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Because Windows users have long been dependent on Acrobat Reader (or lately, browser PDF renderers) for showing PDFs. If Apple had a relationship with a third p
by LeifCarrotson 6y ago
Because Windows users have long been dependent on Acrobat Reader (or lately, browser PDF renderers) for showing PDFs. If Apple had a relationship with a third party providing something akin to a system application like Windows and Adobe, they'd happily make a native equivalent and relegate the old product to the dustbin. Windows doesn't do that as much.
- sbuk 6y agoPreview has been there from the very early days of NeXT and Display PostScript (NeXT worked on DPS with Adobe). Apple’s pdf handling has always been baked in as Quartz is ‘pdf based’.
- 2ion 6y agoIt does not stop at PDF / Acrobat. Windows sucks for media and document management. No thumbnails for random media / file types. No playback for random media types. Metadata may be in the files, but who cares? --- the OS makes no sensible use of them except in the details view of "library" folders to show the title and an obscure tab in Explorer's file properties dialog. Calendaring? Sorry, we don't support CalDAV. Email? Well we have IMAP support but it's a footnote. Contacts? God help you, we want you to use Outlook and Outlook only.
- toyg 6y agoMicrosoft had to walk a tight rope, historically, for fear of antitrust action. If they had improved Windows too much, big developers would have gone ballistic and dragged them in the courts again. Apple never had to care about this, and it shows.
- 908B64B197 6y agoYou are being downvoted but I think you are onto something.
- mcculley 6y agoMicrosoft only had to worry about antitrust because of their previous anticompetitive/antimarket behavior. It is easy to imagine ways that Microsoft could have fostered the ecosystem while supporting Quick Look in File Explorer.