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Technologically, a lot has been done under the hood since 1995 just to allow modern hardware to work. USB devices, wireless NICs, and multicore CPUs didn't even

Technologically, a lot has been done under the hood since 1995 just to allow modern hardware to work. USB devices, wireless NICs, and multicore CPUs didn't even exist when Windows95 was released. Much of the "innovation" is unseen. While I also wish they had innovated the UI more over the past decade, we are probably in the (admittedly growing) minority. You shouldn't switch the gas and break pedals in a car just to be "innovative", and I think for Microsoft the risk of alienating old users outweighs the risk of losing new users. Apple of course has been more free to make sweeping changes to their OS over the past decade because, frankly, they haven't had much to lose. It will be interesting to see how dramatically they change OSX now that they have found something that sells.

carbon8 17y ago
"It will be interesting to see how dramatically they change OSX now that they have found something that sells." You don't have to wait; they've already done it with the iPhone/iPad OS. Apple is clearly still willing to make hard and dramatic decisions when it comes to its operating systems.
- mckilljoy 17y ago
  Don't get be wrong, I completely agree with you that Apple has made some bold decisions, and I respect them for that. However, I'm not sure it is fair to contrast Apple's innovation in new products to Microsoft's (lack of) innovation in established products. To use your example of the iPhone: As innovative as the iPhone was when it was released, Apple really hasn't messed with it in almost three years. Doing so would risk alienating the 50+ million people using iPhone OS devices every day. When the time comes in the next few years, will Apple make the hard decision to redesign their iPhone OS, possibly driving away some of their current users in the process? I would say they are more likely to than Microsoft. However, until they have passed that test, we shouldn't be so quick to judge.

carbon8 17y ago

"It will be interesting to see how dramatically they change OSX now that they have found something that sells." You don't have to wait; they've already done it with the iPhone/iPad OS. Apple is clearly still willing to make hard and dramatic decisions when it comes to its operating systems.

mckilljoy 17y ago
Don't get be wrong, I completely agree with you that Apple has made some bold decisions, and I respect them for that. However, I'm not sure it is fair to contrast Apple's innovation in new products to Microsoft's (lack of) innovation in established products. To use your example of the iPhone: As innovative as the iPhone was when it was released, Apple really hasn't messed with it in almost three years. Doing so would risk alienating the 50+ million people using iPhone OS devices every day. When the time comes in the next few years, will Apple make the hard decision to redesign their iPhone OS, possibly driving away some of their current users in the process? I would say they are more likely to than Microsoft. However, until they have passed that test, we shouldn't be so quick to judge.