RSSLonghorn Evangelist Debunks Professed 'Aero' Shots
By Nate Mook | Published August 20, 2003, 8:45 PM
Robert Scoble, technology evangelist for Longhorn at Microsoft, has called into question several purported screenshots of the next-generation Longhorn interface code-named "Aero."
The images originate from a presentation by Steve Ball, program manager for Microsoft's Windows Audio Video Devices Group, given at WinHEC 2003 last May. But Scoble says the three month-old shots appear to be early concepts, not Aero itself, which Microsoft keeps under strict lock and key.
"These look like early demonstration screens, and not how Longhorn will eventually look," Scoble wrote in his Web log. "The builds I'm using don't have the Aero interface, Microsoft really wants to make sure screen captures don't leak out."
Because Longhorn is over two years away, Microsoft has remained tight lipped over what it has in store for the future of Windows. A company spokesperson could not comment on the WinHEC presentation, or whether the images actually portray work being done on Aero.
Leaked alpha builds of Longhorn -- the most recent appearing last April -- have provided the only glimpse into the minds of Redmond developers.
"In many ways, Longhorn screenshots are meaningless, because Microsoft hasn't locked down the user interface," Joe Wilcox, senior analyst for Jupiter Research, told BetaNews. "In fact, I expect considerable changes until the first Longhorn beta launches - and that isn't expected until sometime next year."
Wilcox expects that Longhorn won't reach the public in its final form until early 2006. "Microsoft will want a longer-than-usual development cycle to prepare partners and customers for the new file system and to line up new versions of Office and other Microsoft products," he said.
A first official taste of Longhorn will come in October when Microsoft unveils a developer preview at the company's Professional Developer Conference. But chances of any radical changes to Windows appearing so early in the development cycle are slim.
"The real "Aero" is one of Longhorn's biggest secrets -- I've seen it, but can't load it on my own machine and am locked out of the server where it's kept," says Microsoft's Scoble. "I am not even sure they'll show it off at the PDC."
I've been using a Transformation LongHorn pack 2.0 for 4 months and it's really cool..even has the LongHorn boot screen and among a few other things... you can get it here www.techconnect.ws"; thats the home page/without quotes>Downloads>System ...even the copyright boot screen says 2005...(final estimate time)..looking closely..they have a version 3.0
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|I say let the end user decide what they want their user interface to look like... would be a good change versus
"you can have this in blue... puke.. I mean olive green, or silver... oooohhhhh... ahh......., and I hope you like the start bar... cause your gonna use it!"
Litestep + PatchXP... I'm happy now...
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|It's awesome that LiteStep is still around and kicking.. It really makes a world a difference.. Definitely makes Windows feel like home if you're a die-hard X user (and, no, I don't mean MacOS.. I mean the BETTER OS =oX). ::nostalgia:: Me and LiteStep go waaaay back.. Like babies and pacifiers.. or something like that. =oP
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|I do agree. For XP they should have updated all the icons! I believe longhorn will be good when it comes out but I won't be the first to jump on the bandwagon, I will wait to see how the market reacts to it. XP will be great for a long time.
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|Longhorn Evangelist ? Sounds like an "evangelist" who refuses to show the Bible he's using !
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|Sure looks similar
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|Oh be quiet, this looks NOTHING like OSX, they don't even have the same type of UI.
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|It look a like 100% OSX ripp off!!,, and calling it aero,,,,,,, what a joke..
Why dont they call it Microsoft OSX Puma Aero
Happy new virus
:-D
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|It's pretty clear Apple hadn't had any innovative UI ideas for ~years~ ! It's all superficial changes in appearance ...the interface equivalent of tangerine-colored computer cases. So, what's Microsoft got to copy from OSX ?
For that matter, Microsoft doesn't have anything to add to the UI. They're as bankrupt as Apple in the interface department. Only difference being that Microsoft spends more money and uses more people to produce no new UI innovations. But, it's amazing how many years BOTH Microsoft ~and~ Apple take to produce so little.
Longhorn's new desktop menu panel reminds one of the old Win98 "Channel Bar".
