Light on tech, heavy on gloss.

In fairness to Jobs, most of the new technology featured in Leopard was covered last year. Core Animation is the same thing as Microsoft's "Windows Presentation Foundation" (or "Avalon", or whatever it's called this week). It's about time MS had something like this; decoupling GUI design from programming should have been done *years* ago.

In fairness to Microsoft, they do have a much bigger, more fragmented platform to deal with and the support issues that entails. That said, the notion that Vista is some amazing "new" version of Windows beggars belief: it even identifies itself as v5.1 -- to XP's "v5.0"! -- so it's clearly not that different under the hood.

This does not excuse the whole 32-bit / 64-bit mess, nor does it excuse Microsoft's ridiculous overseas pricing policy -- Brits *dream* of only paying $400 for Ultimate! It's nearer *800* dollars here! -- or their feeble GUI improvements which are *already* flouted by MS' own Office 2007. (Office 2007's designers really know what they're doing though. This has to be the first decent version of Office since 2000. I wish their GUI people had been tasked with sorting out Vista's interface too though.)

Microsoft had the technology lead throughout most of the 1990s. (Hell, it's a miracle Apple even made it to the 21st Century!) MS' appalling management cock-ups over recent years are, I think, why Apple is in such good odour with investors these days. It's not just that Apple have pulled ahead of Microsoft. It's that they've been consistent, reliable _and_ have a clear, simple vision of putting the user experience above _everything_ else, including mere technology.

Microsoft still thinks and acts like the developer tools company they used to be when Gates founded the firm in the mid-'70s. To Microsoft, it's all about the technology. This was fine during the early years of the PC's life, but Apple know that what's under the hood isn't the *point*. Technology is an enabler, not an end in itself. It's the user experience which matters. "Time Machine" would not be possible without Core Animation. Sure, on paper it's just a backup program, but its *execution* is the key factor here.