Many people stay with one computer from day to day, and when
faced with a different operating system, they tend to be somewhat
afraid of it, since its "new and different." There are others out
there who don't know the difference between Windows, Mac OS, or any
other operating system, and assume that all computers work the same
way.
These days they are close to being right. I remember when Mac OS
8.5 came out - with its application switcher and extensive use of
contextual menus - remarking that "the Mac OS and Windows are
starting to get very similar." Of course, that was before Windows
XP and Mac OS X, which share not only the little duck user
icon but one of the desktop pictures as well.
It wasn't always that way. When I started using computers, PCs
were still being sold with DOS, and schools all used Apple IIes. We
had a Mac Plus - and if you knew
how to use that, great. You could successfully use a Mac 128K and a
512K, but nothing else.
You knew DOS? Fantastic, but you still had to learn the Mac OS
and the Apple II's ProDOS system.
Windows 3.0 tried to close the gap between the Mac OS and
Microsoft's hard-to-use (but very fast, once you learned it) DOS.
It contained icons, but you still needed to know about directories
and which drive A, B, C, and D were.
Microsoft understood that the best way to sell its software was
to try to sell what was already being sold successfully. Menus
worked in the same way as on the Mac, and there were windows for
documents and Program Manager groups. The Windows 3.x control panel
was set up in a similar way to System 7.
Windows 95 brought things even closer. The desktop was now
completely visible (you didn't have the Program Manager blocking
it), and icons could be placed on the desktop - just like the Mac.
The "My Documents" folder allowed users to sort through their files
as they would on a Mac.
Windows 98 improved on that, bringing the Internet Explorer
browser into the file exploring tool and allowing users to browse
files just as they would browse the Internet. The start menu was
somewhat like the Apple menu; you could access all main system
tasks and applications from it.
The great innovation with Windows 95 was the taskbar, and I have
yet to see anything quite as good. It was great because you could
see what application was running by both its icon and by the
words.
Apple must have been quite jealous, because it "borrowed" the
taskbar idea for the Mac OS 8.5 application switcher. Sure, it was
vertical - but simply do a shift-option-click on the resize box and
you've got something that looks quite a bit like the taskbar. I
often use it while I'm at my G3 running OS 9.
Apple also borrowed something else from Windows 98 for Mac
OS X: the "file explorer" idea, with back, forward, and
toolbar buttons. Of course, Microsoft responded by making theirs in
Windows XP look more like the one in Mac OS X (doesn't it
sound like two kids trying to copy each other's drawings?).
Then of course there's the new Windows XP interface. Looks quite
a bit like Mac OS X. I guess the taskbar innovation really
wore Microsoft's software developers out, so they decided to borrow
a few more ideas from Apple. Even the names - when you think about
it, Aqua (water) and Luna (the moon) are complete opposites.
Microsoft apparently just had to use something in nature, and since
water was taken, they figured they'd use that dry sphere in
space.
If the Mac OS and Windows keep getting more and more similar,
how long before they end up being the same thing? If both start
getting too similar - sure, it will be easy for the consumer to use
any computer, but will innovation be the casualty?