The DataRat
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|It's amazing to me that all people concentrate on is the UI. I'd rather have MS work on the backend and behind the scenes issues and worry about modifications to the UI later. I LIKE the UI of XP (in general) and each shell program I've used ends up getting dumped for the original MS shell. I don't love explorer, but it's just intuitive and it WORKS. What I'm trying to say is... I'd rather driver a junker looking car with a nice engine and good suspension that a sweet looking, under-the-hood-POS.
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|"It's amazing to me that all people concentrate on is the UI. I'd rather have MS work on the backend and behind the scenes issues and worry about modifications to the UI later"
The Computer Rodent in large measure agrees with you. But, UI was what was being discussed ! The backend and under-the-hood stuff has made great progress from Win3.1 to Win95 to Win2000/XP. And, with OS-X, Apple has finally caught up to XP.
Yet as far as UI we ain't that far from PARC ...from which ~both~ Bill Gates and Steve Job stole the GUI ! ( Yeah, yeah, Apple is more advanced than Microsoft: Jobs raided PARC a whole year before Gates. )
With all the money and man-hours devoted to UI, one might suppose Microsoft could come up with something better than a warmed-over "Channel Bar" and a 3-D version of "Microsoft Bob" in an art gallery !
Yes, Microsoft Explorer DOES work, and works pretty well. In eight years, though, you'd think it could've been improved a whole lot more than the few obvious tweaks Microsoft has given it. Bro. Rat's PC is loaded with third party shell extensions which Microsoft ~should~ have integrated into MS Explorer.
The DataRat
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|"Bill Gates and Steve Job"
No, Steve Jobs paid for a license then Bill Gates stole it from Steve (He only got the IDEA from Xerox).
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|"No, Steve Jobs paid for a license then Bill Gates stole it from Steve"
Nice urban legend, but PARC wasn't selling licenses !
You should talk, aren't you the guy from the other thread holed-up in a seedy motel room surrounded by S.W.A.T. because you're using Open Source UNLICENSED CODE ?
What do you know about Steve Jobs and licenses ? ~You~ still owe SCO thousands of dollars for your copy of Linux ! Make your license payment to SCO, first, then you can comment on what Steve Jobs still owes PARC for stealing their User Interface.
Bro. Rat shall let you go now ...looks like the tactical team is just about to fire teargas canisters through your windows.
Your Friend,
The DataRat
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|Okay that helped clarify where you were coming from...
Speaking about the UI... I wonder why the OS makers haven't broken it into many seperate, smaller modules. It would make it easier to turn on/off certain aspects, change colors/layout, and use custom images to make each user's experience more enjoyable.
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|... Is it really so hard to understand that people who work on the UI don't do the general coding of the OS? They are mostly graphics artists, not coders... graphics is their specialty, you don't just take people from the UI department and plop them down wherever you feel like it... not to mention the UI is a very importnat componant of the OS.
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|Os X? What is that? The worst operating system of all time?
GO WINDOWS!!!!!!!!
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|Is it really hard to let people discuss stuff without being a stupid dimwitted know it all that has nothing better to do than sit here and insult people?
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|"I wonder why the OS makers haven't broken it into many seperate, smaller modules. It would make it easier to turn on/off certain aspects, change colors/layout, and use custom images to make each user's experience more enjoyable."
A few years ago, just at the start of the computer slump, Microsoft decided that sales to experienced users was maxed-out. The great untapped market being inexperienced and new users ...even the computer-phobic.
Since then, most of Microsoft's efforts have gone into dumbing-down the UI rather than making it more customizable or adding useful features.
So, while you and Bro. Rat want more ability to customize the interface, Microsoft perceives this as just providing inexperienced users with more ways to screw up their interface !
The only redeeming aspect to the whole thing: As Microsoft abandons advanced users, small developers that Microsoft otherwise would crush in direct competition now have a niche in which they can survive and innovate.
The DataRat
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|a) That wasn't an insult
b) It's the same argument all the time, and all it takes is a little bit of commen sense to realize the facts which I have stated.
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|Does anyone remember the old task gallery video from the research.microsoft.com. Was that not how they were planning on moving windows into a new era? I thought it was a nice idea, and as it was only an early beta which ran on top of windows 2000, it probably got scraped, but if anyone has a link to that video, please post here, i would love to look at it again. Thanks!!!!
