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I think the Longhorn UI prototypes were the best exponent of Fruitger Aero - information-dense, glossy, alive with ambient animations everywhere - the anti-Wind

I think the Longhorn UI prototypes were the best exponent of Fruitger Aero - information-dense, glossy, alive with ambient animations everywhere - the anti-Windows of today. Also, nowhere near close to ever having been implemented. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I7FnBHrJSao&t=2s&pp=ygUPbG9uZ2hvcm4gd2luaGVj https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I7FnBHrJSao&t=2s&pp=ygUPbG9uZ2...

ikari_pl 3y ago
i miss Longhorn. If not the .NET explorer frequent crashes, it would have been my most exciting OS experience to date
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
If the internet historians are to be believed, Longhorn was pretty innovative for its time because Microsoft gave their devs free reign and let them go crazy with it to put all their ideas into the new OS. Which was cool for show but apparently turned Longhorn into "the car Homer Simpson designed"[1], being plagued by endless cost overruns, constantly changing requirements, deadlines missed, a release date with no end in sight, and a codebase nobody could prune to turn into a solid shippable product, forcing Microsoft to scrap it completely and start over from scratch to create Vista in a ungodly short amount of time just to have something to ship to replace the now ageing Windows XP. As what was supposed to be Longhorn was schedules to release just 1-2 years after XP but due to the Longhorn development fiasco, a half-baked Vista launched a whopping 6 years after XP, which was an eternity in tech back then. Yeah, Microsoft really blew it with Longhorn and Vista, they tried to kill too many birds with one stone and ended up loosing all the birds and the stone. One wonders what Longhorn could have been if they hadn't messed it up from the start. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPc-VEqBPHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPc-VEqBPHI
- ReactiveJelly 3y ago
  Yeah, going all-in on WinFS, DWM, and .NET is a big risk budget. I remember people theorizing that Vista (and later, some Mono-heavy revision of GNOME) were slow because of using .NET to replace C++ apps, but I don't remember if it was proven or not.
KerrAvon 3y ago
That looks a lot like Aqua-era Mac OS X with a different skin edit: clarity
qingcharles 3y ago
I suffered an embolism watching that video.
- nxobject 3y ago
  For a good reason or a bad reason? ;) (It's got a very action-film visual pace, that's for sure...)
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    It was a "good" embolism [1]. [1] This phrase has never been used before.
eternityforest 3y ago
This looks like what GNOME could be if it were fully perfected. Modern GNOME is already amazing, I'm a big fan now that it seems to be slightly less MacOSlike, but this prototype was something else!

ikari_pl 3y ago

i miss Longhorn. If not the .NET explorer frequent crashes, it would have been my most exciting OS experience to date

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

If the internet historians are to be believed, Longhorn was pretty innovative for its time because Microsoft gave their devs free reign and let them go crazy with it to put all their ideas into the new OS. Which was cool for show but apparently turned Longhorn into "the car Homer Simpson designed"[1], being plagued by endless cost overruns, constantly changing requirements, deadlines missed, a release date with no end in sight, and a codebase nobody could prune to turn into a solid shippable product, forcing Microsoft to scrap it completely and start over from scratch to create Vista in a ungodly short amount of time just to have something to ship to replace the now ageing Windows XP. As what was supposed to be Longhorn was schedules to release just 1-2 years after XP but due to the Longhorn development fiasco, a half-baked Vista launched a whopping 6 years after XP, which was an eternity in tech back then. Yeah, Microsoft really blew it with Longhorn and Vista, they tried to kill too many birds with one stone and ended up loosing all the birds and the stone. One wonders what Longhorn could have been if they hadn't messed it up from the start. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPc-VEqBPHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPc-VEqBPHI

ReactiveJelly 3y ago
Yeah, going all-in on WinFS, DWM, and .NET is a big risk budget. I remember people theorizing that Vista (and later, some Mono-heavy revision of GNOME) were slow because of using .NET to replace C++ apps, but I don't remember if it was proven or not.

KerrAvon 3y ago

That looks a lot like Aqua-era Mac OS X with a different skin edit: clarity

qingcharles 3y ago

I suffered an embolism watching that video.

nxobject 3y ago
For a good reason or a bad reason? ;) (It's got a very action-film visual pace, that's for sure...)
- qingcharles 3y ago
  It was a "good" embolism [1]. [1] This phrase has never been used before.

eternityforest 3y ago

This looks like what GNOME could be if it were fully perfected. Modern GNOME is already amazing, I'm a big fan now that it seems to be slightly less MacOSlike, but this prototype was something else!