That sound you hear is Microsoft backtracking as fast as possible, following a report of some indiscreet comments by one of its managers Wednesday that Windows 7 created a “Mac look and feel.” Before the end of the day, Microsoft issued a statement saying the employee “was not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7,” and his comments were “inaccurate and uninformed.”
In an interview with PCR-Online, Microsoft partner group manager Simon Aldous noted that one of the things “that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it’s very graphical and easy to use.” In fact, he added, “what we’ve tried to do with Windows 7 — whether it’s traditional format or in a touch format — is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics.”
‘More Stable’ Than Mac
Aldous then spun his point back to praising Vista and Windows 7, noting that, in the new OS, Microsoft has “significantly improved the graphical user interface, but it’s built on that very stable core Vista technology, which is far more stable than the current Mac platform, for instance.”
The Microsoft refuting statement was posted on its Windows Blog by employee Brandon LeBlanc, and pointed to several articles in the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, and others praising Windows 7. It also noted a company blog post describing the design process for the new OS.
The “Mac’s UI is better than Windows” argument among fans of each has lost much of its fervor in recent years as the visual approach to personal computing has become standard. Much of the criticism of Vista, for instance, was based on stability issues, backward compatibility with existing peripherals, hardware requirements, and other non-interface factors.
Interface Elements ‘Become Standardized’
Al Hilwa, program director at industry research firm IDC, said “there’s…