Does Windows Vista Aero look like Mac OS X Aqua to you?


Recommended Posts

You do realize that Spotlight is just a lame copy of Windows Desktop Search, right? And that WDS shipped before Spotlight, right?

All Apple did was move the search box from the taskbar to the top-right of the screen. And now in Leopard they're playing catch-up again by adding features that Vista / WDS already has.

As much as I don't like getting involved in this kind of stuff...this one I have to correct...

LAME COPY?!

You realize spot light is integrated on the kernel layer of the operating system while WDS is on the application layer? When I used WDS, it first took like 4 hours to index my 500GB HD, and than every time I add a new file, index, index, index some more which mind you ate up CPU and HD cycles...lame copy? Much more the other way around...Apple is really not playing catch up. Anything Vista search can do spotlight can. I mean meta data, tags i"m not sure what you meant by "catch up"...and plus we have been using it since 2005...

I agree about the dashboard stuff though :p

oh and I'm not sure if you got your facts correct, Expose was introduced in 10.3 which released in 2004. I don't think flip 3D was around back than. I beat tested Vista since longhorn, I can't remember exactly but I'm pretty sure flip 3D wasn't around back than...

Edited by NeoXY
yea, the mac fanboys are pretty ridiculous to purport that this this looks like their horrid OS..

nah, Vista does not look like OSX.. as Vista actually looks pretty (at least compared to OSX)

I agree, the only nice thing about OSX is how the buttons look in the graphite skin, otherwise it's interface is quite unnapealing

As much as I don't like getting involved in this kind of stuff...this one I have to correct...

LAME COPY?!

You realize spot light is integrated on the kernel layer of the operating system while WDS is on the application layer? When I used WDS, it first took like 4 hours to index my 500GB HD, and than every time I add a new file, index, index, index some more which mind you ate up CPU and HD cycles...lame copy? Much more the other way around...Apple is really not playing catch up. Anything Vista search can do spotlight can. I mean meta data, tags i"m not sure what you meant by "catch up"...and plus we have been using it since 2005...

LOL

1) No part of Spotlight is implemented in the kernel. That wouldn't even make sense.

2) Spotlight is extremely limited in its capabilities. It has no ability to crawl non-file items (like e-mail databases, for example).

3) WDS is a Windows system service, and is just as integrated with the OS as Spotlight (if not moreso).

4 hours to index 500GB of data (especially large files with lots of content to index) isn't bad at all. Spotlight would certainly take far longer. Of course, spotlight doesn't give you any indication of how much has been indexed, so you kind of have to guess at that.

Every single new feature that Apple is adding to Spotlight in Leopard is already availabe on Vista. How is that not playing catch-up?

oh and I'm not sure if you got your facts correct, Expose was introduced in 10.3 which released in 2004. I don't think flip 3D was around back than. I beat tested Vista since longhorn, I can't remember exactly but I'm pretty sure flip 3D wasn't around back than...

I'm pretty sure an early version of Flip3D was present in the very first Longhorn 3xxx alpha builds (there were videos and screenshots of that ages ago).

Nope. doesn't look like MacOS. Anyway, I hadn't heard that exactly. What I have eard is that Vista "stole" features from MacOS, but then I think, hey, can't a mayor software company like MS put an integrated search, or a 3D chess game in their OS without things being said about them?

Cause in that case, how about Leopard Spaces? (I think that's how they're called...) aren't they a Gnome idea (many desktops)? Is Apple a thief for implementing it on it's next OS? Nope. But what about if MS had done it on Vista (which by the way would have been great :) )... would they be thiefs to the public eye? Probably yes. There's just to many people out there that like to make unimportant things huge.

My personal opinion is that this Aero thing looks neat, and the WPF that's under it is awsome!

LOL

1) No part of Spotlight is implemented in the kernel. That wouldn't even make sense.

2) Spotlight is extremely limited in its capabilities. It has no ability to crawl non-file items (like e-mail databases, for example).

3) WDS is a Windows system service, and is just as integrated with the OS as Spotlight (if not moreso).

4 hours to index 500GB of data (especially large files with lots of content to index) isn't bad at all. Spotlight would certainly take far longer. Of course, spotlight doesn't give you any indication of how much has been indexed, so you kind of have to guess at that.

Every single new feature that Apple is adding to Spotlight in Leopard is already availabe on Vista. How is that not playing catch-up?

