“I worked at Microsoft for about 7 years total, from 1994 to 1998, and from 2002 to 2006,” Moishe Lettvin, now a software engineer at Google, blogs. “The most frustrating year of those seven was the year I spent working on Windows Vista, which was called Longhorn at the time.”
“My team had a very talented UI designer and my particular feature had a good, headstrong program manager with strong ideas about user experience. We had a Mac that we looked to as a paragon of clean UI. Of course the Shell team also had some great UI designers and numerous good, headstrong PMs who valued (I can only assume) simplicity and so on. Perhaps they had a Mac too,” Lettvin writes.
Full article, “The Windows Shutdown crapfest,” here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Microsoft’s Windows Vista is basically Microsoft’s version of Mac OS 9.3 – October 11, 2006
Microsoft Windows Vista: If you can’t innovate… try to impersonate Apple’s Mac OS X – August 10, 2006
Ballmer: I’m Microsoft’s ‘primary champion of innovation’ – July 27, 2006
Microsoft botches another copy job: Windows Vista Flip3D vs. Apple Mac OS X Exposé – June 26, 2006
Windows Vista rips-off Mac OS X at great hardware cost (and Apple gains in the end) – June 13, 2006
Computerworld: Microsoft Windows Vista a distant second-best to Apple Mac OS X – June 02, 2006
Thurrott: Microsoft going to get eaten alive over Windows Vista’s resemblance to Apple’s Mac OS X – March 09, 2006
NY Times’ Pogue on Gates’ CES demo: Most of Vista features unadulterated ripoffs from Apple Mac OS X – January 05, 2006
Analyst: Windows Vista may still impress many consumers because they have not seen Apple’s Mac OS X – January 05, 2006
Apple’s talent and innovation vs. Microsoft’s hype – October 25, 2005
Microsoft’s Windows Vista strives to deliver what Apple’s Mac OS X already offers – October 10, 2005
Thurrott: many of Windows Vista’s upcoming features appeared first in Apple’s Mac OS X – September 26, 2005
Microsoft’s Ballmer: It’s true, some of Windows Vista’s features are ‘kissing cousins’ to Mac OS X – September 18, 2005
PC World: Microsoft innovation – an oxymoron – September 14, 2005
eWEEK Editor Coursey: Longhorn so far ‘looks shockingly like a Macintosh’ – April 25, 2005
Due in late 2006, many of Windows Longhorn’s features have been in Mac OS X since 2001 – April 25, 2005
Microsoft’s new mantra: ‘It Just Works’ ripped straight from Apple’s ‘Switch’ campaign – April 22, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Microsoft’s Longhorn: ‘They are shamelessly copying us’ – April 21, 2005
Microsoft’s Windows Longhorn will bear more than just a passing resemblance to Apple’s Mac OS X – April 15, 2005
Steve Jobs: Microsoft copied original Apple Mac with Windows 95, now they’re copying us again – February 08, 2005
Novell CEO: ‘Microsoft sucked $60 billion out of IT industry that could have used for innovation’ – September 13, 2004
Apple CEO Steve Jobs: Mac OS X Tiger ‘is going to drive the copycats crazy – June 28, 2004
PC Magazine: Microsoft ‘Longhorn’ preview shows ‘an Apple look’ – May 06, 2004
Charles Arthur: Microsoft’s definition of ‘innovation’ different from everyone else’s – April 27, 2004
Windows ‘Longhorn’ to add translucent windows that ripple and shrink by 2005 – May 19, 2003
Gosh.
What a surprise.
What a shameless, embarrassing company.
That is very innovative.
Some put poor old yeller out of his misery….
Inspiration?
Microsoft must be redifining words again.
thin white type on a black background == bad UI
That’s why he worked for Microsoft. He’s clueless.
This isn’t news!
And yet it looks like crap.
It can’t be true.
Microsoft would never copy Apple.
MDN & everyone else:
It appears that the linked article has had the slashdot effect. The webmaster has replaced the article HTML with a 0 KB file. He must be worried about his bandwidth budget.
So, what happened?
the link to the full article retrieves a blank page
MW: expected, as in “i expected the full article but got a blank page”
“I think she needs bigger nipples.”
“What size does she have now?”
“Medium, but I think she needs large.”
“I see what you mean.”
“Yeah.” As she tips the baby’s bottle further so she can better sip her juice.
nuflux,
If only MS felt that way about the way they do business, and their primary product – Windows.
to go http://www.google.com and put this in the search box:
cache:www.drizzle.com/~lettvin/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html
MW: if you “care” you can find it
“Microsoft must be redifining words again”
irony
I really want to suggest that you read the full article – it is very enlightening with regard to why it took over 5 years to (almost) release Vista. In addition some of the comments are really great – this one made me LOL :
“Anonymous said…
I know exactly where you are coming from on this. I work for a small UI design company that worked on Vista from 2002 until 2004. Microsoft wanted to avoid some of the problems that cropped up with XP and told us they were going to do Longhorn “right” this time. After years of slaving away to supposed exacting standards of UI elements, the project was pulled from us and (I assume) taken in-house. Perhaps it was outsourced to cheap labor…
Now we see the result and I can tell you it is not pretty. UI elements look as though a child designed them. Inconsistencies are apparent everywhere. Elements from XP are STILL present in the OS and in some cases have been band-aided to fit Vista parameters instead of redesigned from scratch.
Microsoft is in a heap of trouble and these two examples are good reasons why. They have no true focus on their products or how to design, develop and produce them to compete with the cutting edge. They have become bloated, slow and anything BUT agile. Its sad, but true.”
@ Overheard in PANERA Coffee Shop,
people suck
Wow both an interesting and scary read. I wonder how it differs at Apple since they get out relatively polished, new operating systems so much faster.
Dang, dogfirend, I copied the same comment to paste here and saw you beat me to it.
I ordered my iMac on a Gateway.
It’s was like training your replacement.
Like the hangman being convicted.
Like driving your Yugo to the Mercedes lot.
Like Barney hiring Dirty Harry.
That’s all.
After all that fragmented, dysfunctional, conflicting, and perplexing array of competing interests I’m actually impressed that Microsoft plans to release Vista after only 5 plus years of toil, strain, and institutionalized ineffectiveness. How curious that Vista in style, form, and function mimics the same hodgepodge organizational structure that exists at Microsoft. The rate of reaction cannot proceed faster than the slowest rate in the process. If the rates of reactions both oscillate and vary the complexity and randomness of the process increases exponentially. I challenge any kineticist to model this institutionalized catastrophe.
I am surprised that Microsoft seems never to have heard of critical path analysis…
Some things do not lend themselves well to parallel development. This shut down/sleep/hibernate menu should not even have been started until the Vista kernal was nailed down.
Microsoft: never have so many been screwed by something so small and limp.
Personally I think Vista suffers from info overload, too much info on the GUI, but then again I only ever see screenshots, have not used it yet.
OSX’s interface IS pretty sweet, Vista SHOULD look at it for inspiration, and try to improve on or outdo it, well maybe next round.