Google makes Windows work like a Mac

Google makes some pretty cool apps that you can install on your Windows PC; two examples are Google Desktop and Picasa 2. Both programs are great because they offer much more functionality than the default utilities included with Windows ('Search' and 'Paint') and both simplify many of the common tasks people do every day. Guess what else, both are made for Windows only. But why aren't they developed for the Mac?

Diehard Windows fans would likely answer that with the very tired "only 5% of the world uses a Mac so they don't bother". And while that's been true in the past for some applications, it's not the reason here. The real reason is that the Windows-only Google apps which are designed to be easy, fast and fun (and generally make your Windows experience 'better') do so because they imitate features built-in on a Mac. In other words, Google uses the Mac as a prototype of sorts to improve the experience for its Windows user-base.

Google's Windows offerings and their 'equivalents' on a Mac:

Google Desktop Google Gadgets* Picasa 2

≈ = ≈

Spotlight Dashboard iPhoto

Google's web offerings and their 'equivalents' on a Mac:

Page Creator Blogger

≈ ≈

iWeb** iWeb**

The harsh reality is that even though it's inferior, over 90% of the world still uses Windows, so all it comes down to is a business decision -- if you want to grow you have to focus on the majority. Google knows this and so does Apple. It's why Apple has put out Boot Camp. I don't think this project necessarily excited Steve Jobs but he definitely saw the necessity. That's not to say it upset him either, read on.

Think about it metaphorically: let's say you create and innovate an amazing technology, one that revolutionizes how every human interacts with a computer. Somebody else more cunning copies the idea and look of the software (poorly, mind you), mass markets it for use on cheaper, bulkier hardware... and away things go for the next 20 years until the entire planet is saturated with the shit copy of your original.

Now rewind a bit... back at the company you co-founded with your best-friend and not long after launching that revolutionary computer, you're stripped of all decision-making power and positioned to be fired by the new CEO (who is formerly a soft-drink company President) and his cronies -- you resign before the board drops the axe. You are devastated but because you still love what you do, you go on to assemble a team to form a new company and invest from your own pocket to get it off the ground. The company you left then sues you because some of its key employees followed you to the new company. You settle and as a condition are restricted to build workstations only (as opposed to personal computers). A bigwig investor sees you on a TV show and joins in, providing the first major source of venture capital. Your company then creates a UNIX computer that some authorities proclaim is the "best UNIX computer ever" and on which is authored the 1st version of the WWW by a very intelligent programmer -- another technology that revolutionizes how every human interacts with a computer (and the main reason we use the Internet today). More big investors join in and with the added momentum your company goes on to enjoy well-known customers like the CIA and Swiss Bank. The UNIX system continues to grow in popularity until eventually the whole company gets purchased by the first company you co-founded (the one that previously fired you) for $427 million ($420 million more than you put in). The soft-drink guy (who pissed away lots of money, played too much golf and did little to advance the company while you were out) is gone now and you happily run the company again. You use the framework from the UNIX computer to plan a dramatic operating system overhaul of the first revolutionary computer you built and it becomes an instant success. Around the same time you make a portable music accessory that also becomes an instant success and design a store⁺ to go with it that sells more music than Starbucks does coffee -- and both of which revolutionize the music industry and computer industry, again. Over the next few releases of the new operating system, you add many new features and applications that your customers want to use and include them in the sale of every computer.

Wait, I didn't mention that after leaving the first company and while getting the second one going, you buy a computer graphics company from a Greek Mythologist and turn it into an animation studio that goes on to make the most successful animated films in history. That studio eventually gets bought by a small world (after all) for $7.4 billion ($7.39 billion more than you invested).

Out of breath yet? Dizzy from all the revolutions? Well, we're finally back to today and the people that have been using the shit copy of your original are starting to catch on, though more slowly than you'd like. Your goal is simple, you want them to use yours instead of the copy based on yours. You have a choice: you can wait a few years for them to slowly pull away (it's not that easy after so many years of mental abuse) or you can give them the ability to make the shit copy they are so used to and hesitant to pull away from to run on your computer.

And that my friends is as concise a history as I could manage to show you how Boot Camp has brought things full-circle between Windows and the Mac. So, of all the people that have formally only owned a PC with Windows who then buy a Mac mini and run Windows with Boot Camp... how many do you think will prefer to keep the behemoth, electricity-wasting furniture on top or under their desk to the tiny 6.5" square, energy-efficient decorative piece that runs Windows too? Not too many in my opinion.


Remember the intelligent fellow I mentioned above that invented the WWW? Keep in mind he did this back in 1991 on a computer conceived 20 years ago by Steve Jobs and NeXT! He is actually a 'Sir' now; Sir Tim Berners-Lee was Knighted for his achievements by the Queen of England in July 2004 and in January 2005 was named Greatest Briton of 2004. Here is what he had to say in 1999 about the NeXT Computer (the predecessor of Mac OS X) on which he ran the first Web server and created the first web browser⁺⁺ and editor:

"The NeXT interface was beautiful, smooth, and consistent. It had great flexibility, and other features that would not be seen on PCs till later, such as voice e-mail, and a built-in synthesizer. It also had software to create a hypertext program. Its failure to take over the industry, despite all these advantages, became for me a cautionary tale. NeXT required users to accept all these innovations at once - too much."

The current Mac with OS X is the evolution of NeXT Computer's technology^~ and philosophy. So I ask you, are you ready now for a computer that's ahead of it's time, easier to use, a pleasure to interact with, and doesn't get sick?