I'm pretty sure an early version of Flip3D was present in the very first Longhorn 3xxx alpha builds (there were videos and screenshots of that ages ago).

Wrong on all 3 (or 4) counts

I suggest you go and do a little research

http://images.apple.com/macosx/pdf/MacOSX_Spotlight_TB.pdf

and if you used spotlight, you'd know that it instantly index and update to any change you have on your operating system while WDS only index ever 20 minutes? (oh...I should mention the WDS I am talking about is the one for windows. Because obviously when we used spotlight, XP users only had the XP version of WDS available...)

and oh...if you can find a screen shot of Flip3D being implemented in Alpha 3XXX...feel free to post a link?

Edited by NeoXY
Wrong on all 3 (or 4) counts

I suggest you go and do a little research

http://images.apple.com/macosx/pdf/MacOSX_Spotlight_TB.pdf

and if you used spotlight, you'd know that it instantly index and update to any change you have on your operating system while WDS only index ever 20 minutes? (oh...I should mention the WDS I am talking about is the one for windows. Because obviously when we used spotlight, XP users only had the XP version of WDS available...)

and oh...if you can find a screen shot of Flip3D being implemented in Alpha 3XXX...feel free to post a link?

Are you sure ? one of the reasons address book in OSX generatex file based contact information is because spotlight can't index it's binary DB. So Brandon is right there. It might be because apple wanted to keep it simple or whatever the reason.

And WDS on my XP workstation is way faster than spotlight on my iBook G4. So it's just a matter of right hardware. It can be set to index in real time as well. (index now in WDS/XP, haven't used vista yet).

I don't remember reading about Flip3D in Longhorn days.

But care to comment on the "quick views" feature in Leopard which looks like a "straight copy" from Vista (live previews) ? or would you now say it's pretty obvious that showing file thumbnails is trivial. It's funny how this MS copied apple crap flows only one way. What about time machine ? The rumored black interface ?

yea, the mac fanboys are pretty ridiculous to purport that this this looks like their horrid OS..

nah, Vista does not look like OSX.. as Vista actually looks pretty (at least compared to OSX)

I guess that the type of comment that come from Vista/Microsoft fanboys now ain't it?

Besides, if anything, Apple beat at Microsoft in the game of who develops and releases the fastest. Even if Microsoft may have hinted that some of Vista's features originated by in early longhorn releases notes or whatnot, MSFT were beaten as far as speed goes from a company that is a fraction of its size with a much tighter budget.

Wrong on all 3 (or 4) counts

I suggest you go and do a little research

http://images.apple.com/macosx/pdf/MacOSX_Spotlight_TB.pdf

and if you used spotlight, you'd know that it instantly index and update to any change you have on your operating system while WDS only index ever 20 minutes? (oh...I should mention the WDS I am talking about is the one for windows. Because obviously when we used spotlight, XP users only had the XP version of WDS available...)

I've used Spotlight on my MacBook. I know it pretty well. Once it's up-to-date, it indexes based on filesystem notifications just like WDS used to. WDS 3.x actually uses a better mechanism as it's integrated with the USN Change Journal in NTFS. And WDS has never, ever indexed on a 20 minute timer. WDS has always indexed immediately, but it "backs off" while you're using the computer.

I should know. I'm a developer on WDS.

On XP you can turn off that back-off functionality so that it's always completely up-to-date instantly. On Vista, the back-off works differently as it's more closely integrated with the filesystem, and it should always be up-to-date.

and oh...if you can find a screen shot of Flip3D being implemented in Alpha 3XXX...feel free to post a link?

Earliest screenshot I found was from 4074, but I think 3718 might have had it as well (could be wrong, it was a long time ago).

post-30311-1172132567_thumb.jpg

I don't think they look similar at all.

And Spotlight does work as a service, but it's triggered by the kernel (any file I/O triggers it, Time Machine uses the same mechanism)

Edit: another source says it's triggered by the file system driver, so who knows.

Edit 2: yet another source says it uses a thing called "fsevents", it's triggered by the kernel, and app's can use it to detect changes, so that settles it.

Edited by The_Decryptor

Not at all the same. Not even close.

There is just one thing that does annoy me in Vista. The progress bars. They are :x too bright too flourescent. :ermm:

Brandon, is it possible that those terrible flouro progress bars can be changed by Microsoft? Please? Or can they be made customizable? Please?