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|Are you really so lazy you won't go onto MSR's website and do a search for Task Galleries... or heck, you could probably get it off of Google as well.
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|http://research.microsof...t/taskgallery/index.htm
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|Thanks for posting that, I had found it last night, the old site was removed and they moved it to another portion of research.microsoft.com. To the other guy who has nothing better to do than insult others, get a life please :)
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|This research team hasn't updated their web page for almost a year. Anyhow, substituting a "gallery" metaphor for a "desktop" metaphor seems no big interface improvement (although it'll no doubt have greater appeal to Northern California wine-and-cheese yuppies !). Looks suspiciously like the old "Microsoft Bob" in 3D. Doubt if cascaded mini-windows are as recognizable as icon sets. And, tiled application windows ignores the fact users like their programs running full-screen or almost full-screen. A simple applet like SendToBack solves the problem of windows covering windows without reducing application's display to an unacceptably small size.
SendToBack freeware utility:
http://hebb.inesc.pt/~lba/sendtoback.htm
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|Well.. why don't you get off your rear and check out the screenshots?
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|You mean the fakeshots.. ;-)
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|As the case may be.
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|Your comments about Scoble "debunking" the Aero shots are innaccurate. Those shots came directly from Microsoft. Scoble hasn't really seen Aero yet, as he said. I, however, had a preview at Microsoft's campus earlier this year. And the UI resembled these shots.
Anyway, they are indeed concept shots. And things could change. But they do show Aero at a point in time and how Microsoft is upping its dedication to task-based UI in Windows.
Scoble has to be very careful about what he says publicly. I don't. And, apparently, neither do you. But I'd be careful about basing all your work on comments you read on the Web. There are better sources of information.
In short, the shots are real and they have not been debunked.
Paul
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|Thanks for the info Paul. For those who may not be aware, Mr. Thurrot's info about MS is usually accurate.
That aside, it's butt-ugly and someone should reconsider. They really should buy Apple so they can acquire a few employees with some aesthetic taste. Wasn't Teletubby XP enough of an embarrassment for these folks to figure out that nobody on staff has any artistic talent at all???
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|Paul, last week you posted an alleged "video" of Aero that was actually created by someone in Flash. The problem is your tendency to spin something small into an "exclusive" scoop, leaving journalistic integrity at the door and giving readers false impressions.
Yes, the shots were from Steve Ball's presentation at WinHEC over three months ago. But they aren't actual shots of Aero in action as you indicate in your article. They are simply a demonstration of potential audio and video capabilities in Longhorn. Prototypes if you will.
If you took the time to read the full article, you'd see that Scoble has seen Aero, he just isn't allowed to use it.
It's not about sourcing, it's about spin. Earlier this week you spoke with someone at Microsoft regarding Windows XP SP2. That person told you that the company was shooting for a mid-2004 release, but had not settled on any date. You turn around and write an article claiming Microsoft told you SP2 would ship before June.
How do I know? That person talked to us, and said you mischaracterized almost everything you were told.
Drop me an e-mail sometime if you'd like to discuss this further. A public forum isn't exactly the appropriate venue for slinging mud.
- Nate
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|Actually, I think the windows are quite nice looking. They really make Luna look like the toy that it is. And I'll bet if you got the level 1 or level 2 UI experience in Longhorn the objects on the Hardware and Devices "sheet" will move in 3D.
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|Sure, Sure you did. We believe you. *WINK*
HAHAHAHAHA
Moron
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|Sorry Paul, but I believe you on this about as much as I believed your "proof" that Betanews was incorrect int heir report regarding the planned release data of Windows XP SP2.
I noticed that you don't seem to have made any public apology for YOUR incorrect information on that score.
"There are better sources of information."
Anything other than you for example?
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|"For those who may not be aware, Mr. Thurrot's info about MS is usually accurate."
For example? So far most pf what he has said...including his recent contacts at Microsoft "proving" that Betanews was incorrect regarding the Windows XP SP2 target release date have been shown to be incorrect and figments of his imagination. Even the "contact" he spoke to at Microsoft has stated that Paul completely misrepresented their conversation and that the information he gave was not accurate.
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