Comments on: Is Windows 7 Aero Peek a copy of Apple Expose?

By: The Fallen Guinea Pig

The Fallen Guinea Pig — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 00:48:39 +0000

yes, the kernel is basically a modified version of Free BSD

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 02:44:30 +0000

Apple didn’t invent Expose-style window switching either, so why all this hand wringing about whether Microsoft copied them?

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:51:11 +0000

Holy shit i cant believe people are bitching over things like this. Like “the guy” above me says; its just how it is… Its always been like this.. People steal ideas.

“Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.” – Thomas Edison

By: the guy

the guy — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:05:13 +0000

WHAAA!
I mean WHO cares! I tell you who: those people who dont have a computer to work on, but have it for “man look i have a mac and look how cool it is!”. And when you tell them: Well, mine has bluetooth too, then they say “but mine is bigger / was in there before”.
For the rest of us, we use the stuff we have to use (some programs wont exist on both platforms or your boss wants you to use one platform), or at home, we just use the platform we like. I dont care if you like exposé or aero peak. When you like expose, use expose. Both have their pros and cons. Dont get me wrong, you can talk about what might be better, but why is it important who invented it? Thats only important for those i-told-you-so-guys. For example, one could argue if this green plus in mac is really such a great idea. I think it is not. Luckily, there is a program called right zoom. And i’d also like to have that feature in mac os that i can put one window on left and the other one on the right side as in aero snap. And of course, many things in Windows which are cool in mac os. After all – we can be happy, because the competition makes windows and mac os (and linux) better.

But PLEASE!!!! stop this they-invented-it. its not even an argument in a discussion whats better. There are many companies who “invented” stuff (did something for the first time) and dont exist anymore. Or do you want software patents???

By: Filipe Abreu

Filipe Abreu — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:38:46 +0000

Just to remember that both Apple and Microsoft have ripped of the GUI and HCI from the Xerox Alto, released back in 1970, with a GUI identical to the MacOS 9. The Xerox Alto was the first personal computer. It even had a program called Sketchpad, which was very similar to PaintBrush, and also a text processing program. The Xerox Alto was costing around U$ 3,000 for a market that didn’t exist back then (people are not intimidated to pay as much for an Apple Power Book nowadays). So Xerox dropped the Xerox Alto manufacturing and research, donated all 100 units to universities, and 14 years later we see the first Apple Macintosh, a Xerox Alto with an apple branded in it.

Also remembering that the first “personal computer” that really hit the market was the Altair (remember Alto?) sold as eletronic parts to be assembled in 1974. It used a BASIC interpretor created by a guy named Bill Gates. In 1974 Micro-Soft was founded.

Many things evolved so far, but yet both Apple and Microsoft are copying and being copied. The only ones not being bothered about it seems to be the open source community building UNIX based OSes (hey isn’t MacOSX kernell basically FreeBSD ?)

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:30:51 +0000

It’s largely biased. You can’t judge Mac OS if you have a biased-mind.
I completely agree with David and using namespace Pikachu;

I’ve been using Windows for almost 14 years, I just tried Windows 7 for 3 days, I don’t see any good and User friendly features in Windows 7.

As for Expose in Mac OS X? It’s still genius and brilliant, far better than Aero.
As for hidden stuff in Mac OS, WHAT?! What are you talking about anyway???

By: javier29m90

javier29m90 — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:16:05 +0000

Aero Peek is Aero Peek
Expose is Expose

but ‘Dock Expose’ is plagiarized from Windows 7′s Aero Peek concept.
Aero Peek (2008, October @ PDC2008)
Dock Expose (2009, June @ 10A394)

Aero Peek shows you a thumbnail of your windows and other full-size without any click, just slide your cursor over the thumbnails.
I agree they really tried to copy the windows 7 concept and it didn;t come out as well as the taskbar. The taskbar is amazing and windows 7 just made it better.

By: Pikdum

Pikdum — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:44:27 +0000

The mac vs pc war is ridiculous. The bottom line is operating systems are going to evolve. Would all of you that are bawwwing about who ripped off who be happy if no one implemented new ideas? Probably not. Without borrowing “ripping off” neither OS would make any progress and we’d still be using a terminal for everything. Regardless, I’m just preaching to the choir anyway.

P.S. Burger King has a double cheeseburger. They ripped off Mcdonalds!!! get them!!!!

By: Nathan

Nathan — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:01:53 +0000

MacBooks don’t require a shortcut key or hot corner to use expose, and neither does a desktop with a more-than-two-button mouse.

If you’re going to make a statement, at least make sure it’s true.

“Expose’ has no concept of relation when you have several windows open so you see every window for every application in a big pile.”

Try pressing “tab” with expose open.

And does peek really make more sense than just shoving windows to the side? With peek, you’re stuck with those annoying window borders still in your face, where expose just puts an unobtrusive shadow around the edge of the screen.

I’ve never been particularly fond of Windows (to say the least) but with 7, it looks like Microsoft is *starting* to comprehend the idea that actual, english-speaking, non-engineer people are going to use their product. For awhile, it seemed like plain English was not a language that Microsoft systems spoke. Thank you, Apple, for showing these guys how it’s done.

By: John

John — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:49:06 +0000

I don’t believe you fully understand how the taskbar functions in windows. The taskbar does not directly handle the applications, as in it only shows what applications have been opened. Therefore 10 instances of notepad running are not handled by the taskbar, but they are separate programs running. However, what windows 7 does is it takes similar programs such as notepad, firefox, or whatever you are running and groups them together.
In OS X the taskbar directly handles each instance of the program running, so if you had notepad or whatever program running you can close all open instances and the taskbar will still be running until you close the taskbar.
The OS X Dock on the other hand shows the applications that are open it doesn’t handle the programs directly.