[Marian @ Jan 29th 2007 3:57PM]

I wouldn't discuss about OS X here. But Microsoft forced me, by ripping off so many things out of it:
- Expose -- they made the crappy shuffle card thing, when a window covers another
- Dashboard -- they changed the name. Now they are gadgets. Not widgets
- Spotlight
- many others...

[Andrew Fong @ Jan 29th 2007 4:29PM]

No one forces you to do anything. But while we're at it:

- Dashboard was a copy of Konfabulator (now Yahoo Widgets).
- Windows's search functinality was planned long before Spotlight came out, and Google Desktop (still not available on OS X) was out before Tiger.
- Leopard's Spaces have been implemented on just about every Unix System.
- Time Machine functionality is available through Vista's Shadow Copy and Imaging ability.

Everyone copies in this field. What matters is how well they're implemented. Apple's strength has never been introducing cool new features not available for Windows users, but refining these techniques and making them look cool and easy to use.

Vista is trying to the same now, with mixed success. While there are some things that OS X outclasses Windows (security, for starters), there are some things that I think Vista actually pulls off quite well.

For example, the "crappy shuffle card" thing may actually be superior in some circumstances. The purpose of Expose is to allow you to quickly select another window. This is fine with a small number of windows. As the number of windows increases however, it becomes difficult to locate a window once everything is sprawled out all over the screen. The card system turns out to be more effective here since it's easier to scan through a stack of cards in one dimension than to try to look through several windows arranged in two dimensions. Basically, if you're trying for someone in a stack of business cards, is it faster to randomly scatter the cards all across your desk, or to arrange them in a stack and thumb through them?

As for the windows being covered, you're still able to see 30 to 50% of the window, so for the purpose of quickly identifying and selecting a window, that should be sufficient.

The other example I would use is Window's implementation of search. Spotlight came out first, but I think Vista does it a little better. By integrating it with the Start menu, it's a lot easier to quickly find and launch programs. Spotlight is good for finding files, but not so much for launching programs -- it doesn't integrate with the Dock, which is pretty but flawed from a usability perspective (takes up too much space, gives insufficient information about each item). To get equivalent (actually, better) functionality, you'd need to get Quicksilver for OS X.