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Amazon may use OpenAI and Nova models after Anthropic reportedly raises costs by Karthik Mudaliar Amazon is reportedly considering to use OpenAI models and even its own Nova family of AI models after Anthropic raised the cost of using Claude inside Amazon services. According to a report from The Information, Amazon is weighing its options to reduce costs under a new arrangement with Anthropic. But back in April, Amazon said it would invest $5 billion more in Anthropic, with the possibility of adding up to another $20 billion if certain commercial milestones are met. That investment actually came on top of another $8 billion Amazon had already put into the Claude maker. Anthropic, meanwhile, committed to spend more than $100 billion over 10 years on AWS technologies, including Amazon’s Trainium chips. Amazon isn't just a customer of Anthropic but also one of the most important backers and cloud partners. This is why it makes it interesting that Amazon is considering other alternatives to handle its internal workloads. Although Amazon has been building its own options for a while now. Its Nova family of AI models was announced in late 2024 for Amazon Bedrock, with models aimed at text, image, and video tasks. Amazon pitched the model around cost and latency at that time. With that said, OpenAI has also become a more realistic option recently for AWS customers as well as for Amazon itself. Earlier this year, OpenAI brought its latest models and Codex coding agent to Amazon Bedrock, after changes to its previously more restrictive Microsoft cloud arrangement. This allowed AWS to serve even those customers who wanted other alternatives from Claude, without having to move workloads out of Amazon's cloud. Evaluating alternatives could also be due to commercial pressure and not necessarily a sign of a damaged partnership between Amazon and Anthropic. Whether or not Amazon is actually considering switching entirely to OpenAI's models or its own Nova models remains unknown at this moment.
    • Samsung introduces new AI classroom tools and interactive displays at ISTELive 2026 by Fiza Ali Samsung has announced several new education-focused software features and interactive displays for schools during ISTELive 2026, taking place in Orlando, Florida, from 28 June to 1 July. The focus of these updates is on making shared classroom displays easier to use for teachers while giving IT administrators more control over managing devices. One of the key additions is the Samsung Account Management Solution (AMS). In many schools, multiple teachers share the same interactive display throughout the day, which means signing in and setting everything up can become repetitive. With AMS, teachers can log in by scanning a QR code or tapping an NFC-enabled ID card. Once signed in, their personalised workspace, including wallpapers, bookmarks, app shortcuts, and files, can be instantly accessed through Home Personalisation. Samsung has also included a screen lock feature, allowing teachers to lock the display if they need to step away briefly. Furthermore, the company is also updating its Education Portal with new tools designed for school IT administrators. The portal will allow IT administrators to register teachers, enrol devices, and manage user access from a central dashboard. Administrators can also link NFC cards to teacher accounts, making sign-ins quicker across shared displays. Another addition is a Tags feature that lets schools organise displays by building or classroom. Those tags can also be used to send emergency notifications to selected Samsung Interactive Displays through compatible platforms such as InformaCast and Raptor. Moreover, the tech giant's AI Assistant is gaining several new features aimed at supporting everyday classroom tasks such as lesson planning and classroom engagement. One of the features is Circle to Search, which lets teachers circle text or images on the display to quickly find related information, videos, or web results without interrupting the lesson. The content can then be brought into Samsung Whiteboard. Another feature, Live Transcript, converts spoken lessons into real-time captions, which could be useful for students with hearing impairments or those in multilingual classrooms. The AI Assistant also introduces AI Summary and AI Quiz. The summary tool creates summaries of recorded lessons, while AI Quiz generates questions based on lesson content so teachers can quickly check how well students are following along. Teachers signed in through Samsung AMS can also return to their previous AI-generated lesson materials without logging in again. Alongside the software updates, Samsung has expanded its Android-based Interactive Display range with three new models: the WAF-S, WAFX-PS, and WAHX-M. The WAF-S and WAFX-PS ship with Android 16, bringing updates to security, accessibility, and overall usability while maintaining compatibility with Google's education services including Google Classroom and Google Drive through EDLA certification. Meanwhile, the new WAHX-M is the biggest addition to the lineup, introducing a 98-inch display for larger spaces such as lecture halls and conference rooms. It will also be available in 65-inch, 75-inch and 86-inch sizes. Samsung says the WAHX-M further includes on-device AI features such as voice commands, text-to-speech, and an AI calculator, alongside support for Samsung AMS and AI Assistant. Samsung AI Assistant has been available since April, while Samsung AMS and the updated Education Portal will begin rolling out in July.
