just read the list and then realize it was a list of things Apple stole from Microsoft if you didn’t read the title of your blog.

You can watch multiple videos at the same time in iTunes.

Microsoft didn’t invent streaming media consoles (old idea) and iTV isn’t a copy of Windows Media, thank God. I love how you think Apple has a magic wand and develops software and hardware in a few short months in response to what Microsoft has done. There’s either two things happening here: either Apple is developing software and hardware in secret or Apple is able to see what Microsoft is doing and then create a superior version in a fraction of the time as Microsoft. If you want to go on believing Microsoft can’t develop something in three times the amount of time Apple can, go ahead.

If you are dismissing ColorFlow as just eye candy, dismiss most of Vista.

Apple didn’t steal the idea of mini applications floating over your main applications. They invented that idea back in 1982.
http://www.dtgeeks.com/index.php/blogs/comm unity_comment/konfabulator_shmenfabulator/

What do you think that HDMI connector is for? 640 x 480 movies? You really don’t think HD content is coming to iTV? It’s in beta and you don’t even know the entire feature set. You know, like what you say about Vista when people bash it.

I’ve never claimed that Apple doesn’t copy ideas. You continue to portray me as an Apple zealot and it’s not accurate at all. I criticize Apple all the time. I was on this site arguing with Mac fans about how the new Apple ads are too smug and don’t show the product enough. I think Steve Jobs is a prick, as are most billionaire CEOs. I don’t think Apple is noble and Microsoft is evil.

I just like Apple’s products more than Microsoft’s. I’m a Mac fan. Microsoft continues to disappoint. They should be able to innovate great stuff with the billions in profit they make every quarter but they can’t even get a basic user interface right.

Vista was suppose to be revolutionary. It ended up being an inferior impersonation of OS X:
http://tauquil.com/archives/2006/01/06/re-i ntroducing-the-real-windows-vista/

Five years after XP and we have RC1?

That doesn’t mean Microsoft doesn’t ever come up with good ideas. Of course they do. But usually their implementation has much to be desired. Implementation is key.

iTunes is much better and so is the iPod because it dominates the market share. The people have spoken with their pocket books. That’s what you guys say about Windows PCs, right?

Oh yeah, Media Extender is just Microsoft’s attempt at leveraging their OS monopoly in the gaming console market. That’s the only way Microsoft is successful—they leverage their monopoly.

I love how you bash Apple for utilizing their integration of hardware with their OS but don’t mind it at all when Microsoft does it.

The first Xbox didn’t do so well (they lost millions) so they are using their OS monopoly to give people a reason to buy their new gaming console over their competitor’s.

I love the way you dismiss most of the features WMP had first because “Microsoft didn’t do it first.� Whatever you say there, pal. Microsoft did Automatic Cover Art first

No they didn’t. Someone else did it first.

Again, the whole point of your blog was to list things Apple stole from Microsoft. Your list was weak in that regard and even included things you admit Microsoft didn’t even have.

That’s why I initially said “funny”.

And you are going to have to educate everyone as to how to play multiple videos at the same time in iTunes. And even if you did prove it could, you’d probably use some non-obvious hack to do it. Which effectively means it can’t.

This is my mistake. I clicked on Selected Item for multiple movies and got multiple windows for those videos, however I’m only able to play one of them at a time. I would use QuickTime Player anyway for this use, not iTunes.

It hasn’t been “a few short monthsâ€? since Windows Media Center Extender was released. It’s been out since early 2004. Apple has had plenty of time to copy it… and by Steve Jobs’ own admission, it isn’t ready for primetime yet, as they fine-tune their copy machine.

But Microsoft didn’t invent streaming media consoles. They were around well before 2004 and there were probably a dozen in 2003.

Apple didn’t just see Microsoft’s product and then decide they wanted to copy that. That’s absurd. It’s not like Microsoft put something out and then Apple hacked something up quickly and offered it as a free download like Microsoft does.

Apple started selling music and then TV shows and now movies. They already have a wireless device for streaming music they announced in 2004, Airport Express. Since they are now selling TV shows and movies, they have come out with iTV.

I don’t even think I want or need one, but my point is iTV isn’t a rip-off of Windows Media Centers or Extender.

If Apple were in charge, each one of those features would be accompanied with a big, bright icon and Jobs would gleefully demo each one of them on stage, and you would justify paying $129 for those features alone.

