I’m likely to get flamed for this, but I don’t care. Apple has Vista envy. I'm looking at pictures of the conference (courtesy of Engadget) and I see references to Vista almost as much as I see OS X. Here, take a look for yourself.
Sorry, I have to stop for a sec. Before I go into this, I just need to point out that Apple's Time Machine demo crashed onstage (Engadget mentions it at 10:40AM). Doubt you'll see that mentioned in any of the mainstream press. But wait, I thought Macs never crash?!?! That's what a smartass in jeans and a t-shirt told me on TV... Ok, back to the pictures.
Microsoft was very careful to file the trademark for “Windows Vista”, since “Vista” was already trademarked by someone else. So Apple isn’t technically slandering Microsoft’s product here, but several other ones instead.
And who is copying who here? Isn’t “Time Machine” a ripoff of Window’s “Previous Versions” feature that’s been out since Windows Server 2003? And Apple's "evidence" of copying is an XSLT stylesheet for displaying RSS feeds? Oh yeah, that's definitely enough for a conviction.
Vista 2.0? How can Apple claim Microsoft is copying Apple when Apple is calling “Leopard” “Vista 2.0”? Maybe they’ve been playing in the grass too long…
But this isn't the first time Apple has done this. Bertrand Sez:
"Two years ago, we thought we'd have a little fun with the folks in Redmond."
Oh yeah. If your idea of "fun" is being cocky smug bastards, then yeah... it was a lot of fun. Oh yeah, and tell me again how you can plagarize computer code with a photocopier again? That's definitely a new one.
Looks like this one may be more appropriate (thanks Danamania.com for this Photoshop fun).
Seeing as how Apple is the one that is so protective of their intellectual property, logo use, and has invested so heavily in DRM technology… isn’t it curious to see Apple breaking trademarks and violating copyrights at their WWDC conference? I’m pretty sure people aren’t allowed to use the Windows logo without permission. But something's not right here...
This picture was followed up by a comment from the presenter, Bertrand:
“This is their logo. You may think I took a Windows logo and added a nice Aqua bubble on top, but no, that's the logo, but underneath it's still Windows.”
Actually, I hate to tell you this Bertrand, but that's exactly what you did. That’s not Windows Vista’s logo. You added a second light pattern to the gel button and made it too bright around the bottom edges. Aren’t convinced? Here’s Windows Vista’s logo from the home page:
Yeah, sorry guys… that’s a terrible Photoshop job. You guys didn't even try. Sorry, liar… it’s fake. But hey, anything to make you guys look good onstage, right? Hope it was worth a potential copyright infringement violation.
This one’s not photo-related, but proof that Steve needs to go outside more often:
10:25AM - "What has our competitor been doing? Well, they've been trying to build a single release that has had many names but is now known as Windows Vista." – Steve Jobs
Um… it only had 2 names. It’s codename and it’s real name. Maybe he’s thinking about all those public pre-releases that Microsoft does and Apple doesn’t. And maybe his turtleneck is on too tight.
Now, I've been to several Microsoft conferences, and I don't remember seeing any OS X-bashing posters ANYWHERE. Oh yeah, that's because Windows has 700 million desktops deployed worldwide, compared to Apple's 14 million. I guess when you're the "underdog", anything goes, right?