    • It's been $24 (single) or $89 (4-pack) for many days on both Amazon and Walmart as far as I know. That isn't a big discount. If these end up like the 1st gen, the 4-pack will routinely get down around $80, give or take a dollar. I think they have even hit $69 at times.
    • Microsoft brings Claude to its own Azure infrastructure, powered by Nvidia GB300 Blackwell by Karthik Mudaliar Anthropic's Claude models are now generally available in Microsoft Foundry on Azure and are running on Nvidia's GB300 Blackwell Ultra systems. Nvidia wrote in its announcement that the models are hosted on Microsoft Azure and accelerated by GB300 Blackwell Ultra GPUs, with Quantum-X800 InfiniBand networking used to support larger agentic systems and specialized sub-agents that can operate across business domains. This is great for customers and enterprises that want to build autonomous and domain-specific AI agents using Claude without moving outside Microsoft’s cloud platform. Microsoft currently offers Claude models in Foundry in two forms: “Hosted on Azure,” which runs end-to-end on Azure infrastructure and is generally available, and “Hosted on Anthropic infrastructure,” which remains in preview. This separation is quite important for organizations that have procurement, compliance, data processing, or internal governance requirements tied to Azure. Anthropic currently has 11 Claude models listed in Microsoft Foundry, including Opus 4.8, Sonnet 4.6, and even the unavailable Mythos and Fable models. Billing is handled through Claude Consumption Units (CCUs). Microsoft says CCU is an invoicing unit for Claude models in Foundry, with token usage converted using Anthropic’s published per-model token rates. The usage is billed through Azure Marketplace just like models from other distributors and appears on the customer's Azure invoice, while eligible spend can count against a Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment. For starters, GB300 NVL72 is a rack-scale, fully liquid-cooled system that combines 72 Blackwell Ultra GPUs and 36 Grace CPUs. Nvidia has listed 37TB of fast memory, 130TB/s of NVLink bandwidth, and FP4 Tensor Core performance of up to 1,440 petaflops with sparsity. The deal is also part of a three-way partnership between Microsoft, Nvidia, and Anthropic. Under the deal, Anthropic has committed to buying $30 billion in Azure compute capacity and contracting additional capacity up to one gigawatt. Nvidia and Microsoft also said they would invest up to $10 billion and $5 billion in Anthropic, respectively.
    • WhatsApp is getting usernames, and you can reserve your preferred one now by Fiza Ali Sharing your phone number isn't always something you want to do, especially with people you've just met. Whether it's someone from a class, a local community group, or a sports team chat, handing over your number can feel like giving away more personal information than necessary. That's exactly the problem WhatsApp is trying to solve with its upcoming usernames feature. The company has announced that users can now reserve a unique WhatsApp username ahead of the feature's wider rollout later this year. Once usernames become available, they'll let people connect without revealing their phone numbers. It's a change that makes a lot of sense for group chats. Right now, everyone in the group can see your phone number. With usernames enabled, that won't necessarily be the case when someone contacts you for the first time. WhatsApp says it's opening username reservations early because more than three billion people use the app, meaning plenty of people are likely to want the same usernames. Reserving one now gives users a better chance of securing the name they actually want before the feature launches more broadly. If your preferred username is already taken, WhatsApp will also offer a built-in username generator to suggest available alternatives. The feature isn't only aimed at individual users. Creators, businesses, and organisations will be able to claim the same username they already use on Instagram or Facebook, making it easier to keep a consistent identity across Meta's apps. Furthermore, privacy is a big part of how WhatsApp is introducing usernames. There won't be a public directory where people can browse or search for usernames. Instead, people will need to know your exact username before they can start a conversation with you. Additionally, users can also choose to enable a username key, which adds another layer of control by requiring people to enter that key before sending a message. Once the feature rolls out, people who choose to use a username will no longer have their phone number shown when messaging a person or business for the first time. If you want to reserve a username, make sure you're running the latest version of WhatsApp, then head to Settings > Account > Username. The tech giant says usernames will roll out gradually over the coming months, and users will receive an in-app notification when the feature becomes available in their country.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Reacting Well
      NovaEdgeX earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Week One Done
      NovaEdgeX earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Year In
      BA the Curmudgeon earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Conversation Starter
      rosiecharles earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • First Post
      KMilenkoski1202 earned a badge
      First Post
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      536
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      269
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      150
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      98
    5. 5
      macoman
      65
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!