Yeah, nothing gets a Windows zealot more angry than Apple’s marketing. Whoo doggie! You guys get steamed!

$129? How much is Vista for a browser that has tabs, parental controls, Exposé that shows you only one document at a time, Dock icons, iCal, iPhoto, iDVD...?

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/featu res/default.mspx
How many bright icons in this MS marketing listing how many features?

Undunn, you guys really lose credibility when you take Apple’s marketing personally and get so angry by it. Me? I don’t care what Microsoft does with their marketing. If they want to say Vista finally lets me organize my photos in a way I couldn’t before, that’s fine. I realize it’s just marketing.

As much as you want to rationalize Apple’s stealing of the Konfabulator widget idea

Konfabulator didn’t invent the widget. Widgets were around way before Konfabulator, period. The facts don’t support your fan boy accusations.

If Konfabulator didn’t exist, it’s unlikely that Apple would have released Dashboard when it did.

So with that logic, Microsoft is ripping Vista from OS X because it’s unlikely that Microsoft would be doing half of those “new” features.

You claim to be impartial and just happen to prefer Apple

No, I prefer Apple’s products, not Apple.

ut if Apple copies Microsoft (or, indeed, anyone else,) you will do everything in your power to defend Apple. In your mind, Apple can do no wrong, and Microsoft can do nothing but wrong. Your posts in this very thread confirm that, despite your half-hearted assertions to the contrary

Dude, you have a freakin blog full of venom towards Apple. Where is my blog about Microsoft?

I love how you are completely dismissing the work Microsoft is doing with XNA and Xbox Live Anywhere. You praise Apple for leveraging its iTunes + iPod synergy (and Jobs himself basically admitted iTunes has a monopoly on the digital music download market) yet you blast Microsoft for doing the same thing with Windows + Xbox.

You said “Well, it’s about time Apple used its iPod+iTunes “synergyâ€? for something that doesn’t involve restricting consumer choice.” in this blog, Undunn. That was you. I was pointing out what a hypocrite you are because you ignore Microsoft’s tactics and criticize Apple for far less.

Microsoft is not a hardware company; it’s a software company.

That’s why they are pissing on their “partners” and competing with them in the MP3 player market?

That’s why they are competing with all of those Media Extenders with the Xbox?

“Designers are parasites”

Everyone takes from everyone. Apple took the iPod UI idea from creative, creative in their latest players took the iPod UI from Apple, nearly pixel for pixel (have you seen the screenshots of the photo viewer). MS took the layouts for the likes of Windows Calendar from iCal, Apple took ideas from Windows (FUS for example).

Companies are duplicating each other more and more. Neither is doing more than the other. There are no new ideas, just improvements on old ones

Sure. They all copy each other just as much. OS X Tiger had just as many Windows XP features as Vista has Tiger features.

I have a bridge to sell you.

“As much as you want to rationalize Apple’s stealing of the Konfabulator widget idea, the fact remains that that is exactly what happened. If Konfabulator didn’t exist, it’s unlikely that Apple would have released Dashboard when it did.”

I think this won’t be the end of Apple copying ideas, expect a lot of it to come from Linux/Unix!

I think this won’t be the end of Apple copying ideas, expect a lot of it to come from Linux/Unix!

And also expect to see MS copying from Linux/Unix and Linux/Unix copying from MS and Apple. Can you give me 5 features of Vista that are brand new and haven’t been done before? I doubt it. You could probably give me 5 that have been done before but improved on.

Automatic network connection isn’t new, it’s an improvement on what is already there, SideShow can be seen as an improvement gadgets/widgets. PowerShell I haven’t used the object oriented might be new, I don’t know but a highly scriptable command line sure isn’t. That leaves ReadyBoost and Built in Benchmarks. I haven’t seen either of these on another platform so that pretty much gives two (maybe 3) new features listed. The same would go for Linux and for OS X. Many features are just improvements of older ones. It’s just OS X may improve something, then Windows will improve on that, then OS X will improve on that etc.

Isn’t Ready-Boost basically virtual memory? And if so, why would you want to slow it down more by having it go out through USB than just letting is use more of your hard drive for virtual memory?
*confused*

I saw the benchmarking - but it never told me what my system’s benchmark score was. Where do I find that?

windows side show reminds me of X11 (ssh -x to a linux box from something running X11 like another linux box or OS X, and run apps such as mail, pictures, whathaveyou on another system via the network).