Apple's new version of OSX, Tiger, arrives later this week - and there's no surprise that the claws are out from Microsoft (and the media).
Macworld UK cribs a piece from Newsweek:
Microsoft's Windows Vice President Jim Allchin has dismissed Mac OS X 10.4 as "a peripheral to the iPod" while admitting that the constant delay in shipping Longhorn (the code-name for the next Microsoft OS) is "a problem," Newsweek reports in a look at the intensification of competition between Apple and Microsoft regarding operating systems.
Allchin also suggested features such as Tiger's Dashboard feature were inspired by Longhorn - a charge Apple CEO Steve Jobs rejects: "We've been showing pieces of Tiger for 18 months," Jobs says, insisting that all of Apple's ideas came from within Apple. "And you can be assured all these things have plenty of patent protection," he added.
Jobs added: "Microsoft has followed our taillights for a long time. Maybe [in the '90s] we stopped innovating for a while, but now they've been copying OS X the same way they copied Mac."
If there's anything less tedious than the constant releases of operating systems, it's the constant rehashes of old argument between the system creators. Guys, listen to me... I Don't Care. If it's good, people buy it, people copy it, people come up with new ideas. There's nothing that enthuses me less about a new system than listening to the whining from all concerned.
That said, Tiger does look like it has some interesting features. I'm off to have a meeting with Apple this afternoon, so I'll report back when I return.
