Mac Dock and Windows Taskbar Overview
The Dock in OS X Leopard is a bar of icons that sits at the bottom or side of the screen, and employs a 3D perspective. The Dock is a prominent feature of OS X. It is also a prominent feature of Mac OS X's predecessors NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP operating systems.
It is primarily a way to launch and switch between running applications. It not only provides easy access to applications, but allows the user to organize them to their taste within the Dock.
Any file or app can be attached to the Dock. It can hold any number of items and resize them dynamically to fit while using magnification to clarify smaller resized items.
Windows Taskbar is an application desktop bar where users can use the bar to launch and switch between running applications. Microsoft introduced the Windows Taskbar as one of its features from Windows 95, and it has been a prominent feature of all the Windows releases thereafter.
Similar to the dock, any file or app can be attached to the taskbar. The Windows Taskbar position can be changed to either left, right, top or bottom and also the height of the taskbar can be resized. Users can also lock/unlock the position of the taskbar.
Evolution of the Mac Dock and Windows Taskbar
It is always interesting to see how things looked, back in the earlier versions and how things have changed now. So, lets go back in time and see how the dock and taskbar looked in their earlier releases
Evolution of the dock
Cheetah (released on March 24, 2001)
Puma (released on September 25, 2001)
Jaguar (released on August 24th, 2002)
Panther (released on October 24, 2003)
Tiger (released on April 29, 2005)
Evolution of the Windows Taskbar
Windows 95 (released on August 24, 1995)
Windows 98 (released on June 25, 1998)
Windows Me (released on September 14, 2000)
Windows XP (released on October 25, 2001)
Windows Vista (released on January 30, 2007)
And here is how they look today!
In Mac OS X Leopard
In Windows 7
Indeed that's an impressive change!
In the coming weeks, Neowin will be comparing the various features of the Mac OS X Dock and Windows 7 Superbar . However, this series will not conclude on which is better, rather explore and compare the options available with the Dock and Superbar.
*Image Credits: Wikipedia
*Neowin User Christian Szabo also contributed to this article
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