* Google Gadgets is bundled with Google Desktop

** iWeb is a webpage creation application included in iLife '06, you must pay for web hosting either with .Mac or externally; hosting is free using webspace provided by Google Page Creator and Blogger

⁺The iTunes Music Store is powered by OPENSTEP, a stripped-down NeXTSTEP, developed in partnership with Sun Microsystems.

⁺⁺ Before NCSA Mosaic, before Netscape Navigator, and four years before Internet Explorer 1.0, aka Spyglass Mosaic.

^~ NeXTStep evolved from the BSD family of UNIX; UNIX was originally developed in 1969 (as UNICS).

The Consciousness of...

Integrated Open Standards-adopting Pleasure Right-brain + left-brain Compact Love Clean Quality Solid Natural Organic Fresh Excitement Advancing Innovative Nourishing Food Expressive Clear Evolution Grow Create Unix-based Conservation Water Quiet Dynamic Proactive Cannabis indica Freedom Sharing Roots Rewarding Foward moving Leading Collaboration Thinking before doing Elegant With Homeopathic (remedy) Homeopathic Ortho Whole Holistic Revolution Healthy 3-dimensional thinking Spherical Harmony Olive oil ** Soba Fruit Wood Isolated neoplasm Grains, greens, nuts & fish Verticality 100% Woolen sweater + Synthesis Conformity Respect Beard Thought Freedom Train Blue pill Carotene Adaptable Oneness Volkswagen High Snake Mega Company The Future Mind Oprah Big thing, small package Beach Passion Inspired Breathed World Inclusive David Suzuki Fidel Energy~ Endothermy Einstein Yin The Country Immunity Feta Apricots Order Anabolism /

Patchy Closed Standards-ignoring Indifference Left-brain Bulky Jealousy Sloppy Quantity Porous Artificial Lifeless Weary Ennui Advantaging Poor reproduction Depleting Candy (Junk food) Suppressive Constipated Stagnation Consume Annihilate Purely proprietary Waste Crude Oil Noisy Resisted & sedentary * Defensive 40 oz. Colt 45 Imprisonment Avarice Surface Life-force sucking Sloth-like advances Following without listening Domination Doing before thinking Drab Against Pharmaceutical Antipathic Meta, Para Segmented Partial Oppression Plagued & medicated 1-dimensional thinking Linear Melancholia Crisco Semolina Poker chips Tin Malignant neoplasm Factory-farmed chicken Lateral spread 100% Acrylic blanket ++ Division Anarchy Exploit Clean-shave Dictatorship Comfortable masochism Red pill FD&C Red #2 + FD&C Yellow #5 Crippled Multiplicity General Motors Low Eagle Micro Corporation The Dark Ages Penis Jerry Small thing, big package Dungeon Apathy Gambled & Sold Defecated USA! USA! USA! USA! Compartmentalized Stephen Harper Dubya Mass~ Exothermy Hitler Yang Suburbia Susceptibility Philly Cream AZT Entropy Catabolism \

* ↑ μ_k leads to ↑ E, where E = Nμ_kd ; ** Cold-pressed, extra-virgin

⁺ Hand-woven by Grams ; ⁺⁺ $8.97 from Walmart during Rollback

^~ where E= mc²

Preamble

This blog will not be your typical Mac vs. Windows banter, there are plenty of other sites for that. Instead, discussion here will be largely historical and philosophical, and only on occasion geeky.

I will make claims that some may find farfetched, especially diehard proponents of Windows. I don't expect these people to easily comprehend most of the comparisons, analogies, metaphors, and whatever else I will use to show that people have been using the wrong computer system for far, far too long.

I will draw from the history of the personal computer industry, namely the personalities, motivations and resumes of its key players (Steve Jobs & Bill Gates) to offer my explanations on the industry and market today, and predictions for the direction things will go tomorrow.

I will be writing what I have to say and also what I think people need to hear. The thoughts and ideas I will be sharing here have been circling my mind for many months; it's because I tend to plan things to death before doing them that I haven't gotten around to publishing until now. If these humble and not-so-humble thoughts and ideas reach their intended target fruitfully, I will have achieved my overall goal in doing this -- encouraging people to use a more intelligently designed computer.

The audience I'm most interested in reaching is that of lay PC users; those using Windows all these years because it's all they've ever known, or if asked why they use Windows will tell you: "it's cheaper to buy a PC", or "PC software titles are more widely available", and the very regrettable "I have to use what everyone else is using". I find the first two resasons to be the most common but only the first and last are still reasonably valid. For those belonging to the 90+ percent-of-the-world-using-Windows group, the time has come to challenge these reasons.

Oh, I should probably mention that up until very recently I didn't even own a Mac. Like many, this wasn't by choice (I'll elaborate in later posts). I was still and very unfortunately using Windows.

In my life thus far, I have learned that often one's character or nature is best understood when perceiving it from without. In this case I mean to say that it took a long-time and unhappy Windows user (slave, rather) to fully appreciate the innovation, fluidity and "thought" that went into the Mac. Yes "thought", the kind of thought that benefits and advances humanity in a profound way. Unlike all versions of Windows (including Vista), it was this kind of thought that was put into the Mac operating system right from the very beginning, and most notably with OS X. Real thought that is, not the poor reproductions of Mac technology ever-present in all Windows operating systems... right from the very beginning (MIcrosoft Windows 1.0).

I think sometimes you have to experience all of the various attributes of shit before you can fully appreciate the beauty, feel, sound and taste of an Apple, and no less, the intelligence of the blossom that preceded it.

I expect this blog will be met with enjoyment, contempt, laughter, and everything in between. I can't wait to welcome all of it, after all, everything I'm writing about is true.

In vivo veritas...

...but with wine it flows more freely.